Ms. Brugger went to another artsy-craftsy retreat this weekend, so friend and
longtime geocaching partner Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott) came
up from Newbern, NC, for a long, bachelor-oriented geocaching weekend. He
arrived early Thursday evening to find a rack of slow-cooked pork ribs with
corn on the cob and cole slaw I'd made waiting for him. He brought with him
some marginally fiery ghost-pepper infused vodka and a bottle of mezcal; I
introduced him to my version of the
Botanic Martini, which I had originally experienced at Nord Social in Midland, Michigan, last month. There may be a new convert to the cause. We
sat out on the back deck with massive quantities of food and drink until quite
late, and enjoyed the required, semi-inebriated phone conversation with Ms. B.
that happens whenever we have one of these get-togethers. Fun was had.
Early Friday morning, after a breakfast of bacon and eggs, we departed for a
long day of it on the geocaching trail, beginning with Rocky Mount, Virginia,
at
Bald Knob, a unique rocky, cactus-crowned ridge that rises above the town. I'd been
there numerous times over the years (see "Number One and Driving High" for an example), but a new trail system was completed this past May, and
several new geocaches awaited our attention. We found them without difficulty,
but I also took Scott to an older cache I had previously found, and
negotiating the intense terrain to reach it from where we departed the trail
left us just about spent by the time we returned to the bottom. Silly me, I
took no photos during the hike, but here's an older one:
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| A view of Rocky Mount, VA, from Bald Knob's summit |
From Rocky Mount, we drove eastward to a spot along the Pigg River in Franklin
County. During my days at Ferrum College, I spent a lot of time at the Pigg
River (though much closer to Ferrum), frequently in search of various altered
states, which I usually found. This time, there weren't any altered states,
but we did find a very creative geocache.
From there, we drove on to Gretna, Virginia, for a quick park & grab hide.
Then down to Danville, where we found a late lunch at the fairly new
301 Tavern
on Craghead Street. The braying country music was a bit loud, but the food and
drink (cheeseburger, fries, and Pernicious IPA) certainly hit the spot. Then
we roved around Danville for a bit to complete the stages of a nice Adventure
Lab cache created by friend Skyhawk63 (a.k.a. Tom, with whom
I've recently shared some awesome
geocaching adventures).
It was a lot of driving (about 150 miles) for
a relatively small number of caches, but damn, it was satisfying. After returning home and making
ourselves reasonably presentable, we headed over to
Hamlet Kitchen, which is a regular hangout for Kimberly and me, but on this day, I had to
make do with Scott. Hey, no complaints from this quarter. We had a couple of
glasses off wine and then ventured over to
Yamato Japanese Restaurant for sushi. As we wandered in, we ran into friend Anne, with whom Ms. B.
and I had enjoyed a fantastic Thai dinner (along with Anne's sister, Mary), a
few weeks back. She joined us for dinner and some very fun conversation, and
then Scott and I (after a brief liquor store stop) returned to Casa di Rodan
to test a few spirits. I'd say they tested satisfactorily.
Interestingly, as we sat out on the back deck in the dark, something big,
heavy, and quite angry-sounding went thumping and huffing through the woods
right at the edge of the driveway, just beyond our line of sight. We have tons
of deer, foxes, and coyotes in these woods, but whatever it was, I've never
heard such a thing before. Wampus cat, I'd say.
Another shared call with Ms. B., and then... a good night.
A theme, perhaps?
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| An interesting view from my phone camera, facing upward to the underside of our deck umbrella |
|
| The view on our side of our phone call with Kimberly |
|
| The view on Kimberly's side of our phone call |
Saturday morning, Scott and I got up early again. I made blueberry pancakes,
and then we set out for very long walks on a couple of different legs of the
roughly twelve-mile-long Dick & Willie Trail. Many of the caches along this trail belong to either me or friend
Fishdownthestairs (a.k.a. Natalie), but since Scott had never
found these, I was happy to go along and offer either help or heckling,
whichever I figured would be more entertaining at the time. We put in about
six miles of it, and then found lunch at
Don Pepe's, a Mexican restaurant that's been here for a while, though I'd never tried
it. Damn if it didn't turn out to be excellent—very authentic. We ended up
having a mellow afternoon (I mostly worked on the blog) before I cooked up
some BBQ chicken wings, which turned out better than satisfactory, I'd say
For the evening, we again sat outside, told stories, listened to music, and
waited for our big huffing friend to come stomping through. It never did,
though a rather cute little possum wandered by. We had a brief, enjoyable chat
before he waddled off again.
L: A couple of wacky gentleman on the trail; R: Diefenbaker trying to extricate himself from the depths of hell
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| Chorizo street tacos at Don Pepe's |
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| Scott and Rufus engaged in a serious tête-à-tête |
And, at last, Sunday morning, I made coffee and some very good egg bites for
breakfast, and then Scott hit the road to return home. What a nice weekend
all-around, though I certainly missed Kimberly, as I always do when she's
gone. Scott's hoping to have us both down to their place in Newbern in the
not-too-distant future, and to me, this sounds like a winning plan.
To old friends...
