Back to the Barn

In the past couple of months, I think I've spent more time hunting Geocaches at and around Hagan Stone Park in southeastern Guilford County than in all my previous nine years of caching (see "From Hagan Stone to Transylvania," "From Company Mill to Wet Willie," and "The Last Year of My Fifth Decade Begins" for some real sob stories). Each of these excursions has been made as a direct result of numerous new caches coming out over a period of weeks, most hidden by the nefarious Geocacher known only as Government Mule. Apparently, Mr. Mule has been back at it this past week, for a few more caches have been published on the new Company Mill Preserve nature trail — problem being that I can't hunt them.

Except for one. Because I've made plans to find cache #10,000 this weekend, and I'm at the cutoff point — as of this afternoon, I had 9,998 logged finds — I could hunt one. And do you think I did? Damn right.

During my three-day, many-hours-long hunt for "Back from Transylvania" (GC7MX1F) — whose published coordinates turned out to be more than a quarter mile from its actual hiding place — I had discovered the remains of an old homestead, including a couple of crumbling tobacco barns, and explored them all in great depth. And wouldn't you know it, one of the new caches — "Tobacco" (GC7P9Q8) — appeared to be at one of those barns. Friend Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie) had hunted this one a couple of days ago but had been unable to find it. So this afternoon, she and I teamed up to hopefully beat it into submission and claim the coveted first-to-find (FTF) honors.

We met at the trailhead in the park and had a very pleasant hike out to ground zero, most of a mile from the parking area. A severe thunderstorm warning had been issued, and skies were turning dark, but we weren't about to let a little adverse weather put a kink in our plan. Quite a bit of thunder began to boom through the woods, but as it turned out, not a drop of water fell until we were on our ways back home. Soon enough we reached our destination and, as expected, our GPS units did little more than lead us around in circles, the satellite bounce being so bad we never could ascertain a true ground zero. So we set our geosenses to working overtime and began close, thorough examinations of both those tenuous, dilapidated structures. These old buildings are just shy of collapse, and one of them is much farther than the other into the process of disintegration.

Eventually, we broke and regrouped, hoping our GPS units would calibrate enough to offer us a little more help, but this was not to be. But after a time, during one of our many circuits of the site, I noticed something that appeared out of place peeking from one of the barns' tenebrous hollows, and upon investigation, much to my satisfaction, it was indeed the cache.

So. A nice hike, nice company, and a nice FTF, which puts my total number of finds at 9,999. So until the big one, much to my chagrin, I am pretty much done.

I hope I don't get too antsy. I can feel it happening already.

As the Last Year of my Fifth Decade Begins...

Old Rodan at "A Point in the Distance" (GCMF98)

Most years since I started Geocaching (in 2008), I've taken a day off work at my birthday to go out on the hunt. This year, however, timing-wise and work-wise, it didn't work out, but next weekend — all the forces of the universe cooperating — I'm anticipating an outing with Ms. Brugger to go in search of Geocache #10,000. Hoping for all good things on this front.

I had plotted something of an early birthday surprise for Ms. B., so on Friday, she and I went to Martinsville where she was treated to a wine glass painting class at Piedmont Arts Association (where I once exhibited and taught art back in the dawn of man). For good measure, I joined her in this endeavor, and we painted ourselves some nice wine glasses, which I'm certain will be put to good use. We also got to drink wine and eat good food at the event, so there was happiness to go around.

Despite being only a handful of caches away from hitting the big milestone, I managed to get in some highly satisfying hunting this weekend. To provide some context: yesterday was what is known in certain esoteric circles as "Crunken Dorking Day," a tradition that came about some time ago when Kimberly and friend Beth N. got together to do crafting with wine corks. Of course wine was involved, and an attempt by one of them to say "drunken corking" came out as "crunken dorking," and the name stuck. So yesterday morning, we trucked over to Winston-Salem so that the ladies might crunk some dorks, and I hit the caching trail.

Twice over the years I had gone after a truly mean hide in Horizons Park called "David & Diana's Bane" (GCQFJ4), but because getting to the logsheet involves spending an inordinate amount of time in one spot — usually interfering with valuable, limited caching time — I had simply given up. Because I could only claim a scant few before hitting the big #10K, I figured this was the time to give it a go. The cache is a great big water bottle filled with a couple hundred film canisters, and only one of them contains the log sheet. Because of the shape of the water bottle, you can only shake out one canister at a time, and as you might imagine, this process might tax the patience of the less-than-patient among us. Well, several years and 98 film canisters later, I have finally claimed "David & Diana's Bane." And so glad am I to put this one to rest....

The other rather beastly one is called "A Point in the Distance" (GCMF98), a multi-stage cache which requires calculating the coordinates of the final stage by determining the convergence point of two bearings from separate waypoints several miles apart. This involved finding a container at Horizons Park, then at another park some distance to the south. Happily, I had discovered an online tool to calculate coordinates for just such a problem, and so I was able to finally put this cache to rest as well. The travel between waypoints and the hiking involved to each stage made this one the day's most challenging endeavor.

Ms. B. and I then spent a most pleasant evening of dinner, wine, and great company with friends Terry and Beth. By the time we got home, quite late last night, at least one of us fell over and went boom.

My old friend Bog Turtle (a.k.a. Beth W.), caching partner extraordinaire from too many years back, was in town for a few days, so today, we met with the notorious Cupdaisy (a.k.a. Debbie) at Hagan Stone Park to hike and hunt caches — I limited myself to four, though Beth and Debbie picked up several others along the way. Things started out peaceably enough, with some relatively easy trail hiking and a few nice finds. But the placement of a few newer caches out there had us in a quandary. Should we go back to the road and approach the caches as the cache owner (CO) recommended? Or just power on through all kinds of unknown terrain? We opted for the latter, which, as you may have by now guessed, was not the world's best idea ever.

