Steve Hackett at Durham's Carolina Theater

Supper's Ready

An awesome show last night by Steve Hackett at the Carolina Theater in Durham. A 2.5-hour performance, with a brief intermission, followed by every cut from Genesis's Foxtrot album. For me, the absolute highlight was the first encore — "Firth of Fifth" from Selling England by the Pound. And "Every Day" from Spectral Mornings was so perfect I hollered real loud. The instrumentation sounded great, although the vocals were a bit muddy, alas. I'd seen Steve back in 1980 at the Agora Ballroom in Atlanta, leaning up against the stage, literally at Steve's feet. Here, we were a bit farther back, in the first balcony, but the view and sound turned out to be fantastic.

 

Running into friend and fellow author Richard Dansky was a treat. Rich narrowly escaped being bombed by a full cup of beer falling from the balcony above. Yesterday was his birthday — thankfully, he survived it, hopefully to see many more. Next time, I hope we run into each other long enough to share drinks and stories (minus plummeting cups).

 

An altogether fine evening for Brugger and me.

Can-Utility and the Coastliners

Encore!

Pre-concert wine with Ms. B. at West End Wine Bar

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.

Grotesque! Old Rodan, Old Rob, Almost-But-Not-Quite-Old Cupdaisy, Old Diefenbaker

Out on the ricketty walkway over the marsh

Looking back from the end of the walkway

A few minutes later: well, dang if it hasn't been closed off!

No Burial Without Permission & Others

Don’t do it.

Geocaching has led me to a number of signs like this over the years. They're kind of disappointing because, sometimes, you just need to dispose of someon—er, something—quickly.

The weekend was busy, productive, mostly enjoyable. Friday evening, Brugger and I went to Martinsville and had friends Stephen & Samaire over for dinner and drinks. Given the agreeably mild weather, we were able to socially distance ourselves on the front porch at Pleasant Hill. We picked up dinner from Third Bay Cafe, which was, as always, first-rate. Yesterday, upon our return to Greensboro (by way of Danville for a couple of geocaches), Ms. B. and I spent the better part of the day working on our kitchen renovation. Tiring, of course, but highly satisfying.

This morning, Mr. Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott) and I got together to check out the trails and a number of caches at the Spruce Pine Lodge, along Flat River, just north of Durham. The weather was perfectly splendid for hitting the woods — clear skies and temperatures in the high 50s/low 60s. Prior to coming out here for geocaching, I knew nothing of this lodge, which dates back to the 1940s. It is available for meetings, events, and gatherings of all sorts. The nature trails offer scenic views and easy hiking, although most of the caches ended up taking us pretty far off-trail.

We found some good ones this trip. We discovered one container in the hands of a hopelessly malnourished fellow; a couple of well-stocked ammo cans; and a couple of smaller caches up in trees. Sadly — for me, at least — these did not require climbing but specific tools of the geocaching trade.

Scott appears bemused by this chap suffering from extreme malnourishment.

My favorite cache of the day, “Waterfall Overlook” (GCQE55), took us out to some high ground above one of the rocky, rushing creeks that flow into Flat River. Outbound, we found a narrow stretch with plenty of stepping stones to facilitate our crossing. After claiming the cache, we returned by a different route, which put us high above the stream, at a wide, rocky, and far more treacherous point. However, being the spirited, foolish daredevils we (sometimes) are, rather than detour, we decided to soldier on. Not far downstream, we found a big fallen tree above the deepest, rockiest part of the creek, so one of us (raises hand) unilaterally decided to use it as a handy-dandy footbridge. As we soon discovered, the log had a wee wobble, but neither Scott nor I fell off of it. Well, I didn’t. And it wasn’t so much a fall as a slide, which culminated in a relatively small splash. Not very spectacular, Scott.

On our way home, we stopped for a handful of other caches, including one at a very old church graveyard, where we discovered the sign in the image at the top of the page. Graveyard caches almost always elicit a smile.

