The Socially Distant No-Dead-Weight Irregulars —
Ms. Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie),
Sir Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), and a way-out old dude — managed
to regroup today after too long a separation due to factors beyond reasonable
human beings’ control (note that only one of us is reasonable). Since our last
outing at Tanglewood Park, near Winston-Salem, NC, a few months
back, a number of newer geocaches have been published, so we decided to dare
the forecast for rain this morning and undertake a near-six-mile hike
through the park. Hike we did, find caches we did, and get wet we did not.
Well, not very, anyway. The only rain was a few drops that spat on us for
about 30 seconds. Fortunately for us, that was the extent of it, for we had
reached the farthest point of our hike when the dribble began.
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A touch of fall color
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Every year, Tanglewood Park puts on an extensive Christmas festival of lights, which
draws crowds from all over the state and beyond. I have never experienced this
spectacle for fear that the human multitudes would send me into a fatal apoplectic fit.
However, as the show begins this coming week, the park has been fully decorated,
the framework for bunches of impressive light sculptures erected. I can’t say I
wouldn’t love to see the event as it was meant to be, but I would kind of like
to survive the experience.
Following our scouring of the park, we moved back eastward to
Kernersville, where a new-ish Adventure Lab cache — “The Hot Spots of KVegas” (GC923TV) — had come out a couple of weeks back. Kernersville is an attractive,
pleasant community halfway between Greensboro and Winston-Salem — or would be
pleasant if not for the goddamn over-saturation of humanity that has resulted
in almost perpetual gridlock, even on off days such as Sunday during a
pandemic. On the plus side, we got to re-visit some of the areas that Ms. B.
and I have frequented over the years. When we were still working in the
office, we were close enough to Kernersville to spend a fair amount of time
there, since they had several nice dining/wine and eclectic shopping options
(not to mention geocaches). Today, our hunt began at Korner’s Folly, Kernersville’s most notable historic building. From there, we hoofed it to several other stops in town before moving on to the final stage.
Triad Park, just east of Kernersville, turned out to be our ultimate destination. To locate the physical bonus cache, we had
to gather information from the
Carolina Field of Honor, which is an impressive tribute to NC veterans. We found the cache, all right, and that turned out to be a
fitting end to the day’s adventure.
And what a week I have coming up, workwise and otherwise, as I am now going
hard about the duties of being executor to my mom’s estate. For every hurdle I
cross, two more pop up. A long, slow, frustrating process this is. But everyone
warned me it would be. Everyone spoke truly.
Till another day.
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Monster Moravian star at Tanglewood about to devour two unsuspecting
victims
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A charming little church at the park
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An old graveyard in the middle of the park, which was built around
it.
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Another nay-sayer. What a poor attitude!
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Korner’s Folly in Kernersville, one of the town’s most attractive historic buildings
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A nice little corner behind Korner’s Folly
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