Miscreants in Midland

Monday, July 22, 2024
Yes, we're off to Midland, MI, again. Ms. B.'s folks are aging and need some extra help these days, so Kimberly goes up every couple of months. I accompany her from time to time and do what I can to help keep them living in their home of many years.

To get reasonably affordable flights, we have to pick those that go at the least convenient times, almost always before the ass-crack of dawn. We packed our bags yesterday, rose this morning at 3:30 a.m., and set out on the road, bound for Greensboro's Piedmont Triad International. We had a little bonus time this morning because our flight left at 6:30 a.m., rather than the customary 6:00 a.m. We connected at Chicago O'Hare, with less than an hour between our arrival and subsequent departure.

Both flights went off without a hitch, for which we were very grateful. After the big Windows crash this past weekend, there was still evidence of glitches in the airline systems; most all the info screens were still blank, and lots of bedraggled folks huddled and/or slept in various corners all over O'Hare, where we made our connection. There but for the grace of Yog...

Anyway, Del & Fern met us at Saginaw International, and we headed to the homestead. A quick lunch of sandwiches for us, and then I took a lengthy walk around the neighborhood. For the rest of the afternoon, we hung out with the folks, and then Ms. B. and I headed out for a relatively early dinner. We'd set our sights on Molasses, our favorite local BBQ destination, but they were closed for some remodeling. Hang it all! So we moseyed over to nearby Whichcraft, known for their plentiful stock of local brews and spirits. I tried their BBQ sandwich, which wasn't bad, but hardly of Molasses caliber. Their chipotle vodka Bloody Mary was also just so-so; thus, I can only give them a 3.5 out of 5 this time around. Last time we were there, my choices were apparently superior. Afterward, I found a cache.

The rest of the evening was our typical hangout at the homestead: watching television with the folks — mostly game shows tonight — and enjoying a spot of good wine. Since it had been quite a long day since 3:30 a.m., I retired early.

Tuesday, July 23, 2024

Old man and cache find #15,000

Up early for me, not so much for Ms. B. I made a nice breakfast of bacon, egg, and toast, with a bucket of coffee, and then headed out for some geocaching. I needed five to reach my 15,000-find milestone, so I set my sights on the Pine Haven Recreation Area, an extensive trail system out toward Sanford. I snagged a handful of caches along the trail, culminating with my 15,000th, which turned out to be a clever, well-constructed cache, worthy of a milestone find. I also discovered one of the world's biggest caches of mosquitoes, for the woods were full of them, and they came at me with far more vehemence than we typically encounter down south — and ours are not slouches in the vehemence department. And I had gone out without bug spray. Oy!

From there, I trucked over to the nearby Père Marquette Rail Trail, which runs thirty miles between Midland and Clare, with a geocache placed every tenth of a mile along most of it. I've cached several sections, but there are still many miles left for me to hunt. Along the trail, the summer growth was so thick and high that, in some places, getting to the caches was worse than problematic, so I only claimed five on today's outing. Again, the mosquito assault on my person was a thing out of some dark legend. Next time out, there will be bug spray. Lots of it.

These days, Del & Fern prefer to have their biggest meal of the day in the afternoon, so back at Casa di Brugger, I prepared a grand dinner of Chicken Piccata, which they've enjoyed in the past. It turned out quite good, so perhaps they'll continue to claim me as their son-in-law for a while longer.

Later in the afternoon, Ms. B. and I drove up to Calvary Cemetery, a few miles north of Midland, so I could snag a few more caches and she could wander among the graves. I found several, and she found a very friendly groundhog, which seemed quite happy to frolick around with her. Plus she found some cool old graves.

Shortly after our return home, Kim's aunt Cheryl and cousin Beverly came over for a visit, and there were stories. Many, many stories. If I ever need to write blackmail stories about certain folks of my acquaintance, I may have some ammunition.

This evening, the rain came down, but we hauled ourselves out for a couple of drinks at Three Bridges Distillery and Grape Beginnings, another couple of our regular local favorite hangouts. In the commons are outside these establishments, there is a Cornhole game setup. So we played Cornhole. Oh, yes we did! And then... the old homestead TV lounge.

