The Blog Where Horror Dwells: Storms a-Comin'

Sunday, April 12, 2020

Storms a-Comin'

We've had a very pleasant, cool, sunny spell for the past few days, although there are violent storms predicted for the next 24 hours or so. I rather hope we miss the worst of it, as I'm working at home and really can't afford a prolonged power outage. And in this area, any power outage is usually prolonged.

Anyhoo, it's been a beautiful Easter weekend. On Friday (Good), I headed on up to the old homestead in Martinsville, as I have quite regularly on the weekends.

Yesterday, just as I was preparing to head back to Greensboro, I received notification of a new geocache, courtesy of friend Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie) on the newest leg of the Dick & Willie Trail, very close to my neighborhood. How fortuitous! So, I very quickly packed up to leave (a little too quickly, as it turned out) and headed to the trailhead at the Smith River Sports Complex. From there, it was most of a mile hike to the cache, which I managed to find quickly — and I snagged the coveted FTF (first-to-find) honors. (There are no actual honors; a cache is a cache is a cache. The FTF doesn't mean diddly except perhaps for the bragging rights.)

There were a good many people on the trail, but everyone did a good job spacing themselves out and moving away to maximize social distancing. I was just about back at the Rodan Mobile when I noticed the Big Blue fellow you see in the photo above. He was hanging around on the stone base of one of the floodlight posts. I believe it's a Giant Stonefly (family Nemouroidea), about two inches long. These are not uncommon in the area, but I'm pretty sure I've never seen one this blue before. Very striking!

Last night, Ms. B. and I enjoyed takeout dinner from Uptown Charlie's as well as a nice bottle of Campo Viejo Reserva Rioja. We finished watching the French series Marianne on Netflix, which is well-done and creepy as hell. One of my favorite horror properties of the recent past.

I mentioned upstream that I had left Martinsville too quickly yesterday. What happened was I headed back home leaving behind important computer accessories. Oy! So, this morning, I decided to drive back and set right my boo boo. However, happily, another new Natalie cache had just come out on the Dick & Willie. So, for me, that meant another FTF, bright and early. Once again, she asked if I'd be kind enough to check the coordinates on a couple of other unpublished caches out there, to which I enthusiastically agreed (mind you, I do not claim FTF on caches I find prior to publication, as this would not be sporting). I was also able to do some much-needed maintenance on a few of my own caches in that area. So, while it was kind of a pain in the tail to go back so soon, I had a most enjoyable time and got in plenty of exercise.

Now, it's back to working on New Hampshire: Ghosts of the Skies. Just to remind you, in case you've forgotten: Watch the skies! Keep watching the skies!