So says a line on stone marker placed at the remains of an old scout camp in the
deep woods of the
Uwharries, about 40 miles south of Greensboro. The
marker is part of a multi-cache that requires gathering certain information
about the location to procure the coordinates to the final stage. ’Tis a fun
one, which I found today.
I woke to a beautiful Sunday morning, just the kind for hitting the geocaching
trail. Still, facing the day required a little extra coffee, since yesterday was
Ms. B.’s birthday and we pulled quite the late-niter celebrating her
now-excessive age. Once duly fortified, I hit the road for the Uwharries,
specifically the
Joe Moffit Trailhead at the
King Mountain Trail,
not far south of
Asheboro. There I met friend
Natalie (a.k.a.
Fishdownthestair) and — due to certain complications, a bit later, out on
the trail — friend
Scott (a.k.a.
Diefenbaker). It turned out to be
(mostly) an excellent location for social distancing. And we about wore
ourselves out on the hike, I can tell you, for the Uwharries are not flat. Not
even a little bit. At the end of it, we put in about six miles, which made us
about eight geocaches richer.
The scenery certainly hit the spot today. Our hike on King Mountain led us to an
old scout camp (“Camp 7”), which is where we found the aforementioned stone
marker, as well as the remains a much older well. From there, we went up Little
Long Mountain, which led us to a fairly scenic overlook. Unfortunately, it was
also the only place where we ran into a concentration of people. Fortunately,
not a huge one, but there were enough about that we spent less time and took
fewer photos at the location than we might have otherwise. Still, we claimed a
cache at the site, and thus we found happiness.
After that, Natalie went her way, and Scott and I headed after a cache at the
Lewis-Thornburg house, a restored farm dating back to the 1880s, right on
the edge of the
Birkhead Mountains Wilderness area. Here, we also
encountered a few folks, mostly at the parking lot, but as it turned out, they
all headed in different directions than Scott and I. So, we were able to explore
the old farm and hunt the cache
sans muggles, which is always a happy
thing, even when we’re not overly concerned with social distancing.
And all that wandering about wore me out real good. I even came damn near taking
a nap late this afternoon, which is highly uncustomary. It almost makes me
wonder if some of Kimberly's old age isn’t wearing off on me.
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A couple of guinea hens on the road to King Mountain
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View from Little Long Mountain
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The Lewis-Thornburg house, which dates back to the 1880s
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A few of the outbuildings behind the farmhouse
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A couple of old farts social distancing on the farm
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