Heading out on the trail at Pine Haven Recreational Area

Damned Rodan's Chicken Piccata over angel hair

Ms. B's new groundhog friend

Some of the many ghost pipes Ms. B. photographed

Wednesday, July 24, 2024
Having snagged geocache #15,000, my next goal is claiming 500 caches in Michigan for a challenge cache in Greensboro that requires you to have found at least 1,000 caches in one state and at least 500 caches in two others. Well, I have in excess of 11,000 in North Carolina and over 1,600 in Virginia; Michigan is next in line, since I've worked my way up to almost 500 finds over many trips here. As of first thing this morning, I needed 12 more to reach 500. So, bright and early, I headed out to the rural back roads of northern Midland County where tons of park & grab caches offer opportunities to increase one's cache find count with relative ease. Complicating matters, however, are that they are spread out over many miles and most of them are quite old, so lots of them have gone missing over the years without being replaced.

My first target was a newly published cache that one other local hunter had sought, but he'd logged a DNF (Did Not Find). He is a highly experienced geocacher, so I figured if he couldn't find it, the cache is not there. Regardless, I decided to give it a try. It was a loverly little neighborhood in the middle of nowhere, and I enjoyed visiting the place. However, as I fully expected, I found nothing — well, other than a couple of neighbors who came out of their house and gave me some looks for which "unwelcoming" is far too kind. I think it's safe to say they had no idea there was supposedly a cache hidden there. So, I retreated without a find. However, at the end of the run, I came home with a ten finds, which left me with only two to qualify for the second state with 500 finds.

For our midday dinner, Kimberly made shrimp tacos. Her Aunt Jeannie (sister of Aunt Cheryl, who visited yesterday) joined us. A pleasant visit.

After lunch, Kimberly and I went out to Midland City Forest, which has many hiking trails and several caches I haven't yet claimed. We put in about three miles of hiking, the lady seeking interesting fungi to photograph, the old dude seeking caches. As it turned out, it was Ms. B. who found two of the most difficult caches on our route. A couple of more disappointing DNFs, but I claimed my two to complete the challenge — plus one.

We decided to stay home with the folks this evening. Tomorrow, Ms. B.'s dad has an early-morning medical appointment in Ann Arbor, a couple of hours south of here, so she'll be heading out with Del & Fern before sunup.

Me, I'll be doing laundry tomorrow. One can go through some clothes on these hot summer days on the geocaching trail.

On the trail in Midland City Forest

Anyone lose a brain?

Thursday, July 25, 2024
The folks headed out for Ann Arbor at some ungodly hour this morning, so once I was up, about, and sufficiently caffeinated, I set out on foot after a Wherigo cache, which looked interesting because, to find the hidden container, you regularly query the program about its distance from your present position, essentially playing hot & cold. The icon on the map lay near downtown, a couple of miles away, so I figured I should start walking that direction. Off I went, and my queries gradually led me closer until I was less than half a mile away, at which time it became clear I needed to start moving westward.

Fortunately, I've become quite familiar with Midland's roads over the years, so I hardly spent any time moving back and forth to reduce the distance to my target; only when I was within a hundred yards did I need to go in several directions to determine the proper course. But soon I saw what appeared to be the perfect host for a geocache hide, and — yep! — there it was. What a fun journey and a cool cache.

Once back at Casa di Brugger, my health app showed I'd walked almost exactly six miles — hardly more than I put in on my regular daily walks back home. The walking has definitely been good for me, as I've lost fifteen pounds in the past year, and at my most recent physical checkup, back in May, my blood work results were the best I've had in decades. Also, I'm getting into a ton of audiobooks to keep me company while I'm out and about. I've been binging on F. Paul Wilson's Adversary Cycle and Repairman Jack novels, which I've found more engrossing than any series I've gotten into since Roger Zelazny's Amber novels. I'm almost finished with them, but I've got a virtual stack of various audiobooks loaded on my phone to keep me going.

We spent the afternoon taking care of assorted tasks around the house and hanging with the folks. An online friend had recommended an amateur production of H.P. Lovecraft's The Whisperer in Darkness, so I watched it on YouTube. It proved a mixed bag; very faithful to the source material, with effective atmosphere, excellent cinematography, and remarkably cool imagery. It also drew out way too many scenes to ridiculous lengths, to generate suspense, I suppose, but all it did was increase the running time to the point of tedium. Some of the film's shortcomings were so severe I found myself hard-pressed to finish it. But finish it I did, and in the end, I'll admit that I'm glad. The climax was excellent. Where the movie worked, I give it an A+++. Where it didn't, I give it a D–. The good outweighed the bad, but only just.

