The Blog Where Horror Dwells: Grotesque and Others

Sunday, November 28, 2021

Grotesque and Others

Yes, it's Sunday, so of course it was a big ol' geocaching day. And quite a nice one, all around. Today's incarnation of the No-Dead-Weight Irregulars consisted of Almost-But-Not-Quite-Old Cupdaisy (a.k.a. Debbie), Old Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), Old Rob (a.k.a. Old Rob), and Old Rodan (as the Beaver). Today's destination: Durham, NC, mostly around the Duke University campus. Our primary target was an Adventure Lab cache called "Grotesque" (GC928YM), which led us to several locations featuring sculptures, friezes, and such art around the heart of the campus. These were fun, and the bonus cache container turned out to be cute (see the thoughtful chap at left).

One neat little cache took us to the edge of a marsh, where we also found a wooden walkway leading a hundred feet or so into it. Sadly, the walkway had seen better days and appeared on the verge of collapse. Still, I made my way out to the far end, figuring that if it gave way, the worst that would happen is that I would get wet (unless there were piranha fish in the marsh, and I guess that would have been worse than getting wet). But the planks held, I took a few pics, and Cupdaisy found the cache. Interestingly, from there, we found another cache not too far away, and on our way back, we saw that the walkway had now been chained off. I rather suspect someone at the little preserve saw me exploring and decided to play things safe (liability issues, perhaps). Anyway, glad I managed to see the sights from there when I did.

Lean just a little farther, Cupdaisy!
Just a little farther....

If I counted properly, we snagged a total of 18 caches today. Well, I did personally, at least. We stopped for a handful I had already found but that the other members of the team still needed. For lunch, we checked out a little joint called Dain's Place on Ninth St., not too far from the University. Good eats, though it reminded me of why sports bars are intolerable places to be on game days. My god, the volume of shrieking madness around us damn near shattered my eardrums. Still, it was all great fun — at least until we hit the road for home. Traffic was a monster, far worse than I've seen after a Thanksgiving weekend... well... ever, I'm pretty sure. Just fits in with my motto: There are too many motherfucking people. Lord have mercy, they make me tired. Fortunately, I know some back roads. Unfortunately, they fuckers had choked the back roads too. Fortunately, I know some back BACK roads. Those, at least, were passable.

And good lord... what happened to the long weekend? We just got off work a few minutes ago, and now it's four freaking days later. Time flies, I reckon, whether you're having fun or not. Fortunately, this go-round, it was mostly fun. Well, tolerable, anyway.

I managed to fit in some much-needed writing yesterday, although it wasn't quite as much as I'd hoped. This week looks good for making forward progress on that count, at least.

Stop fucking around, all right? Thx.