A Book Release Without a Book

Friend and fellow author, Richard Dansky, from Durham, NC, has a new novel release (Ghosts of Smoke and Flame), so last evening, he had a book release party at Bond Brothers Beer Co. in Cary, NC. Brugger and I decided to attend the event, and since Cary's a good couple of hours from here, we made a day of it in the Raleigh-Durham area. We left Martinsville shortly after noon, grabbed a couple of geocaches, and stopped for a late lunch at Ted's Montana Grill in Durham, which has long been one of my favorite dining destinations when I've been geocaching out that way. Ted's has bison. Lots and lots of delicious bison. So, yes, I had a bison burger. Brugger, however, is not so enamored of bison and had a beef burger. But she loved it, and that's what counts.

She had some shopping to do, so I dropped her off at Streets at Southpoint shopping area and went after a number of caches nearby. After all this, we made our way in the direction of Cary and discovered a nice wine bar called Maximillian's, which was very near our destination, so we each had a glass of wine. And from there, it was off to Rich's event.

Only problem was that he had no books! The copies he'd ordered from the publisher had not arrived on time, so we were forced to simply enjoy a party and his company. Heavens, I tell you! Bond Brothers has some very good beer, though I took it pretty easy since I would eventually have to drive us back to Martinsville. We had a really fine time all around, and Rich will surely have copies at Scares That Care AuthorCon VI next week, where we'll be doing readings together. I shall grab a copy then.

 

We snagged a late, light dinner at Scratch Kitchen & Taproom, right around the corner from Rich's party, which was enjoyable; worth a return whenever we night be in the area again. 

 

You can order Richard Dansky's Ghosts of Smoke and Flame here. And if you're planning to be at AuthorCon VI, I hope to see you!

More Geo-Artsing-and-Fartsing

Periodically, Ms. B. goes off on an arts-and-crafts retreat, usually with her regular group of artsy-craftsy friends from NC, at some location of their group leader’s choice. Hillsborough, Raleigh, and Myrtle Beach are among their preferred destinations. Sometimes, I go along too — or, at the nearer locations, head over for a day-long visit — so that, while she’s artsing and fartsing, I go geocaching. Then, later in the day, we get together to go wining and dining. For us, this is a most excellent system.

This weekend, her gang met in Raleigh, near Raleigh-Durham Airport, which is readily accessible, and especially great for me because that area is rich with geocaches. This time around, I went over just for the day and targeted the Black Creek Greenway, near Lake Crabtree, just southeast of the airport. It was hot and buggy out, but for the most part, the greenway ran through woods that offered plenty of shade. For me, one of the most appealing aspects of this particular hike — which, according to my health app, measured 6.66 miles (how apt) — was that most of the caches were a bit more creative than your typical micro hide in the woods (see photo above — a fun cache called “Skeletor”). And although it wasn’t on the greenway but at a nearby hotel, for the first time in way too long, I got to climb a tree after a cache. Not a big tree, but a fun tree nonetheless. I do so love a good tree-climbing cache.

After putting in the mileage, I returned to Kim’s hotel, cleaned up as best as this old fart can clean up, and then we headed out for dinner and drinks. When we’re in that area, it’s something of a tradition to dine at Trali Irish Pub, which is precisely where we ended up. I customarily go for their Scotch eggs and fish & chips. This time, I ordered Scotch eggs and fish & chips. Fookin’ excellent, as usual. For afters, we got on Google to see if we could find a wine bar nearby. The closest offering was a small place called dailypint, which turned out to be a very loud... no, I mean VERY loud... and altogether unremarkable dive bar that had a handful of wines on hand. They did have a reasonable selection of craft beers, so I opted for one of those. In the end, though, we didn’t care to stay very long. In our old age, Ms. B. and I like to be able to hear ourselves drink...er, think.

From there, Ms. B. went back to making art, and I returned to Casa di Rodan. Though the bar experience was “Feh,” the dinner and geocaching made the trip fun as can be (and good for a much-needed cardio workout).