Just don’t bury any bodies there without permission. Don’t do it.

The Spruce Pine Lodge in Bahama, NC, just north of Durham

View of Flat River from the nature trail at Spruce Pine Lodge

Outdoor amphitheater near the nature trail

One of the scenic little waterfalls we discovered on our hike

Our makeshift bridge across the stream. So it was a little wobbly. Scott and I both survived, though one of us
might have ended up a bit wetter than the other.

“It Can Only Kill Us Once....”

First thing this morning, The Socially Distant No-Dead-Weight Irregulars, today relegated to only friend Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott) and me, headed out to the Horton Grove Nature Preserve, just north of Durham, NC. About twenty geocaches are hidden along the preserve trails, and we figured they would make for us a good day’s work. As it turned out, another cache, relatively nearby — “On the Face of It” (GC9742F) — was brand new, just published in the past couple of days. As yet, no one had logged a find on it. However, after some discussion, Scott and I decided to stick to the original plan of hunting the older caches in the preserve rather than go after the new one, which lay to the east, across the Flat River. The recommended parking for that one was a couple of miles south of the cache, and we rightly felt, for that much hiking, we could find considerably more caches in the preserve.

We made it several miles through the preserve on its well-traveled trails. Once we reached the northernmost cache within its borders, we paused and pondered the feasibility of getting to the new cache across the river. We knew there was about a 90% chance such an endeavor would fail, but that reality could hardly dissuade the likes of us, being so brave, dedicated, and foolish, don’t you know. I told Scott we might as well give the journey a shot. “It can only kill us once,” I said. Happily, one other cache — “Ceilidh’s Delight” (GC8MQA7) — lay along this most arduous route, so we stopped for it along the way (and it turned out to be our favorite of the day). At last, we discovered a small utility road, which led eastward through the dense forest, so we followed it — straight to the dam on the river that creates Michie Lake.

Here, though, our suspicions were confirmed. Massive torrents of water roared over the top of the dam, feeding a rushing, raging river. Given such prodigious rainfall over the past few weeks, this came as no surprise. Ever hopeful, we trudged a considerable distance downriver, looking for any potential crossing that didn’t involve being swept away to the Atlantic. Alas, no reasonably safe passage presented itself. So, we decided we would have to forgo that oh-so-tantalizing first-to-find opportunity, return to the preserve, and snag a few more caches along the trails before packing it in for the day. Frustrating, yes, especially in that, at one point, we stood only 85 feet from the cache; regardless, that trek through the thickest of woods out to the dam made for the day’s most enjoyable and stimulating experience. And we ended our outing with nineteen cache finds under our belts.

That, I would say, is far better than being killed even once.

A wee, trickling stream through the Horton Grove Preserve — far less violent than the nearby Flat River

A coupla old farts on the prowl for geocaches

Beyond the Gate

Today was the day to attempt a new geocaching milestone: geocache find #12,000. For this outing, the Socially Distanced No Dead Weight Irregulars — Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie), and the old radioactively mutated flying rubber prehistoric reptile — welcomed friend NCBiscuit (a.k.a. Linda) to our ranks as we went after a nice tunnel hide in Durham, NC, called “Beyond the Gate” (GC5C0C4), placed several years ago by friend Vortexecho (a.k.a. Christian). Ground Zero is a lovely location, which you see in the photo above, and it’s right behind the apartment complex where my daughter lived after she graduated college, back in... well... a handful of years ago. The pipe is big, so once inside it, we could easily walk upright. We found the biggest challenge to be wriggling through that broken gate. The pipe isn’t very long — maybe a hundred feet — but it sure is wet in there. You end up in a drain out in the middle of a pond.

Inside that pipe, I encountered the biggest crawdude I’ve seen since I was a kid, when I loved playing in the creek across from our house in Martinsville. He measures almost six inches long there. He proved friendly enough, though he was not at all an enthusiastic conversationalist. So as not to upset him needlessly, I avoided mentioning that crawdad is one of my favorite delicacies.

