Geocaching has been the world's best activity for leading me to new and
different places, and I'm always fond of finding unfamiliar nature preserves and
trail systems. Several new caches were published today at the Bold Moon Nature
Preserve, which, much to my surprise, is located only six miles from my house,
off Hicone Road in Guilford County. I never had a clue the place existed. It's
not very large, about 21 acres, but it's really quite beautiful, with a
well-maintained trail that leads down to Reedy Fork Creek. The preserve has
existed since 2008, with much of the land donated to Guilford County by its
former owners.
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Two trees merged to become one
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I arrived just before sunset, with close to a mile round-trip ahead of me. One
of the caches required solving a puzzle on-site, so I wasn't sure I'd be able to
make it to the lot of them before nightfall. In the end, however, I did manage
to claim them all, with little daylight to spare. I tell you, there's nothing
like being in beautiful autumn woods at twilight, and I quite enjoyed the
pastoral scenery around the trail head. There had been a handful of people
gathered at the trail head when I started my hike, but they quickly departed,
leaving me in relatively relaxing, peaceful solitude — with just a touch of
eerie atmosphere surrounding me. The moon is just past full, so I doubted there
would be werewolves out and about this evening, but I have to tell you, if there
was ever a place for werewolves to haunt, this would be it. For the old horror
writer in me, being at this location with darkness falling really got the
creative nerves going. I'm pretty sure the trail is just crying out for a night
cache, though since I've already set up a couple, I'd prefer to see someone else
do it. There are neighbors fairly nearby though, so there's no telling whether
strange geocachers creeping through the woods, following glowing reflector
tacks, might frighten them slap to death.
Hell, I've scared me slap to death when I'm creeping around in the woods at
night.
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An old critter stall bearing a Bold Moon sign made of mirror fragments
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"Trail Building," according to a sign I found inside (see below)
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I dunno... maybe there is a werewolf in there.
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Intriguing sign at the trail head
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