G’wan. Git.

L) Finger-Lickin' Good; R) Fore!

Going a little batty

L) It's good to be up in a tree again; R) A tree real hugger

Fish & Chips at Trali Irish Pub — the "small" order

One of Ms. B.'s art journal pages, with images from our last trip to Europe

Whirlwind!

In the couple of weeks since Ms. and I returned from Michigan, the world seems to be getting heavier and spinning faster — at least for the short term. Several writing and publishing projects, which I’ll mention only in passing, have presented themselves to me, and while they’re too good to pass up, they also require a significant amount of work on my part; time for such niceties has not been in plentiful supply, nor do I see a wealth of it in the near future. Still, I’m hard into one of the projects and am cobbling together the details for the others. I also have an Ameri-Scares novel — Georgia: The Haunting of Tate’s Mill — to get back to... eventually. On top of all that, Ms. B. and I are both selling properties, which have required significant time and attention. My mom’s estate business, by rights, should be winding down about now, but complications involving bureaucratic bullshit are preventing this happening. At least I did manage to close the door on one detail that’s been waiting in the wings since the beginning of the estate mess (at least, I think — and hope — that door is closed). While working at Brugger’s a couple of weeks back, I managed to wrench or otherwise traumatize my neck and/or spine, which I can only hope proves to be nothing serious. There’s a little improvement there, but not as much as it seems there should be by now.

A lovely cache guardian at "Chapel Hill
History Lesson"

I have, at least, managed to fit in some geocaching, a handful of nice outings with Brugger, and a couple of relaxing gatherings with friends. Last weekend, the No-Dead-Weight Irregulars — Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), Old Rob (a.k.a. Old Rob), and this old dude — hit Cary for a lovely day of hiking and caching, culminating in a beastly good bison feast at Ted’s Montana Grill in Durham. Yesterday, Ms. B. and I rode over to Chapel Hill, aiming to do a little shopping, wining, and caching. We managed to do all three, though — thanks to the football game that locked up every bit of parking in town — we couldn’t manage everything we had hoped. Still, we procured an excellent lunch at The Spotted Dog in Carrboro, which has long been one of our favorite dining destinations. Today, the usual suspects, plus Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie) made a short but happy day of caching at the Rich Fork Nature Preserve in High Point, which included first-to-find honors on a new cache, which required some effort, in that the published coordinates were a couple of hundred feet off.

Brugger and I have already worked in a few fright films to kick off the Halloween season, which we’re starting marginally early, since much of the month of October will be devoted to other necessary activities. So far, we’ve put on Indigenous (a so-so shocker from 2014), The Thing (2011), John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), Night (Curse) of the Demon, Casting the Runes (an entertaining BBC production from 1979), The Ninth Gate, Black Mountain Side, and probably another flick or two I’m not remembering off the top of my head. Fun stuff, naturally. We have a few other must-watch movies on the docket.

And just as an aside here, if you haven’t gotten yourself vaccinated against COVID-19, for the love of Yog, do it. If you don’t plan to, unless you’ve got some kind of mitigating condition or circumstances, you and your ilk are causing more havoc for our healthcare system than is sustainable, and I personally know quite a few healthcare professionals that have absolutely had it with you. I am not a healthcare professional, but I can tell you, I’ve had it with you too.

And that, as they say, is that.

A dapper Ms. B. on the Bolin Creek Trail in Chapel Hill

The old homestead at the Rich Fork Nature Preserve in High Point

Natalie and Old Rob look on as Scott tries to stop the brain from leaking out. Not sure it worked, Scott.

Uh-Oh!

I’ve not drunk a Manhattan since sometime in the Cretaceous period, but while I was in Martinsville on Friday evening, on a whim, I decided to pick up the fixins and make one. Damn, it was good! And it made for excellent company while I went digging through some entertaining memorabilia in the attic and elsewhere at Pleasant Hill. I dunno that it will become a new staple, but something tells me it won’t be nearly so long until I make the next such cocktail. It sure helped sand the edges of what had been a fairly rough week.