After completing the deed at “Beyond the Gate,” we shrugged off the increasingly oppressive heat and moved on to a nearby cache that has been in the wild for several days but has yet to be found. It isn’t meant to be especially difficult, but a number of geocachers have been unable to locate it. Count us among them. After a diligent, fairly lengthy search, we were forced to give up in frustration.

Some old fellow hanging around in the dark

From there, Ms. NCBiscuit departed, leaving the regular Irregulars to strike out after a number of caches along the American Tobacco Trail. Hoo, doggies, was it ever hot and ugly out there! We decided to end our day at another of Vortexecho’s tunnel caches, but unfortunately, claiming a find on this one was not to be. LV-426 (GC4YJFD) lurks deep inside a series of very tight culverts, requiring either crawling or very constricted duck-walking. I opted for the latter. Once way down deep inside, though, we encountered some smoky fumes oozing from a couple of pipes — one of the inevitable hazards of such locations — and decided to abandon our search. Never let it be said we are irredeemably foolhardy. Merely foolish.

That ended our adventure for the day, although before coming back home, I had to get even hotter and filthier helping Brugger put up a new mailbox in front of her house, since the old one was by all rights condemned. That done, I finally made it home and fell into the shower, for which every organism within a hundred feet of the property thanked me profusely.

It was a day.

Beyond the gate at “Beyond the Gate”

Old Rodan and VERY Old Diefenbaker

Heat be hot!

South of Heaven: Abyss

Team No Dead Weight: Old Dude, Scott, Natalie. I just realized these two were not properly socially distanced
here. At least, I was good. I am always good. Sort of.

I haven’t come home from geocaching so hot, wet, and filthy dirty since the last time I came home so hot, wet, and filthy dirty, and that is some kind of hot, wet, and filthy dirty. Team No Dead Weight — today’s incarnation consisting of Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie), Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), and I — set out this morning for Chapel Hill/Durham for the express purpose of knocking out a few geocaches that require venturing into the deep, dark underground. We ended up in five tunnels, I believe it was, two of which were part of a single multi cache.

Our view for the better part of the day

We started out with a fine multi called “Preparation H: Feels Good on the Hole” (GC340DE) in Chapel Hill. It’s one of a series of “Preparation” caches, which require you to have some particular tool of the trade in order to acquire the prize. In this case, the tool in question is a flashlight, and we made sure we had an adequate supply of them for our trek. The first stage led us to not so much a tunnel as a tight, lengthy enclosure under a bridge. The object bearing the coordinates to the next stage proved quite challenging to turn up. Reaching the second stage did require going into a bona fide, fairly lengthy storm drain tunnel. The stage itself was not a container per se, but a novel method of revealing coordinates to the actual cache. It lurked just off a nearby trail, at ground level, but on what is called, in the vernacular, high ground. Someone was kind enough to leave a rope to assist with our ascent and descent. A bloody fun hide this one.

Next, we sought a little monster called “Strategies Against Architecture: Darkness” (GC1JXYB), deep inside a narrow tunnel that required crawling to negotiate. Not my favorite means of ingress, I can tell you. And sadly, this effort turned out to be a bust. The cache may still be in there, but damned if we could find it. This cache and the next two were placed by friend Vortexecho (a.k.a. Christian), who is well-known locally for his more extreme geocache hides.

Scott trying not to fall down go boom

We had similar bad luck at a much longer tunnel — “Mind the Frogs” (GC1JZC1) — in which we could stand partially upright, at least. This journey turned out to be fairly lengthy, our search intense, but once again, we got skunked. Most depressing, since we did put in such effort in hopes of making the find. Alas!

