Big Wildlife, Big Fun in Apex

Team No Dead Weight strikes again: Ye Olde Man, Diefenbaker, Fishdownthestair, and
Old Bloody One-Eyed Rob

The usual suspects — Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie), Old Bloody One-Eyed Robgso (a.k.a. Rob) — gathered this morning at Casa de Fish and hit the highway in the direction of Apex, bound for geocaching. (Surprised you, didn't I? I bet you thought I was going to say we were bound for geocaching. Oh, wait....) Our primary target was the White Oak Creek Greenway, where a fair crapload of caches lay in wait for us. A considerable length of the greenway runs through the marsh around White Oak Creek on a wide wooden boardwalk, which afforded us a fine view of all kinds of critters, including Daikaiju Gamera's only slightly smaller first cousin, Eugene. When I first noticed Eugene, I thought I was a seeing a large turtle lounging in the water. Then I realized I was seeing just the head of the largest snapping turtle I've ever seen. Big. BIG-ass snapping turtle. I'm kinda glad we weren't slogging through the marsh at that point because we might have gotten snapped at.

We had already encountered one giant critter on our way to the marsh. A few miles back while stopping at a cache, we ran into Ms. Betty, a surpassing large Golden Orb Weaver (a.k.a. Garden Spider). Ms. Betty didn't seem to mind us poking around her place looking for cache, maybe because she had already signed the log. She did appear rather smug.

Not much sense of scale in these photos, but both Eugene (L—and that is just his head!)
and Ms. Betty (R) were big. BIG.

We also found a couple of trees that afforded us — well, in this case, me — an opportunity to change our vertical perspective a tad. I would consider neither of these big scary climbs, but the smaller of the two actually offered more of an adrenaline rush because the leaning trunk was so rotten I wasn't sure it would hold me for the length of time it took to go up and sign the log. Had the trunk broken, I wouldn't have fallen more than five or six feet, but that's enough to bruise one's pride if not one's backside. The other climb proved a little more challenging, but even that wasn't terribly high; I estimate no more than ten feet. Still, that was enough elevation to inspire me to keep a tight grip on the branches. All ended well, and we did get our team name (the ubiquitous moniker, Team No Dead Weight) emblazoned on the logs.

A welcome opportunity to make a change of elevation. But would someone call the fire
department please? I think I'm stuck.

Lunch at Sophie's Grill & Bat in Apex made for the perfect post-hiking repast. The chicken fingers and hot sauce really hit the spot, and the fries weren't bad. Thing is, I'd burned my tongue on my super-hot coffee this morning, and that hot sauce really got a mouth fire going. It took a lot of cold beer and water to put that thing out.

On our journey home, we stopped off at a tunnel cache in Siler City that Scott and I had already claimed — "Uncle Hargis's Potato Patch" (GC38ZXD) — but since the young lady still needed it, we stopped to let her do the deed. Since it was a tunnel hide, I went on in there anyway. It seemed the thing to do at the time.

Daughter Allison is in town for a few days, so we went out for sushi at Fuji Sushi this evening. Most enjoyable, and we're planning to have dinner again tomorrow night, with Ms. B. also attending.

Is nice. All very, very nice.

View of the boardwalk and marsh at the White Oak Creek Greenway, near Apex