I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with the Manhattan — more the need to get the stagnant blood moving — but there is a good-size dogwood tree in the front yard I have never climbed, and I decided it was as good a time as any. Yep. I climbed the tree and spent an enjoyable while up there taking in the view at sunset. It seemed the place to be at the time.

Bright and early Saturday morning, I rode up Fairy Stone State Park to hunt a new geocache (“A Bench with a View #2” GC9BMGC), which I managed to find readily. At that hour, there wasn’t much activity going on, although the beach was open for swimming. A few folks were already wet. As a youngster, I made many trips to the beach at Fairy Stone, but I don’t think I’ve been there for swimming (or paddle boating) for almost a decade, when Ms. B. and I spent a pleasant day on the lake. But for geocaching, Fairy Stone is a favorite and relatively frequent destination. Despite mounting heat and a brutal mosquito attack, I quite enjoyed the brief excursion. As I was going back to my car, I heard what I at first thought was a kid hollering “Uh-oh!” somewhere nearby. But then I realized it wasn’t a kid but a bird. My best information is that it’s a fishing crow, a critter I am fairly certain I’ve never heard before. Play the video below to give the amusing little fellow a listen.

After that, it was back home to get to work on the home renovation — this time, removing, cleaning, and sanding the kitchen cabinets (at least a few of them this time around) in preparation to paint them. We had the new countertops installed last week, and they look quite lovely. Next step is the new flooring, which we ordered yesterday afternoon. What a job this is turning out to be, not that I ever had any illusions it would be anything else.

For dinner, friends Joe & Suzy came over, and we ordered pizza from Marco’s, which is, in my considered opinion, the best pizza in town. Needless to say, there was a wine aplenty, all good, both white and red. We took advantage of a reasonably comfortable evening to eat dinner and hang out on the front porch for a while before the mosquitos finally drove us indoors.

The lighting from our phones provided a weird, somewhat intriguing image of the gang

Hallo, how are you, nice day

Naturally, this morning saw the No-Dead-Weight Irregulars — Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie), Old Rob (a.k.a. Old Rob), and Old Rodan (a.k.a. me) — getting together for a geocaching outing in Cary, over near Raleigh. We hiked the Hatcher Creek Greenway for several miles, picked up a few caches in other random, nearby areas, and had a dynamite Mexican lunch at Mi Cancun restaurant — literally, some of the best Mexican food I’ve had in ages (street tacos with very hot & spicy chicken for me). There are plenty of caches left in the area to bring us back, so I suspect we will venture to Cary again in the near future for, hopefully, an equally enjoyable encore.

I anticipate the usual work week coming up, but potential stumbling blocks with Mom’s estate loom large, all the more frustrating because they’re neither of my making nor under my control. But if the worst happens, it’s going to add yet more complications to this endlessly complicated ordeal. It is altogether frustrating and unpleasant. I really, truly, cannot wait for this mess to end. To add insult to injury, I have been summoned for jury duty next month. What a fooking treat.

Otherwise, life is.

The No-Dead-Weight Irregulars meet an angel in a graveyard in Cary

Long, elevated boardwalk on the Hatcher Creek Greenway in Cary

Sunday Morning High

You might be a geocacher if you spend your Sunday morning getting high. In this case, quite literally.

The usual suspects — Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott); Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie); Robgso (a.k.a. Old Rob, a.k.a. Boody Rob, a.k.a. Old Bloody One-Eyed Rob, a.k.a. Rob); Rtmlee (a.k.a. Yoda Rob, a.k.a Robbin); and Old Rodan (a.k.a. me) — converged on Cary, NC, this morning, once again under the team moniker "No Dead Weight." Tradition has it that when Yoda Rob is along, we go by "Team Dead Weight," but we decided not to have any of that stuff this trip because we knew we weren't going to have any of that stuff this trip.

