No Dead Weight

There was no gathering of Team No Dead Weight today, and thus no dead weight on the geocaching trail. Just me. It’s a rare Sunday that doesn't see a group of us out yonder, but today, friend Natalie couldn’t make it, and since most of these were driving rather than hiking caches, I wasn’t about to stuff Scott and Old Rob, who typically comprise the rest of the team, into my wee little car. The old farts had already found a number of the newer local hides I planned to target anyway. For me by my lonesome, things worked out well enough. The new caches led me to several locations over in High Point I haven’t visited in years, some since my earliest days of geocaching.

I started with a couple in Greensboro, one of which had unfortunately gone missing, the other being one of those exceptionally rare puzzle caches I actually enjoy: a cache called “Faerie” (GC8VFJ2), placed by friend Natalie her own self. I had great fun on the hunt, though our odd young woman had rated the terrain a 1.5, which means it’s supposed to be very easy to negotiate — like stepping off a sidewalk into some spongy grass. Getting to this one, however, required bushwhacking through grasses and briers as high as my head and struggling over piles of fallen logs covered by brambles. Oy vey, fishy woman! Still, despite shedding some blood (which would much bring joy to Old Rob), I can’t say I didn't enjoy the adventure. A couple of ticks certainly enjoyed me.

1.5-rated terrain!? Umm... no.

A couple of weeks back, I had hunted a cache (“Homestead Cache” (GC8VDTF) — unsuccessfully, due to severely inaccurate coordinates — at the Rich Fork Preserve in High Point. Since then, the cache owner corrected the coords, and so today, I managed a quick find. A nice cache it is, too. I quite appreciated the location: an old homestead from the early 1900s that had once belonged to Junius Hedgecock, a well-known family name around High Point. I wouldn’t call it creepy, but there is a somber atmosphere of antiquity about the place. I quite enjoyed avenging my previous DNF. I also snagged one of friend Night-Hawk’s (a.k.a. Tom) newest hides (“Landscape Doodad” GC8T4WP), which took me to a landscape doodad I easily recognized. These things are not at all uncommon yet are apparently rarely noticed.

The haunted Hedgecock House

Landscape doodad

It’s rare, it seems, that the perpetual updating of “features” for just about... everything... results in anything other than the introduction of horseshit where horseshit previously did not exist. As much as I adore geocaching, honest-to-god improvements to geocaching.com are phenomenally rare. Most often, their updates fall into the less complimentary category described above. However, their relatively recent roll-out of adventure lab caches has offered us a nice treat. Adventure labs are virtual caches (“virtual” meaning there is no physical container) that rely on the geocacher actually visiting a specified location to receive credit for a find. The adventure lab app requires the cacher to come within a certain proximity of the location before it will reveal a question specific to that site. Answering the question correctly earns the geocacher a “find.” Back in the old days of geocaching, virtual caches were common; in fact, they became so common that geocaching.com disallowed new ones, except for selected individuals on special occasions. The old ones were grandfathered in, but for several years, until recently, there haven’t been any new ones. Since virtuals are just the ticket in many places where physical containers are not allowed, lab caches help fill a much-needed void.

Today’s lab — called “Notable Spots in High Point,” set up by friend Pharoah9500 (a.k.a. Daniel) — took me into downtown High Point, which I had cached out many years ago, largely because new ones have been few and far between. I quite enjoyed seeing several sites I’ve not visited in my earliest days of geocaching, particularly the John Coltrane statue; the big-ass chest of drawers, and the old railroad depot. The heat was hot, murderously so, but with those new caches waiting to be found, I was compelled to brave it.

And so, I carried no dead weight with me today, and I may well have sweated off a superfluous pound or two. I shall attempt to avoid regaining them at dinner.