For dinner, Ms. B. and I went to Fuji Sushi, which is a regular Midland dining destination. A delicious sushi/sashimi combo for me, vegetable yakisoba for Ms. B. Afterward, I set my sights on another nearby Wherigo cache that required navigating by way of hot & cold clues. Since we completed the macro distances in the car, we managed to home in on the cache à pied in relatively short order. Once again, a super fun Wherigo.

For the rest of the evening, it was the usual gathering with folks in the TV lounge. As days go, this one proved far, far better than being slapped in the belly with a wet trout.

A couple of youngsters en route to "Midland Is Wherigo"

Friday, July 26, 2024

A beautiful morning at Hiwassee Lake

Today, I am slow-cooking a big ol' pork roast to make BBQ for Del & Fern, so as soon as I poured my first cup of coffee, I set about prepping the pig. It'll be cooking in the crock pot for most of the day, and there should be plenty of it left for them to freeze for later.

Over many trips here, I've claimed almost all the geocaches within walking or biking distance of Casa di Brugger, but I did see a puzzle cache on the map not too far away with a high difficulty rating. Once I gave it a good look, I realized I could almost certainly solve it, so I gave it a shot. The puzzle involves a geocode system called What3words, which identifies any location on the surface of the earth using three unique words. Then the puzzle requires projecting a set of coordinates based on those words. The projection I came up with looked promising, so I set out on Del's bike and rode the couple of miles down to Stratford Woods, where the cache is located. Much to my satisfaction, the coordinates turned out to be perfect, and I found the cache immediately. Woohoo!

But blimey, so few left to go after anywhere nearby. I has a sad.

During the afternoon, I drove down to nearby Freeland to grab a handful of caches for my last full day on this Midland trip. Once back, I put the finishing touches on Del & Fern's pork BBQ, which I hope they'll enjoy. Then Ms. B. and I got together with her friend Kim — yes, another one! — and hied ourselves down to Whichcraft for a couple of drinks (for me, dirty martinis made with local gin that I give very high marks). Then... at last!... to Molasses, where I ate what has got to be the best BBQ sandwich I've ever tasted: the Three Amigos sandwich, with chopped brisket, chopped pork, and crispy bacon, accompanied by a variety of sauces. Aggh! Incredible! Who'da thunk that as a BBQ aficionado I'd find such superlative dead critter in Midland, MI?! But truly. Yes. This. Is. It.

From there, we moseyed across the road to Grape Beginnings, where we met Ms. B.'s long-time friend, Darren, and closed the place down. And that was pretty much our finale for this trip. Tomorrow, it's back home — and, fortunately, we don't have to leave at the ass-crack of dawn.

Assuming nothing dire happens to any of us during the next few months, we'll plan to return at some point near year's end. Until then, Midland!

The Three Amigos BBQ sandwich at Molasses, with cole slaw and potato salad with fresh dill. Superb!

Midland or (Damn Near) Bust!

Our typical view forward (from a standstill) for a disgusting percentage of our 750-mile drive to Michigan

Thursday, August 3–Friday, August 4
Kimberly B.’s cousins in Michigan had planned a family reunion for this weekend, and so we decided some time ago that we would attend. With flights being crazy expensive, we opted to drive, as we have several times in the past. What we hadn’t done was drive to Michigan at the height of highway construction season. Our plan was similar to our previous road trips here: leave home and head to Ripley, WV; stay the night at the handy-dandy Super 8 Motel there; and then drive the rest of the way the following day. Ordinarily, this makes for a 12- to 14-hour trip, including occasional stops. Thanks to countless construction holdups, the inevitable accidents, and miles-long traffic jams courtesy of too many motherfucking people, we ended up with a damn near 18-hour drive.

Bloody exhausting. At least I managed to find a handful of decent geocaches along the way, and we listened to an audiobook (Casino Royale) and some fun 70s and 80s music to mitigate the frustration. It rained most of the way on Thursday, but at least it wasn’t blinding. Friday’s drive felt like the endless traffic jam from hell since we easily spent as much time crawling (or motionless) as we did moving at a clip. After a particularly egregious delay just north of Ann Arbor, Brugger suggested we stop at a nearby Mexican Restaurant and have an early dinner (along with a margarita for good measure). That was just enough to help us mellow out, and, finally, we made that last couple of hours to her folks’ place in Midland without undue delay.

