Above and Below

As is often the case with photographs, the image above fails to convey the sense of scale of the setting. When I came upon it, I would not have been surprised to see King Kong at one end, a Styracosaurus at the other, and a bunch of ill-fated sailors trapped on the log between them. That is, if King Kong, Styracosaurus, and a bunch of sailors happened to be hanging around near the Smith River Greenway in Eden, NC.

The view from above

At first, my GPS led me past the log, but the pointer eventually swung around and pointed me back toward it. Then my ground zero coordinates appeared to across the stream. Well, so be it. The first thing I did was make sure I could get solid footing on the thing, which proved to be no problem because that fallen tree is big. Big, I tell you. Then, when I got to about the center of the log, coordinates zeroed out. So, I knew I was close. But as you may be able to deduce from the picture, there are only about a half million places along that log where one could conceal a very small geocache.

I'll not spoil the hide for others by spelling out where I found the container, but I'll suffice it to say that I went high, I went low, I went everywhere in between, and—most fortuitously—I managed to spy the cache quickly. I made getting to it considerably more treacherous than was actually necessary, but that was half the fun of this particular hide. If you're a geocacher in the area, I'm sure you'll figure out its identity and location soon enough....

The view from below

All this physically challenging stuff aside, it's rather an overwhelming time right now, for reasons that are better not divulged as yet. My daughter is in town for not altogether happy reasons, so any positive energy you can manage to send our way, it's most appreciated. Mini tanks, and all that.

The fungus amungus