From Thingummies to Burlboro

You've no idea how far I had to crawl to reach that cache!

I spent the weekend on the go-go-go, with a trip to and from Martinsville, which included a fair bit of geocaching; our monthly supper club in Winston-Salem last night, which culminated in a little geocaching; and a nice geocaching outing today around Sedalia and southeastern Greensboro. Didn't have to perform any death-defying acrobatics this weekend, though I did turn up several particularly entertaining hides.

In Martinsville, there was a relatively new cache out on the nature trails at Patrick Henry Community College, in the area where I used to camp out when I was a Boy Scout. There's a bench out on the trail donated by Troop 63, which is actually the troop I was in, back in the early 1970s (a.k.a. the Dark Ages). I'm pretty sure the big field near the main entrance to the college is the same one where we Boy Scouts used to play capture the flag — where I ran face-first into a big pine tree that had had the audacity to plant itself in my way. I do recollect that one left a pretty good mark on my face, and I left a pretty good bit of Mark on the tree.

On the way back to Greensboro, I stopped for a few more around Oak Ridge and Summerfield, and then the madness took me. A couple of days earlier, I had DNF'd Skyhawk63's newest puzzle cache, "I Hate Puzzle Caches" (GC72H1C), way down Battleground Ave., and something possessed me to give it another look. Look I did... and look... and look... and look. After an hour or so, with mercilessly bouncing coordinates, I finally came upon the container, but then real fun commenced — trying to figure out the combination of the lock that sealed away the cache log. Eventually, I managed to see the light and claim the first-to-find. Bravo, old man!

The thingummy in Winston-Salem at 1:00 AM

Last night, Supper Club at Beth and Terry's place in Winston, which was, as usual, highly enjoyable, though overflowing (also as usual) with high-quality spirits. Upon our egress, Ms. B. and I stopped off for what proved to be another enjoyable hide, one called "Coming Home" (GC70Z3M), set at an unusual sculpted thingummy at the local Habitat for Humanity HQ. Happily, at one o'clock in the AM on a Saturday night, there were no muggles in evidence, so I was able to search quite unimpeded. And almost to my surprise, I turned up the container — a nano — quite quickly, which I'm sure relieved Ms. B., who was waiting dutifully for me in the car while I searched.

Today's outing began in Sedalia, just east of Greensboro, with Tom (Skyhawk63), Linda (Punkins19), Debbie (Cupdaisy), and I (Old Man Rodan), and took us out a few back roads for a total of 29 of the new Burlboro series that Night-Ranger placed a couple of weeks back. These were all simple park & grabs, but we did have a hootin' hollerin' good time. At once cache, the hint led us to believe we'd be looking for a white rock. Well, when we got out of the car, we saw what appeared to be a white rock a short distance into the woods. Cupdaisy, bound and determined to get to it first, shoved me out of the way and commenced to running. Since she is quite short, I easily outpaced her and reached the white rock first. Except... it wasn't a rock. It was a big old hunk of Styrofoam. Well, I still got to the Styrofoam first. And a short time after that, we turned up the actual cache.

Lunch broke out at the Fat Frogg in Elon, where I consumed a plate full of gator bites. Damned good gator bites. I should enjoy having those little reptilian bastards again.

A busy but mostly satisfying weekend after a hectic week filled with too much work and frustration, not enough writing, and one too many migraines. Mercy, I'd so love to shed those migraines permanently.

Adieu, and merci pour les caches!

The Caching Crewe (a.k.a. Team PCSD): Ol' Rodan, Skyhawk63, Cupdaisy, Punkins19

The city reservoir in Martinsville, viewed from the cache site