The Civil War Trail, Bigfoot, and More

Was that Bigfoot I heard back there?

Last night, I had to head up to Martinsville to help Mum with her taxes, but, fortuitously, this put me in the middle of some prime territory for new geocaches, including several in the recently published Civil War Trail series (see "Challenges, Stars, and Civil War Trails," March 8, 2015). My first stop was the Richard P. Gravely Nature Preserve, just east of town, where I have hidden several caches of my own. There was a new one there — GC5PR16 — which has yet to be found, and, unfortunately, I couldn't find the damned thing after a long and arduous search amid a massive forest of mountain laurel, on a hillside high and steep enough to potentially send me sliding, rolling, and/or hurtling a couple of hundred feet down to the Smith River. I didn't fall, though I did get bruised, beat up, and lacerated by the dense and overtly hostile foliage, and I'm thinking, from the mysterious sounds I heard, that some beastly, cryptozoological horror must have been watching me the entire two hours I was out there. No doubt I'll go back and torture myself again, and even if I don't find the cache, maybe this time I'll actually spot Bigfoot.

A wee spot of geocaching battle damage

Today's caching outing proved far more successful. I set my sights on Eden, NC, for several newer ones, including three in the Civil War Trail series. I've been quite enjoying these, as they take you to numerous historic areas around the state, and in the Piedmont Triad, many of them are quite scenic. Today I returned to the site of a couple of older, now-archived caches, the Leaksville Cotton Mill, originally built in 1839, of which all that remains is the stone foundation next to a small dam on the Smith River. Then I was off to the Wentworth Methodist Church graveyard, where many of the graves date back to the mid 1800s, with several prominent local figures from the Civil War buried there. Today, no DNFs, and some exceedingly pleasant hiking.

Soon, it will be wine time. Yes.

A view of the Smith River from the Gravely Nature Preserve

One of the many tunnels of mountain laurel along the Smith River at the Gravely Nature Preserve

Just above the dam on the Smith River at the Leaksville Cotton Mill in Eden, NC

A serene, picturesque graveyard behind the Wentworth Methodist Church on the Civil War Trail