Old Haunts

I think these may be Ents

I woke up to a hot sunny October morning — not as in an Indian summer morning, but just another freaking hot summer morning, since cool weather has not come close to setting in here — and it dawned on me that I had no geocaching plans, which is almost unprecedented for a Sunday. I have a long way to travel to find any caches I've not already claimed, but the day was just begging me to go on a decent hike, so I decided to hit the Osprey Trail, up along Lake Townsend, figuring I could do maintenance on a few of my caches. I had found all the others along the Osprey back in 2008 and 2009, but once I got hiking, hunting them again just seemed the thing to do. Those old caches predated me keeping detailed notes about them, and I had absolutely no recollection of the hides themselves, so a couple of these were anything but easy to re-find. It did make for an enjoyable trip down memory lane, revisiting these places I haven't seen for seven and eight years. The Osprey Trail is one of my favorites in Greensboro because bicycles are not allowed on it, so you rarely encounter other human beings on the trail, and that makes for a much more pleasant hike. Today, my only close encounter was with a great blue heron, which I surprised as I came around the trail next to the lake. It fairly exploded from its resting place beside the trail and sailed out over the lake, honking its displeasure in no uncertain terms.

At "The Horror at Red Hook" (GC69WZY), one of my semi-treacherous, tree-climbing caches, I discovered that the lower branches of the tree have been trimmed away. Future hunters are going to have their work cut out for them getting up to cache (a red bison tube). So far, no deaths have been reported here, which I guess is a good thing. I also paid a visit to my night cache, "The Tripods" (GC690XE), to see if any of the Martians had escaped their confinement, but all appeared to be well. I've heard there may be an expedition coming up next week to this one, so I wanted to make sure it was in good order and properly booby-trapped.

At the end of it, I had put in a good four miles today. I could just about make a habit of this, but I sure do miss those days of having plenty of new caches on the watershed trails. Hopefully, someday, there will be more.

Old Rodan out in the marshland

Some logbooks that I signed in 2008/2009, and a sparkly mushroom I found near one of the old caches

Other old things found in the woods, a long, long way from anything

The Elder Sign, perhaps?