But then, the pièce de résistance: “Strategies Against Architecture: Abyss” (GC1QF2P). I think Vortexecho may have outdone himself on this one. It’s a two-mile “hike” in a very long, very dark, very wet tunnel on the outskirts of Durham. Thing is, thanks to none of us adequately reading the cache description beforehand (which one really ought to do, especially when you’re going deep underground), we didn’t realize just how lengthy this thing would be. After we had slogged and sloshed through the tunnel, which was mostly big enough to traverse in something akin to an upright position, we decided to re-read the cache description.

Oh, yeah. Two miles. We had gone about a quarter of that.

The aftermath: hot, sweaty, soaking wet,
Filthy mcNasty old dude

Well, of course, there was nothing for it but to keep on sloshing. Happily, we encountered no Copperheads, although we did see Black Widows in profusion, all just lounging about. Black Widows, at least, aren’t particularly nosy (noses they ain’t got!), preferring instead to mind their own business unless bothered. And we bothered them not at all.

Finally, we saw a light ahead (the “room of golden air”), which turned out to be a large junction with a drain overhead, through which golden sunlight came pouring. And there, chained to a pillar in the center of the chamber, there lay our quarry: a nice, large lock & lock container, just above head-high. When I opened the container, though, it emptied a considerable quantity of water on me, which indicated that the chamber has been totally flooded on occasion (possibly quite recently, given the amount of precipitation we have suffered). Needless to say, dangers do exist in this environment. A couple of years back, a sinkhole opened above the pipe, causing the total collapse of one section. One would not wish to be in the pipes during any appreciable rainfall. (And I had only been home a short time this afternoon when one of our notorious gullywashers began.)

All in all, an invigorating, if damned filthy-dirty day. I sleep now.

Big honking millipede — about six inches long — wandering about in the tunnel

From Danville to Durham: Big Flood, Big Fun

I headed to Martinsville after work on Friday, spent a relaxing evening, and on Saturday morning, headed back to Greensboro by way of Danville, where I hoped to snag a relatively new geocache. As I was heading into Danville by way of US 58, I found the highway closed at a point very near the cache location. After some massive storming on Thursday, apparently the water levels in the area have risen well past flood stage. After a considerable detour, on my approach to the cache, down a long hill, I could see the Dan River rising higher and rushing faster than I had ever seen it. It's hard to make out the water level in the photo above, but the bridge on the left typically has about double the clearance above the river that you see here.

At ground zero, which is near a medical facility barely above the river level, I saw that the river had flooded a portion of the parking lot. This was more than 24 hours after the big storms, and the water had evidently receded somewhat. The hint for the cache indicated I needed to look for a small evergreen at the edge of the parking lot, and, to my chagrin, I could find no small evergreen at that location. What I did find was lots of cut evergreen branches littering the ground. Well... fart! I figured at this point, the cache must have vamoosed. However, about that time, a young lady who worked at the nearby facility, who was obviously on a smoke break, wandered over and asked if I was looking for "the little bottle somebody had placed out here." I said I was. She told me the evergreen tree had been cut down a few days earlier, but someone had moved the "bottle" to a different spot. She then pointed it out to me. Well, what do you know! Saved by a muggle! And I had been on the verge of writing off this side trip as a wasted venture. I explained geocaching to her, which she appeared to find amusing, and then off I went.

I took a different route back toward US 29 to head south to Greensboro. But... hang it all! Just shy of the exit to the highway, I come upon several feet of standing water and a bunch of cones blocking the road. From here, the only way to the highway was another lengthy detour. So, I decided to bite the bullet and see if I could make it through the water obstacle. Suffice it to say I did, though I ended up having to perform a slight — and fortunately simple — repair to the trusty Toyota once I got past this new, temporary lake.

From near the geocache site, the view looking east

The view looking south

The view looking west

The obstacle I faced on the way to US 29. Made it!