And so we didn't. We started our day at a challenging, puzzle/multi-cache titled "And So It Begins" (GC410G9), which involves four stages, with the container for each stage placed at a higher elevation. We found the first one about head high. The second one would have been well above our heads, except the tree in which it resided had fallen over. Thus, it lay barely above the ground (I hope the cache owner will decide to come out and re-hide it at a more appropriate elevation). The third stage... well... it was a fair height above our heads, so Diefenbaker very kindly offered his services as a stepping stool (and a sturdy one too!) so I could climb for the cache. We knew the final stage would likely require a somewhat more specialized tool of the trade than Diefenbaker, and it just so happened that he had brought one. It required lugging the heavy tool some distance into the woods, but in the end, it paid off in spades.

Success! Old Dude signs the log sheet

The cache hangs about 25 feet up in an arched tree (see photo). Theoretically, one could ascend up the arch, although it's surely difficult, as there isn't a limb on it for a while. There are a few knobs one might use as foot- and handholds, and quite a few finders have actually done this. But since I didn't want the very old gentlemen (and that very young woman) to feel they had wasted their time and energy lugging that big old ladder through the woods, I reluctantly agreed* to use it to make my ascent.

Once I hauled myself up there, signed the log, and came back down to earth, the rest of the team took turns going up and down just for good measure. The fun soon came to an end, though, and so we hauled the ladder back up to the vehicle and continued on our way to several other caches in the area. We finished the day with the relatively small total of eight finds (and three DNFs [Did Not Find]), but the quantity mattered less than the quality of the hides, the excitement of the hunt, and the great time with a bunch of great friends.

For afternoon vittles, we headed over to The Big Easy Oven & Tap, which we had visited on a recent trip to Cary (the one where we lost Old Rob in a parking garage; see "Where's Rob?" May 19, 2019). Gator bites, fried oysters, beef brisket nachos, Pernicious Wicked Weed Ales, and other goodies helped revive a bunch of exhausted old farts (and one very young woman).

So it's been a satisfying weekend, what with chowing down on gators, scorpions, crickets, and dragon burgers, as well as drinking wine, ascending to great heights, taking care of necessary business, and taking another step in the walk of the unknown. Until next time, I'm your host, Damned Rodan, saying —

Team No Dead Weight (with Old Rob behind the camera)

Gator bites at The Big Easy Oven & Tap

*This is horseshit. I needed that ladder real bad.

Where's Rob?

I am either holding a very small geocache or welcoming you to the
Island of the Burning Damned. One is as likely as the other.

Once again, Robgso (a.k.a. Old Rob, a.k.a. Bloody Rob) and Ms. Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie) joined up with me as Team No Dead Weight on this scorching hot May Sunday to hunt some geocaches, this time in Cary, NC, over near Raleigh. We had expected to spend a little while finding some quick park-and-grab hides and then hitting a nearby greenway to get in a nice hike. As is wont to happen on caching trips, things didn't work out precisely as we'd planned.

We did find a handful of neat hides, cleverly camouflaged and nicely placed. Then we discovered a parking garage.

I've had plenty of experience with parking garage hides. You tend to go up and down and up and down, trying to find the precise spot a tricksy hider might place a cache. This is a private garage, so we couldn't drive into it. Thus, we parked outside and hoofed it up to the highest level. We hunted and hunted, and even with some intel from a previous finder, we couldn't come up with it. Alas. But then we had to leave. We had entered the garage from the front of the building, then gone up several flights of stairs. We figured we'd go back out the same way.

Have you seen this man?

Somewhere on our descent, Natalie and I realized we'd lost Rob. What the hell, Old Rob? Okay, so we'll meet him at the car. We didn't recall how many flights of stairs we'd gone up, so we went down to level 0 and out the door. Nope, this is not it. Go down to level SUB-0. Nope, this is not it either. So back up to level 1. Sign reads "NOT AN EXIT." WTF? Go up to level 2. Okay, an exit, Weird fucking garage, man. Out we go and make our way to the car.

