Venturing Forth to Seaforth

A couple of the Usual Suspects: Old Rodan, Ms. Fishdownthestair

As we count down to Christmas, overworked and overloaded doesn't begin to describe the state of affairs at Casa di Rodan. This past week, two old friends of the family passed away in Martinsville — Willard Harris, who had been one of my parents' best friends since I was a kid, and Ron Ferrill, father of my early 1980s girlfriend Allison. On Thursday, I went up to the Ville to attend Mr. Ferrill's viewing at the funeral home. I did get to see Allison for the first time in almost 40 years, as well as her mom, whom I've encountered a handful of times over the years. It was good to see them, sad under the circumstances. I had long admired and liked Mr. Ferrill, who was one of Martinsville's preeminent citizens during my lifetime. Interestingly, I ran into Mrs. Isley, my fifth-grade English teacher. Talk about a pleasant surprise.

Yesterday, after a quick visit with Mum, Brugger and I joined up with friends Terry & Beth to sample a few spirits at the Winston-Salem Wine Market as well as at Raylen Vineyards, not far away. The spirits flowed very nicely (and there was a new geocache at the Wine Market, which I happily claimed). Afterward, we retired to the Nelsons' place to have some vittles and watch Animal House and Stripes. And those were fun, as I'd not seen either in many years.

From the racket we heard in the distance, I'm pretty
sure Bigfoot was out there playing Bigfoot party games.

Today, friend Natalie (a.k.a. fishdownthestair) and I ventured forth to the gamelands between Seaforth Road and Jordan Lake, just outside Pittsboro, that we might hunt a number of the geocaches lurking back in those woods. Most of the caches there go back many years — most of those we hunted today date back to 2007, with a handful from 2010. Virtually every one of those we found (seven, plus one park & grab along the road) was truly a moldy oldie, but at least we managed to get our sigs on the log sheets. We logged DNFs (Did Not Find) on two, which we're confident have simply gone missing. However, it was at the site of one of those we didn't find that we discovered the most intriguing location of the day — an old family graveyard in the woods, with graves going back as far as the late 18th century. The newest marker that I found was from 1914. Ms. FDTS and I spent quite a while both looking for the errant container as well as exploring the realm of the dead. As I've said before, lovely, hidden places such as this one surely take some of the annoyance out of being buried.

At the end of the geocaching, some five hours and three-plus miles later, we hauled ourselves over to our traditional post-caching in Pittsboro lunch location, The Carolina Brewery. Both of us availed ourselves to the Winter Special "Brewer's Burger," with grilled onions, black-pepper mayo, pickles, and pepper jack cheese. I had one of their nice Flagship IPAs to accompany. Say what you will, I am a fan of the IPAs, at least on those relatively rare occasions that I partake of beer.

And that was the outing in a nutshell. Back to the frenetic work pace, at least until Tuesday....

If I don't make it back here before then, well, Merry Honkin' Christmas to the lot of ye.

A nice view of Pirates' Cove on Jordan Lake

One of the walking dead near the old graveyard. Note it wears blaze orange, no doubt to avoid
being shot in the head by accident.

Some of the ancient graves

Caching goes better with Coke.

Another Haw River Hoedown

A handful of The Usual Suspects — Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie), and an old dude (a.k.a. an old dude) — badly needed to hike and seek some geocaches today. So off we rode to the Haw River down near Pittsboro. We've cached that area numerous times, though just north of US 64, there is a trail along the river with a number of nice caches we had yet to conquer. That we did, but for one very old cache "Craggy Haw" GC1JCRP, placed in 2008), which is most likley missing. Otherwise, the hike proved scenic, occasionally rugged, and altogether satisfying.

I wonder what might be lurking in that big old
column of stone way back in the woods....

After the river hike, we landed ourselves at Carolina Brewery in Pittsboro where, unbeknownst to us, a gaggle of local geocachers had also landed following a nearby CITO (Cache-In, Trash-Out) event. We arrived right at the tail end of the event, but we did see quite a few familiar faces (and in a few cases, entire bodies). We exchanged a round of greetings before most of them departed and then proceeded to procure ourselves some vittles and liquid refreshment. Nice!

On the way home, we stopped for another handful of caches. And we got run off from a stand of woods where a cache apparently used to be but that now belongs to some nearby property owners who were unaware of such wondrous things as geocaches. Alas.

All in all, though, a satisfying day of exercise, good company, and decent refreshment.

Islands in the stream

A sunny day at the river

Getting the Boot

Team Two and a Half Men

Actually, we only got part of the boot. The geoart you see in the photo is in Wake County, NC, along the American Tobacco Trail. To get the coordinates for each individual cache in the boot print pattern, you must answer a question on the cache listing page about Wake County Parks. Once done, you hike out the trail to claim the caches. There are 40 caches in the pattern, and today, Rob "Robgso," Debbie "Cupdaisy," and Old Man Rodan headed out after a bunch of them. We picked up a dozen in the series, as well as a fair number of other caches along the trail. It was another damn near 80-degree day in October, so we got pretty warm out there, but at the end of it all, we'd put in about six miles, with numerous side trips and some backtracking (thanks to old people leaving their hiking sticks behind); logged 18 caches; and found things like jewel-shelled turtles, giant spiders, horses in pine trees, and pigs in lamp posts.

Most notably, on our journey, we engaged ourselves in a spirited discourse about whether a hissy fit or a conniption ranks higher in the hierarchy of tantrums. We fairly readily came to the conclusion that the conniption is certainly of higher caliber than the mere hissy fit, and our results were confirmed by a Google search, which indicated the question was actually settled about nine years ago. Well, sometimes there's something to be said for reinventing the wheel.

Our final destination before returning home was Carolina Brewery in Pittsboro, where we procured satisfying vittles and liquid refreshment. While I was driving us back, I told Rob that if I fell asleep to wake me up when we got home. Happily, he did this thing.

Big.

A very old tobacco barn out in the woods, not far off the trail

Sparkly sea turtle in the woods

L: Cupdaisy finds a butterfly; R: a long stretch of the American Tobacco Trail

Little bacons in a lightpole