After successfully quitting Danville, I headed back home to Greensboro for a brief respite between travels. Then I picked up Kimberly at Casa di Brugger, and off we went, bound for Durham and long-overdue visit with my former next-door neighbors and fellow geocachers, TravelinFarmFam, a.k.a. Paul & Jamie. Since they left Greensboro, their family has grown by two much younger members. During the intervening years, I've seen Paul several times, when he's come to deal with issues at their house next door, but I haven't seen Jamie since they left here in 2013, and I had never met their wee little offspring before.

It would be safe to say it wasn't long after our arrival at Casa di FarmFam that the first bottle of wine popped its cork. Things haven't changed too much with Paul & Jamie because, way back when, they owned magical wine glasses. Those are glasses that magically refill themselves when one is looking away. Apparently, they still keep some of these marvelous items on hand because, even after drinking a prodigious amount, the wine level in my glass never really diminished. I must have looked away several times. Wonderful and strange, isn't it?

For dinner, Paul grilled some of his famous burgers — bison, this this go-round. Paul has always been an admirable grill master, and he once again proved his prowess, as did Jamie with some delicious roasted vegetables and risotto. And I must tell you that these fine youngsters up and introduced me to Paqui ghost pepper tortilla chips. For them, the Paqui chips were a little too hot to enjoy, and Ms. B. got the hiccups after trying her first sample. However, I found these to be the most perfect chips I've ever enjoyed, and I was happy to finish the bag for our friends, so that none of these incredible contents should go to waste. The Paqui people sponsor the "One Chip Challenge," and I've actually craved the opportunity to try one of those hot-ass bastards. In fact, I just ordered a sampler package of Paqui chips from Amazon.com. Because, well, I kind of had to, didn't I? Anyhoo, we ended up watching some YouTube show with a hot, HOT chicken wing challenge, featuring numerous hot sauces, most of which I have already tried and survived. The viewing made for good fun. And it has done flung a cravin' on me... hence the ordering of the surpassing hot goodies mentioned above.

This morning, Jamie prepared a fabulous breakfast, and then the lot of us took off to do a little geocaching. Kind of like old times, except for the pair of wee young additions to the gang. We found a few caches, didn't find a couple, and then, with great sadness, we parted ways. About the time Ms. B. and I hit the highway, we decided we would need some lunch before we got home. So, we hauled ourselves over to Hillsborough BBQ Company, which has long been a favorite lunchtime destination, particularly for those of us out geocaching. And  — how fortuitous! — there is a relatively new geocache (Kiersten's Birthday Cache [GC8J2DD]) just across the road from the restaurant, which of course I have now claimed.

There's a new Ameri-Scares novel brewing upstairs, this one for the state of New Hampshire, chronicling a reprise of the famous UFO sightings near the town of Exeter in the year 1965. I first learned of these events when I was about six or seven years old, from an issue of Reader's Digest that my Grandparents owned (my grandmother collected years and years' worth of Reader's Digest issues). It was an article called "Outer Space Ghost Story," by John G. Fuller, and it immediately caught my youthful attention. A while back, on eBay, I found that particular issue plus a couple of others, which featured articles on the Loch Ness Monster and the Haunting of the George & Dragon Inn in England. So, of course, I now have copies of my own. "Incident at Exeter" seemed a perfect subject for a new Ameri-Scares novel, so I may take some of the brainstorming I've already done and begin composing an outline this evening.

So, this weekend saw me relaxing in the extreme to being remarkably productive. But it's about zoomed past now, and tomorrow it'll be back to the office and a full week of work. I so need a break from the break.

Till tomorrow and beyond.

11K Milestone

Just over eleven years after I started geocaching, I found my 11,000th geocache — yesterday, on the American Tobacco Trail, south of Durham, NC. I didn't make any special plans for this particular milestone, as I have for others. Last year, for my 10,000th, Ms. B. and I made a ten-mile round-trip hike to McAfee Knob near Roanoke, VA (see "Ten Years, Ten-Thousand Geocaches"). In past years, for various milestone caches, I've gone deep underground, paddled many miles in a kayak, and gone up great big trees. Really, it is kind of a pain in the tail to try to plan for a specific milestone on a specific date. Eleven thousand is a nice number, but this didn't seem worth the hassle of all that planning. So, since a bunch of us had previously decided to hit the ATT on Sunday, I figured that whichever cache I found for 11K was all fine with me.

