Jamison Mill Firsts, Farts, and Friends

Team Old Farts and Friends: Old Rodan, Less Old McTwin, Old Skyhawk, REALLY Old McTwin

How nice it was on Saturday evening to hear my phone gonging over and over to notify me of a passel of new geocaches being published somewhere near me. How much nicer to discover they were at Jamison Mill Park, not far up the country roads along Philpott Lake, which I consider one of my favorite settings on Earth. So, yesterday morning, I got up with the sun and headed out to see if I might manage at least a few first-to-finds before lunchtime, since I had an Easter dinner engagement with old family friends. I hadn't hiked at Jamison Mill before, and what I discovered on my arrival was an extensive, beautifully maintained park and trail system — now populated by 19 new geocaches.

I knew I couldn't conquer the lot in swell foop, so I figured I'd hike and hunt until I had to head home in time to clean up for Easter lunch. I logged my first find at 0830 and my last at 1200 on the nose — a total of eleven first-to-finds and a hike of just about four miles. Not sidewalk miles... rugged, rocky, very steep miles, so suffice it to say that I worked up a pretty good tired and came home with slightly sore feets (the cushioning in my hiking boot soles is worn out in the extreme, so I think it's time to replace them). I managed to get home in plenty of time to make myself presentable and enjoy a wonderful Easter lunch with longtime friends/second family, the Wickliffes. Ms. B. had also intended to go, but she caught the crud I'd suffered last week and so stayed home to avoid infecting anyone else. She's nice that way. Sometimes.

Then, last night, friend Tom (a.k.a. Skyhawk63) hollered at me and said he and friends/fellow cachers, Daniel and Dustin (a.k.a. 2McTwins) planned to go after those caches I had not to see if they might pick up some first-to-finds this morning, and would I care to go along? I cared to. So, again, up early and off to Jamison Mill with the team, which we dubbed "Old Farts and Friends." I'm not sure who came up with that; I think it was one of the McTwins. Anyway, how very apt.

Today, since all the caches I hadn't picked up yesterday resided farther out in the park, we had a long hike ahead of us. To our surprise, we'd just begun our first hunt of the day when friend & fellow cacher Todd (a.k.a. Tbbiker) wandered over the hill. He'd started even earlier than us and was just about finished for the morning. He too had left a few first-to-finds unfound, so we managed to snag those before finishing our outing. We had one disappointment, which was failing to find one of the caches — which, of all things, Todd had found; we suspect that, in our zeal, we ended up displacing the container without realizing it and burying it in the thick layers of leaves. It wouldn't be the first time.

Anyway, such disappointment demands another outing that I might make a clean sweep. Maybe next week. Today, we put in over five miles on the trail, and so, between my two days of geocaching, I've hiked almost every inch of the trails out there.

On our way home, Tom and I stopped for lunch at The Checkered Pig, a Martinsville BBQ institution. It were all kindsa good.

Early Easter morning at Jamison Mill Park

Nice view of Philpott Lake from the trail

All that remains of the Bob Carter House along the banks of Philpott Lake

Trail along the lake bank

Looking upward from the center of a massive, ten-trunk sycamore tree

Trail map of Jamison Mill Park. Between two days of hiking and caching, I covered almost every
inch of those trails — about nine miles

Bad George and Other Blasts From the Past

A busy week it was. Hardly unexpectedly, I received a call from my former boss, asking if I would care to put in a few hours per month freelancing, since, without me, they're pretty much up to their ears in alligators. It's actually a welcome opportunity to keep doing a job I know and enjoy. Plus there's the extra bucks, which can't hurt. I also made considerable progress on Georgia: The Haunting of Tate's Mill. I can see the light at the end of this one.

A few new, local geocaches came out this past week, so I put in a couple of rigorous cache hunts — one in the dumping rain that so waterlogged me that I still have water in my shoes. Friend Old Rob and I shared in the first-to-find, so that made us both smile real big.

In Martinsville over the weekend, I discovered a couple of folders that contained scads of school papers and artwork by both my brother and me, which my mom had saved. I had no idea these existed. Some went back as far as kindergarten. The image you see upstairs there is a pen & ink rendering of my great-uncle Herbert's place in Gainesville, GA, which I drew sometime in the 1980s. My aunt Dot made it into the cover of a greeting card. Perhaps my favorite discovery among these treasures was an unfinished class drawing from second grade. Written on it was the following exchange between my teacher, Ms. Jackson, and me:

Mark: "Sorry I did not get throu. Goarge botherd me."

Ms. Jackson: "Please try to finish your work in the morning. You do not need to talk to George."

I remember George well. I haven't seen him since early in elementary school, but I did find him online. He is apparently an attorney over in Winston-Salem.

Many of my old drawings were plenty violent, with Indian massacres, knights battling on castle towers, dinosaurs and other monsters chowing down on innocent passersby. Some were a bit nicer. There were drawings of my family traveling in an airplane; a pretty decent rendering of my dog, Patty; and a number of reasonably well-rendered space rockets. Below is a drawing I made in third grade, which I thought was actually pretty cool.

On Saturday, I rode up to Rocky Mount to hunt a few caches. It was pretty chilly and very windy for most of the time I was out and about. The couple of hides I found at the Franklin County Parks & Recreation Center on Sontag Road proved simple enough. But at Waid Park, I turned a medium difficulty hike into a rugged and fairly risky venture by doing what I tend to do best: plow straight ahead from point A to point B, damning the torpedoes in the process. I ended up skirting a lengthy portion of the Pigg River, the banks of which were steep and treacherous, and from which a bad step would have had disastrous consequences. Fortunately, I managed to maintain my footing. Once past that little obstacle, I found myself negotiating some hairy inclines and dense, difficult woods. But again, I prevailed, and, soon enough, had the cache in hand. As one might surmise, I felt the effects of this little outing pretty severely a little later. However, once back at home, a fine dinner and some wine with Ms. B. made for a comfortable, relaxing evening.

This morning, friend Natalie (a.k.a. Fishdownthestairs) and I headed down to Siler City, where we knocked out a few entertaining caches we both still needed.

Ms. B. and I are currently working our way through Twin Peaks again, from start to finish. The craving was upon both of us, and it's been quite the treat, since I haven't watched it with her for about a decade. And she'd never seen the third season (The Return), which we just started this evening. She's not the devoted David Lynch fan that I am, but she's been enjoying it so far.

For the coming week, I'm hoping to reach the end of Georgia: The Haunting of Tate's Mill. I'm definitely ready to get this one out to the publisher and into the hands of readers.

All righty then. Get on with you. Peace out.

My first-grade rendering of a United DC-8, circa 1966

Cowboys and Indians having a bad time of it, from my kindergarten days

Fire at Camelot! One of my third-grade drawings