Where's Rob? Oh, dear, there's no Rob. We pull up to the front entrance, and about then Natalie's phone rings. It's Rob. "Where are we? We are sitting outside the front entrance waiting for you. Where are you? You don't know? Oh dear."

Rob promises he'll figure out his predicament and join us shortly. About ten minutes pass.

Me: "We should never let Rob try to navigate on his own."

Natalie: "We didn't do such a good job of navigating ourselves."

Me: "But we are here."

After a while, I place a long-distance call to Rob. "Hey Rob, have you discovered Fayetteville?"

Rob: "Well, I'm outside the building."

Me: "Whereabouts?"

Rob: "I don't know."

Me: "Do we need to call in a Search & Rescue Team?"

Rob: "I don't know."

Me: "Wait. I see you."

Rob: "Okay. Where?"

Me: "Where you are."

Rob: "Now I see you."

He did see us, and even got back in the car with us. Brave Rob.

After this adventure, we needed to find lunch, which we did at The Big Easy Oven & Tap. Gator bites, bayou shrimp, smoked brisket... good vittles and good beers, yes. Then we had a good many more caches to go after and somehow keep up with Rob. We did all this and more, and avenged one of those direful DNFs (Did Not Find logs) from a previous outing. Even got in a few entertaining physical challenges along the way. So yeah, it was all good.

Oh, crap. I think we've lost Rob again.

Rob? Hello?

There was a geocache inside the enclosed portion of a guardrail post. Rather than stick our hands in there
willy-nilly, we used our phone cameras/flashes to examine the interior. I don't know what the hell I'm seeing,
but I'm glad I didn't reach on in there to find out.

Again with the Jabberwock!

It's not just ugly tree — that is photobombing UGLY tree!

Too long it has been since Old Rob and I took a wee trip out of town to hunt geocaches, so since I was off work today, Old Rob and I took a wee trip out of town to hunt geocaches. The Lake Crabtree area, near Cary, NC, was our destination, for there one can find a plethora of trails and caches... or, as in a couple of instances for us, just trails.

Old man can't find geocache, commiserates
with ugly tree

We started out on a sour note, or two — a couple of long, ill-fated hunts, effectively tiring out the old men before we could even get started. Once we got moving on down the trail, though, the fairly rugged terrain tired us out even more. I had on relatively new boots that were still stiff, so my feet called me names for a while. And then...

Have you ever been bitten by a honey locust tree? Mother of Yog, these are evil trees. I described an encounter with a honey locust tree some time ago, here. I had another one today. Didn't even know the rotten bastard was lying in wait for me. At one point during a short bushwhack, I pushed my way through some spindly limbs blocking my passage, and as one of them whipped back toward me, it planted a two-inch long, molten hot spike in my leg.

Ask Old Bloody Rob whether I hollered. I might have hollered. I might have hollered ugly words. I don't know, I was too busy hollering. After a healthy round of hollering, I worked up my nerve and tugged the nasty little spike out of my leg and called it mean names. I'm pretty sure it came out cleanly, without leaving little fragments of itself lurking somewhere in my flesh (I should very much like to think the damned thing would have done nothing that hateful). Rob is the one who always says that, when geocaching, if you don't bleed you're not having fun. Today, at least one of us had fun.

We did find a fair number of fun little hides in the woods, so our day was tiring and painful but ultimately satisfying. At one point, I found an ugly tree with an even uglier head (see photo above), but there was no cache there. There should have been a cache there, as it was a pretty neat ugly tree. We didn't add a vast number of finds to our respective tallies — seven altogether; my find count now stands at 9,812 — but we had gone out looking to get some exercise, and I can tell you, some exercise we done got.

I sleep now.

A troll in the Upside-Down

Crabtree Creek to the north, with I-40 in the distance

Crabtree Creek to the south, with some dude wandering about in the water