It was a crowd of the usual suspects that headed to Durham on Easter Sunday morning. Cupdaisy (a.k.a. Shoffner), Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie), Robgso (a.k.a. Old Rob) set out bright and early for the trail. Our group, whoever among us it happens to be, usually adopts a team name, and for this one, in honor of Easter, I suggested Team Walking Dead. Alas, I was outvoted in favor of Team Easter Bunny. It wasn't until we'd hopped a fair distance and grabbed several caches that I even figured out which one was actually 11K. Turns out it was a nice little hide called "Biscuit Got a Rock" (GCXK5W), hidden by friend NCBiscuit (a.k.a. Linda). We ended up snagging 14 caches on a 7-mile hike, and we had designs for a few more, until....

A friend of my mom's called to tell me he and his family had taken her to church and lunch, but she had locked herself out of her house. She had keys, but they didn't seem to work. So, being the caregiver of note, I ended up having to head up to Martinsville, pick up Mum from her friends', and get her back into her house. The kicker was that her key actually worked — the door, being swollen from humidity, appears to have been a sticky bastard, giving the impression that it wouldn't unlock. It just took a little extra futzing. So, it was a long trip up and back that wasn't really necessary, all the more frustrating since I had just been there on Friday and Saturday. Sigh. But in any event, all is well that ends well, Mum is happily ensconced in her house, and I have 11,000 caches under my belt.

I hereby hope for a calamity-free week, as there have been more than the customary share of calamities in recent days. So calm it the fuck down, all right? Would ya? Thx.

Team No Dead Weight Does Dr. Evil (Almost)

Team No Dead Weight. Bloody Rob is beaming because he is bloody well bright.

The other day, Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie) let it be known that there should be beaucoup trail caching this weekend. So, this morning, Ms. Fish, Bloody Rob (a.k.a. Rob), and Old Rodan (yours) joined up to form another incarnation of Team No Dead Weight (the customary moniker for whatever poor, unsuspecting geocachers we can round up for a day of forced hunting). Off we headed to a section of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail around Falls Lake, just east of Durham, NC. The day started out rather chilly and quite foggy, but by the time we hit the trail, the fog had lifted and the temperature had risen above the 40-degree mark.

Old Rob remains behind, guarding the
entrance to hell

There were an even dozen caches on the trail, and we conquered the lot of them without undue difficulty and in fairly good time. We found ammo cans, camouflaged lock & locks, bison tubes, rubber chickens, and dog chew toys, one of which I swear was an alien dildo screwed to a tree (that one wasn't actually a cache; it was just taking up space for whatever reason). Our favorite, though, was a very small human skeleton sitting in a holly tree. It was.

From there, we ventured forth to Trali Irish Pub, which has been a favorite dining destination both with Ms. Brugger and on various geocaching expeditions. I had a wunnerful, wunnerful lamb burger with fries, and a kick-ass Bloody Mary. Ms. Fish and Bloody Rob tried scotch eggs, which is one of God's most delightful concoctions: a hard-boiled egg encased in spicy Irish sausage, breaded with panko, and deep-fried. They might ought to serve it with a side of defibrillator, but my lord is it tasty.