Saturday, August 5
The family reunion was to kick off at noon, so at 11:30 a.m., Kimberly, Del, Fern, and I set out for the backcountry around Loomis, MI, about a half hour from Midland. I’d met only a couple of her cousins before, so for me, this was mostly a gathering of strangers, but the decent food and company made for a relaxing enough event.

This date is my dear, late friend “Old Rob” Isenhour’s birthday, so a while back, friend Scott (a.k.a. Diefenbaker) and I organized a geocaching event to be held today to commemorate his life and myriad contributions to our geocaching community. At the time, I didn’t recall our commitment to Ms. B’s family reunion. So, since I couldn’t attend Rob’s birthday event in person, Scott arranged for me to pipe in with a video call at 2:00 p.m. As the reunion drew to a close, I hoofed it down the long dirt road to a find nearby geocache, and at ground zero, I attempted to make the call. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t go through. Fortunately, once we got back to Casa di Brugger, the call worked, so Ms. B. and I were able to virtually attend the event for a time. It turned out to be the biggest gathering of local geocachers in years, featuring many old-timers who haven’t been active in years. That warmed my old heart since Rob had been such a noteworthy figure, both in my life and in our community.

Old Rodan on the hunt

A right purty view from GZ

For the evening, Ms. B.’s longtime friend, Linda, formerly of Midland, and her daughter, Hayley, who were visiting from Illinois, joined us for drinks and dinner at Whichcraft, a nice downtown establishment featuring Michigan-made spirits of all varieties. As it turned out, this was also the weekend for Midland’s annual River Days celebration, which drew a sizable crowd downtown. Happily, we managed to find easy parking, relatively mellow surroundings, and more refreshments at nearby Grape Beginnings, a fine local winery/wine bar that Brugger and I make a point to visit whenever we’re here. Linda and Hayley proved excellent company, and we ended up closing down the wine bar. Toward the end of the evening, we bore witness to what I would call the most spectacular fireworks display I’ve ever experienced. For a full half-hour, the myriad explosions lit the sky without even a few seconds pause. Apparently, River Days provides quite the blast here in Midland.

Sunday, August 6
I haven’t been a churchgoing soul for many years, but Del & Fern invited Kimberly and me to join them for the morning service at Midland Nazarene, and so... off to church we went. Theirs is what I would call a “modern” kind of service, with a band, contemporary music, and prerecorded video messages (which I found ironic since these focused on building personal connections) in addition to traditional churchy things. In the end, to quote the infamous Dr. Franklin Ruehl, it was better than being slapped in the belly with a wet trout. How about that?

The weather was drizzly and dreary all day, but Kimberly and I ventured out to grab lunch for the family from KFC, followed by a second outing to a downtown knick-knack shop she likes and then Live Oak Coffeehouse for some hot (or in her case, cold) refreshment. I stopped to hunt a nearby cache, but by all indications, the bloody thing was missing. It rained real water on me.

As is our custom when we don’t have other plans, Ms. B. and I spent the evening relaxing with the folks, mostly watching various TV shows in the family room. This was also better than the wet trout treatment.

Monday, August 7
This evening’s plan was for me to make dinner — meatloaf, at Del & Fern’s request — which meant I needed to go shopping at Meijer. However, I couldn’t bring myself to go shopping at Meijer without first going geocaching. So, I set out on this somewhat dreary morning (which, happily, turned undreary within an hour or so) to hunt some of the local hides I hadn’t yet found. I had mixed success. A couple of very tough ones eluded me (both of which I’ve hunted before; they eluded me then, too); several others I found without difficulty. All this amounted to about three miles of hoofing it on a comfortable morning, so I’m a happy cacher. Then I went to Meijer and picked up the dinner stuff (and some sushi for lunch, which was pretty awful; I should have known better than to buy Meijer sushi).

During the afternoon, I received the preliminary print file for Deathrealm: Spirits from Shortwave Publishing, so I spent a good while proofing it. I got pretty far with it, but soon it came time to prepare the evening dinner. It turned out danged good. Then... oy...! Migraine! Sure enough, it’s that time of year, when the weather begins to shift toward the next season. Today’s drop in temperature and low pressure no doubt triggered the damned thing. So, the evening turned out less comfortable than I’d hoped, but at least the headache wasn’t as severe as many that I’ve had in the past.

