Seven miles, forty-eight finds, two DNFs, and one spectacular tumble down a hill. Not me, of course; Rob. T'was Rob what fell down the hill. That was our tally at the end of yesterday's big hike on the Richmond & Danville Rail Trail, out a ways east of Danville, VA. The Virginia Star is a relatively new piece of geoart, in which the cache icons on the geocaching.com map form a piece of art. There are star geoart formations in several states, and I've gone after the ones in Virginia and North Carolina — though I've unfortunately come up a cache or two short of completing both, which only means I'll eventually have to go back to find them. Sunday, December 7, Pearl Harbor Day: braving a relentless, oftentimes frigid nor'easter, a team of four old farts — Rob "Robgso" Isenhour, Robbin "Rtmlee" Lee, Scott "Diefenbaker" Hager, and I — set out to conquer the 50 caches that made up the star. There were a couple of other caches on the trail to snag as well, so we had our work cut out for us. Unlike some geoart series, the caches in this one were not all similar to each other; they came in all shapes, sizes, and degrees of difficulty. Bison tubes stuffed in rubber rats; cut cedar logs with little trap doors that open to reveal the container; large, camouflaged boxes containing prodigious amounts of swag. All out there. End to end, the journey took about six hours and resulted in a few pairs of a slightly sore feet.
Mostly better today.
One of our favorites along the trail actually wasn't a part of the star. It was called "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," and was located in a low-lying area just off the rail trail. Here, in addition to the cache, we found a little scenic creek and a cool stone culvert that ran deep beneath the trail. This is also where old Rob put his pride before a fall and fell down. Happily, neither far nor hard, since it was a long way back to any sort of civilization or non-hoofing-it transportation. With typical Rob panache, he just adjusted his position slightly and posed for the camera.
We will not speak of certain less-than-graceful descents into other areas while on the hunt, for they are not worth remarking upon.
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| Pride goeth before a fall. Notice there's a brown pool near Rob's feet. There be his pride. |
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The smileys, of course, represent the caches we found. Two stinkin'
DNFs, which will require a return visit. |
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| Three of the four old farts; the fourth is behind the camera, licking his wounds. |