After lunch, we decided to head after a handful more caches, the most enjoyable of which was one called "Number Two Goes for a Walk" (GC3AAMM). It's one of those "Dr. Evil"-type caches (almost, anyway) — meaning that, to get to it, you're going to want a flashlight or several, and you do NOT want to go after it during or immediately following any substantial rainfall. It rained like the devil the past couple of weeks, but we happily found the culverts reasonably dry and quite comfy. The trip underground wasn't as long or as difficult as most of those "Dr. Evil" hides, but it proved challenging enough to be memorable. What was kind of funny was that, just a short time earlier, both Ms. Fish and I were wishing we might find exactly such a hide at some point during the day. Now, Old Bloody Rob doesn't care for such underground shenanigans, so he guarded the entrance to the underworld while we explored it. Yeah, he knows what he's missing, which I guess is exactly why he is missing it.

Coming home, we drove toward a spectacular blazing sunset. It was a good day on the geocaching trail, the downside of which means it flew by, and next thing you know, it's another flippin' work day. Boogers.

Over and out.

Falls Lake out yonder

Driving into a spooktacular sunset

Waterproof?

Well, that was a hoot. Four Old Farts gathered early this morning for geocaching on and around the American Tobacco Trail in Durham. Bloody Rob, Yoda Rob, Diefenbaker, and Old Rodan began with a couple of quick traditional caches in a crazy busy shopping area, but then we had to adjust our elevation to go after one of Vortexecho's (a.k.a. "Gone 2 Far") ubiquitous underground culvert hides. Just to get to the entrance, we had to hack our way through a veritable jungle of briers — that nasty, tiny, barbed type that cling to you like Velcro, shredding your skin and clothes until you somehow separate yourself from the little bastards. Bloody Rob was not the bloody one today, though, because I went first and did most of the clearing of the passage to the tunnel entrance. This resulted in considerable bloodletting and the occasional hollering for Mom that would have surely prompted Mom to clap her hands over her ears and sing "La, la, la, la, la!"

Naturally, no sooner had we cut our trail through this field of natural barbed wire than we saw Diefenbaker waltzing down the hill off to our right, which he cheerfully proclaimed free of briers. This was a really rotten thing to do, but we did use his route to go back out once we had completed our errand.

Then, for us, it was a delicate dance to get across a few rocks and into the pipe without drenching our boots. Done and done. The pipe wasn't too tight, and we could walk by bending over slightly — this was encouraging. We did notice raccoon tracks and droppings along the way, and I recalled a log indicating that a previous cache hunter had encountered a coon in the pipe. Mainly, though, since it was (and is) ridiculously warm out, around 80 freaking degrees, I was more concerned about encountering Copperheads, which tend to be fond of the environment we were occupying.

At the next junction, the pipe got narrower, resulting in more than a few conked noggins, and the going became a bit slower. Then, stepping into the chamber at the next junction, I glanced up and, sure enough, there was our raccoon friend lounging on the rungs of the ladder. We exchanged a few pleasantries, and I wanted to name him George and hug him and pet him and squeeze him, but mean old Uncle Bloody Rob said no. C'mon, jeez, just because the little fellow had sharp teeth and claws...? I took a couple of photos of George, but they ended up blurry because I was also trying to hold the flashlight and keep from slipping and falling in the cramped chamber. That's him hanging out at the manhole cover in the accompanying image. (You can click on these to enlarge.)

"Hello? Is it me you're looking for?"

Anyhow, we still had a ways to go, and this pipe was the smallest of all, necessitating either crawling or — as I did — lowering to one's haunches and shuffling along a hundred feet or so through shallow water.

At last, mission accomplished. Back through the pipe, wave to George as we pass, and finally reach sunlight — and few more briers, just for good measure.

From there we began our hike on the American Tobacco Trail, found a fair number of mostly traditional hides (an old telephone in the woods was something of a favorite), and eventually made our way to Ted's Montana Grill, which specializes in bison and is thus one of my favorite establishments to frequent. Service was very slow today, but the food was incredible, as always. I figure that will pretty much take care of today's vittles, and if I actually do care to eat to anything more tonight, I can go outside and nibble on some grass.

Ta ta!

L: Old Fart #1 (scary). R: Old Fart #2 (scarier).