Much to our dismay, word from our housesitter is that Kim’s kitty, Ralph, who suffered congestive heart failure some time ago, isn’t doing very well. With the meds he’s been taking, he’s enjoyed almost normal health, but at this point, he may just be running out of time. Very, very sad. In any event, we’ll probably be leaving Michigan a day earlier than we had intended.

Tuesday, August 8
Our housesitter gave us a somewhat reassuring report this morning, but I think we’re still going to head home a day early. There’s nothing we can really do from here anyway, so we’ll have to enjoy our remaining time as best we can. Thus, after breakfast, I set my sights on the nearby community of Sanford, where a goodly number of caches awaited my attention. One of them was at a neat little covered bridge at the Sanford Centennial Museum, a cache I had hunted before — as my attempted 14,000th find — but it turned out to be missing at the time. It has since been replaced, so this morning, I was finally able to stake my claim. I also went after a trio of Adventure Lab caches, two of which were at the museum; I hiked and hunted along the Pere Marquette Rail Trail for a couple of miles; and I found caches at a couple of neat old graveyards. Once done, I put in three miles of hiking and logged a total of 26 caches. Not too shabby.

Once back at Casa di Brugger, I did a little updating on this blog and continued proofing the Deathrealm: Spirits dummy. For dinner, Ms. B. and I headed to d’Alessandro’s Italian Restaurant, which we’ve enjoyed several times on past visits. And again, very pleasant tonight. Manicotti with Bolognese sauce for Ms. B. and Angel Hair with Bolognese per me. We accompanied this with a delicious Bocelli Sangiovese. Until this, I never realized the great Andrea Bocelli came from a winemaking family. I approve of both his voice and his spirits.

From this morning — a few of the sights around Sanford:

Wednesday, August 9
I set out bright and early this morning on yet another geocaching quest, this time bound for Freeland, a little community a few miles southeast of Midland. I had picked up a handful of Freeland caches in years past, but today I managed to put a pretty good dent in the total. A couple of graveyard caches had caught my eye — both of which I had previously visited on hunts for older caches. Sadly, I had not been successful on those hunts because the caches were missing, and, even more sadly, I had no better luck today — and I’m pretty sure it’s because these newer hides, too, have gone missing. Still, I had a mighty fine time, and I added another 14 to my total find count, which now stands at 14,420.

Kimberly and her parents went antiquing, and it turned out they, too, ended up in Freeland after a run to Saginaw. I had already arrived back home before they hit Freeland, though, so our paths would not have crossed. I could have accompanied them and done some caching in Saginaw as well as Freeland, but I figured I’d still end up in some antique stores, and I didn’t really have that kind of spirit in me today.

For dinner, we opted for Japanese, at Fuji Sushi, which we’ve enjoyed on previous occasions. Now, I understand it’s all economics, but I sure miss the days of sushi restaurants serving a wide variety of fish and seafood on their sushi plates. Like most nowadays, Fuji gives you two pieces of a select few varieties, instead of a single piece of numerous varieties. I prefer the latter. That said, the selections were delicious, and I found the salmon skin handroll quite heavenly.

For our final evening of this Midland trip, we enjoyed the usual family gathering in the family room with game shows and cooking shows providing the entertainment.

This trip has not been without some unusual stressors. Our kitty Ralph isn’t doing well. We had a bit of a scare that we might have expensive appliance issues back home, but I think the issue has been resolved, hopefully for the long haul. We’re very close to getting our Greensboro house sold, but some of the scheduling on the last legs of the journey has proven problematic. I’m sure it’ll get sorted out. But sometimes, I tend to be the nervous sort. And Ms. B. has been more than typically stressed out.

From this morning — a few of the sights around Freeland:

On the hunt in Pine Grove Cemetery

Pick a hole. Any hole.

A little covered footbridge at Memorial Park

A lovely day at West Side Cemetery

Thursday, August 10
I realized yesterday that I had left my hiking stick near a cache the other day, and so, figuring it would probably still be there, I went out there this morning — and yes, there it was. So it was nice to recover that stick. Old Rob gave me that stick many years ago, and so it carries with it a little more meaning than just any old hiking pole. Anyhoo, since I was out, I headed after a handful of nearby caches, including one in the deep, dark underground, which is one of my favorite types of hides.

So, soon, it will be time to pack, and off we shall go. I just hope our drive home is less of a pain in the ass than the drive up here.

Heading in...

The cache