The official Geocaching Terrain Difficulty Scale goes from 1 to 5, 1 being the easiest, 5 being the hardest. As I led the parade through thick woods and across broad power line cuts, I managed to land us in some areas of about Terrain 8. I am not going to say that we clambered over an electrified fence onto private property, went some distance, and then repeated the process to return to park property (the shortest individual in the party making a spectacular flying leap), but I suppose any witnesses who might have been in the area would say someone did. (Nor will I mention that we signed the cache logs as "The Electric Company.") And there was blood. Not mine, but at least one among us (okay, it was Beth W.) decided that the creed devised by our mutual caching buddy Robgso — "If you don't bleed, you're not having fun" — is not one to take lightly.

We finished our outing by meeting Ms. B. for an excellent lunch at The Fat Frogg in Elon. Their "Poison Dart" hot sauce, which I put on some excellent chicken tenders, has one powerful burn, and they make a mean Bloody Mary. By the time I got back home, I fell over and went boom. I may do it again before the night is over.

Current cache count is 9,997. And happy trails to you.

Ms. Bog Turtle was hollering "Giddyup! Go! Giddyup! Go!" But it wouldn't go.

From Hagan Stone to Transylvania

I'm getting closer and closer to my 10,000th Geocache find—my current count stands at 9,933, and I have made plans to go after #10K on May 12, since Brugger and I had already reserved that weekend for something a bit out of the ordinary. So, between now and then, I have to claim 67 more caches, which, all things considered, should not prove too difficult. It's just that working toward a specific number, never knowing what new caches might pop up in the interim, can end up a little dicey, as I discovered with several previous milestone finds.

This has been an interesting week for Geocaching indeed. During the past month, a number of caches along a new nature trail at Hagan Stone Park, in SE Guilford County, have been published, so I've made several trips down that way to hunt them. On my initial searches, I found all but one of them—a devilish beast called “Back From Transilvania” [sic], (GC7MX1F)—which had also stymied several cache hunters before me. On my first search for this elusive little devil, I discovered the skeletal remains of an old homestead very near the posted coordinates, and since I couldn't find the cache, I spent a considerable amount of time exploring the old ruins. I had notified the cache owner that I suspected his listed coordinates were not correct, and in a message back to me, he indicated the hide was at or near an old farmhouse. Well... in light of what I had discovered, I set about a methodical search of the various structures. Given the sheer number of potential hiding places, I knew this would be a daunting task, but I felt I at least had a sporting chance. Out here, I found myself totally isolated, the atmosphere agreeably eerie. A few turkey buzzards scrabbling around the old metal roofs made for a startling moment.

Alas, this first expedition, while enjoyable, failed to turn up the cache.

Yesterday, following a gratifying first-to-find at another new hide in the vicinity (“& Bullwinkle” [GC7MRFY]), I decided to return to the old homestead and try again. I spent a couple of hours on the hunt, focusing on certain areas around the old buildings, but I again failed to find my quarry. As I made my egress from the site, the cache owner sent me a slightly more precise hint, and I was tempted to turn around and try again, but Ms. B. and I had a dinner engagement at her house with friends—Geocaching friends, in fact: Skyhawk63 (a.k.a. Tom) and Punkins19 (a.k.a. Linda)—so I had to reluctantly admit defeat a second time.

Our dinner (my homemade vegetable beef soup, made only slightly nuclear for our guests' sake,) proved delicious, the company fantastic, and since I had resolved to hit Hagan Stone at the crack of dawn—to hopefully beat the forecast bad weather—I spent the night at Ms. B.'s place. And indeed, not long after sunrise, I was on my way back to the trail to put whatever new knowledge I had to good use.

Well. Almost two hours later, I still had turned up a whole lot of nothing. I sent some more photos of my search area to the cache owner, who at last realized I was actually at the wrong location. The cache was not hidden among these structures, but at another old place I had yet to discover.

Hoo boy.

Off I went, for finding this cache had by now become an obsession. Sure enough, after another half mile or so on the trail, I found another old building—this one very much in keeping with the CO's description.

My first discovery here: a very nice six-foot black rat snake, who was kind enough to pose for a photo session (and a very photogenic fellow he was). Happily, thankfully, mercifully, at long last, here I found the cache, and a nicely done cache it turned out to be. Snake took his leave, I dirtied up the log with my signature (in the coveted FTF slot), and after doing a little victory dance*, I marched myself the mile and half back to the Damned Rodan Mobile, headed home, and took a much-needed shower, for which the cats thanked me profusely.

I did take new coordinates at GZ and forwarded them to the CO. Apparently, he had made a typo on one of the bigger numbers of the longitude, and that had indeed mucked up the works. However, if I'd not devoted myself to going after this one prior to his checking on the coordinates, I would have deprived myself of an exhilarating, creepy, three-day Geocaching adventure. And I am, I can tell you, all about the adventure.

My geocaching partner

If all goes according to plan, my target cache for #10K is “The McAfee Knob Challenge” (GC2JJJD) near Salem Virginia—close to where I spent much time camping (along Craig Creek) back in the 80s and 90s. I do look forward to it.

*I did no such thing.

My first view of the old structures just off the trail

The first place I focused my search

Big barn a few hundred feet from the collapsing structures below

Turkey buzzard chuckles while watching me hunt in vain

Yet another old farmhouse along the trail, about a half mile from my original search area