"Mommy, Make the Bad People Stop."

Old dam and waterfall on Cascade Creek in Stokes County, NC

That's the name of an old and distinctly difficult geocache hidden in Stokes County, NC, and it was today's target cache. It's a multi-stager, each stage providing its own unique challenges, ending at a particularly scenic area not far from Hanging Rock State Park.

An amusing item we found near the final
stage. Someone was clearly one toke
over the line, sweet Jesus.

Scott "Diefenbaker" Hager, Jeanne "Cantergirl" Allamby, and I got together once again this weekend, starting out bright and early to make the trip out to Stokes County and hopefully conquer this aging but still vicious beast. It was originally hidden in 2004 and has been modified by the cache owner a few times over the years. To get from stage 1 to the final, you end up taking a fairly lengthy, very scenic tour of the county, so this hide is anything but a quick park-and-grab. We had trouble on more than one occasion due to our GPS coordinates bouncing all over creation, and at the final, Diefenbaker's ground zero coordinates and mine differed by a good hundred feet or so. In the end, my decrepit but trusty old Garmin eTrex H, which is held together by duct tape, put me within two feet of the hide. Signing the logbook on this one was a real pleasure, especially after having undertaken a good physical challenge or two to get where we needed to be.

Well, Diefenbaker and I undertook a good physical challenge. Cantergirl opted for the longer but considerably less hazardous route. She, no doubt, was the smart one, for after it was all over Diefenbaker and I rightly took turns calling each other Dumb Ass.

Of course, that's all as may be. In the end, all three of us dirtied up the cache's logbook with our signatures. It's all in a day's work to earn those smileys. That makes number 7,114 for Old Rodan.

Click on images to enlarge.

Cantergirl considering the best route to take across the stream. Hint: I'm not
certain it was the one Diefenbaker and I took.

L: Diefenbaker making his way across the very slippery waterfall; R: Damned Rodan following in Diefenbaker's
footsteps, unaware that Diefenbaker has booby-trapped the route. What a brute!

A Rocking New Year

Hanging Rockin', that is. New Year's Eve, I headed to Hanging Rock State Park, NC, with several friends and rang in the New Year at one of the park's cabins. Some snow and ice remained from last week's winter storm, and it was still COLD, especially when the wind picked up, but we managed to stay warm when we were indoors. Never content with being comfortable, we spent a couple of frigid nighttime hours around the fire pit outside and turned marshmallows into delicious masses of incinerated carbon, but the wind was so cold, even the raging fire offered little heat.

For New Year's Day, we picked up our collective asses and hiked up to the top of Hanging Rock and took in some spectacular views. Was able to claim a virtual cache and a couple of other caches in the vicinity, which brings my total number of finds to 2,160.

A pleasant enough weekend; hope it bodes well for a less stressful year than the past one.

Click on the pics to enlarge them.

A view from below

A view from the top

It's a long way down.

It's COLD up here!