Geocaching Panther Branch

Friend Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott) and I met up this morning at the Panther Branch Natural Area, in Orange County, NC, near the little town of Efland, to get in some hiking and geocaching. The natural area borders the Eno River, and the trails offer some great views from on high—as in big hills; oh, me feet!

 

We put in a good couple of miles on the trail, and then we headed after a couple of dozen park & grab hides in the Mebane, NC, area. I've gotta holler real loud about Catrina's Tequila & Taco Bar in Mebane, where we had lunch; they reliably have THE best Mexican food and drink of any place in the region that I've been. The street tacos and margaritas are especially praise-worthy.

 

A few pics from the trail below.

A Helluva Weekend

Given the dearth of nearby geocaches I've yet to find, it's always a treat to see new ones published that aren't that far away. A trio of new caches popped up on my map Friday — out in Floyd County, about an hour northwest of here. Since I couldn't get out there at the time, I got up early on Saturday morning, grabbed coffee and a danish at the nearby Valero Fas-Mart (their coffee does rock), and sallied forth onto the shadowy backroads. Long ago (the 1970s) and far away (about 20 miles), I attended Ferrum College, and I frequented these backroads, usually seeking the influence of what some might consider illicit substances. There was a commune called Travianas in this area that I used to visit frequently, and I read not all that long ago was still in existence. I don't remember exactly how we used to get there, but I was pretty close to the location, though.

My destination was a place called Riverstone Farm, a gorgeous place in the middle of nowhere, more or less, with a little store where you can buy their fresh produce, and it's all on the honor system. You weigh your produce, fill out your own sales slip, and drop your money in a slot. I picked up a couple of fabulous fresh tomatoes, which weighed over a pound, for $5. And I got first-to-find honors on all three of the new caches, each of which was nicely done. I so appreciate geocaches that lead me to such splendid locations that I would surely never have discovered otherwise.

On my way home, I stopped for lunch at the Railway Café in Bassett. A delicious fried chicken sandwich and a much-needed cold iced tea. Damn, it was hot out there.

The Riverstone Farm produce store

Trail along the Little River

A purty trail view

Last night, we saw the news of Donald Trump getting winged by a shooter. I've seen all sorts of conspiracy theories, lots of anger, and all too much true hate, enough to be totally overwhelming. I have a lot of things I can say on this issue, but not here and now. A bit later, I will.

This morning, again I rose early, grabbed coffee and a danish at the nearby Valero Fas-Mart, and hauled myself down to Burlington, NC, where I met friend Scott (a.k.a. Diefenbaker) for a day of caching in Hillsborough. As it has been lately, it was hot out there. Fuckin' hot. We both added quite a few to our total number of finds, including a bunch along the Eno Riverwalk. Another gorgeous location I enjoy visiting, and — as we usually do when in the area — we grabbed lunch at Hillsborough BBQ Company. Smoked chicken wings for me today, and damned good.

My favorite find of the day was probably the very photogenic black rat snake we ran across at Blackwood Farm Park.

I've no idea what level of madness our country and the world will reach this week, but I've no doubt it'll set a new fucking record.

A nice black rat snake we happened upon

Train trestle over the Eno River, viewed from the Riverwalk

Another view of the Eno

Wildlife at the Eno River

A nice little turtle we found on the trail

That wildlife was a trio of geocachers — Cupdaisy (a.k.a. Debbie), Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), and an old dude, commonly known as the No-Dead-Weight Irregulars. It was almost like old times: the nowadays all-too-rare gathering of several of us old-timers for a Sunday on the caching trail. Ah, for the days when every Sunday meant a gathering of old-timers on the geocaching trail.

Today, our target was Hillsborough, NC. I headed out bright and early this morning, bound for Burlington, NC, to replace one of my own caches that had gone missing and meet the other two reprobates in our party. From there, we hit the highway and in less than an hour began roaming little graveyards in the woods, big graveyards not in the woods, trails along the Eno River (which Scott and I forded at one point because the cache turned out to be on the other side and there was no footbridge), and up and down the Historic Oconeechee Speedway, where we've hiked on several previous occasions. We snagged all the caches we sought and hiked well over five miles, some of which were pretty rugged.

And to cap it off, we had a somewhat late lunch at Hillsborough BBQ Company, which is always a highly anticipated treat. It did not disappoint. For afters, we went next door for some frozen custard at Whit's Frozen Custard. That stuff is now officially a highly anticipated treat. That shit are good.

Hopefully, more geocaching later this week.

Into the Eno we go.

Little graveyard in the woods

Happy Diversion

Today, our usual Sunday morning geocaching outing consisted solely of the Old Farts — Old Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), Old Rob (a.k.a. Old Rob), and Old Rodan (a.k.a. me). Our initial plan was to see if we could snag a few in Mebane, about 25 miles down the road, and then a few in Hillsborough, another 15 miles or so farther on. However, just as our aging gang was hobbling out of the house, notifications popped up for a series of six new hides in Burlington, which is several miles closer than Mebane. So, we altered our course and diverted to Burlington Springwood Park, which is a fairly large — and this morning, a very busy — facility. By the time we arrived, around 10:00 a.m., there were already several softball games in progress on the ballfields, and a disc golf tournament was just getting going. Muggles coming, going, in, out, up, down, and all around....

Undaunted, we parked the Rodan Mobile and set out on foot after the caches — five traditionals and one mystery cache. Each traditional contained information necessary to unlock the final mystery cache. The heat was hot, we hiked about three miles, and we had trouble finding a couple of the caches, so by the time we found the entire bunch, the evil day star was on the verge of getting the better of us. In the plus column, we met a family of cachers, whose team name — Phersjm — we knew from their many geocaches in the area, but this was the first time our paths had ever crossed in the field. Actually, our paths crossed twice, which was nice.

Happily, the No-Dead-Weight Irregular Old Farts scored six of the almost-maybe-kinda-sorta coveted first-to-find honors. And we met a very friendly black rat snake, who slithered by to check us out for a bit. He let me get quite close to him to take a few pictures, which I appreciated.

After all this, we headed on over to Mebane, where we found four more caches and an excellent lunch at Catrina’s Mexican Restaurant, which has become one of our favorite lunch destinations when we're caching over that way. Great food, and an extensive selection of it. The Rodan Mobile arrived back at Casa di Rodan about 3 o'clock and disgorged a bunch of weary, sweaty, filthy-dirty old men. Well, I'm not saying dirty old men, except, well, maybe, there's Scott....

Bye for now.

Dude just keeps on slithering out of the greenery.

He's easily a six-footer, if not more.

"Hello, Mr. Man, I am ready for my close-up."

Winter Storms, Blogger Fuckery, Historic Churches, and Smoked Cow

Immediately upon our return from Myrtle Beach last weekend, dire weather fell upon us. We had only a light coating of snow, but there was ice aplenty and winds like I've not heard since the last hurricane to blow through here some years ago. We lost power at 4:00 a.m. Monday morning, though it came back on about noon — some kind of speed record for Duke Energy. Our yard became a mess of branches and sticks, but next door, a whole tree uprooted and fell. It remained as you see it in the photo above for several days, until finally, this weekend, the neighbors took it upon themselves to get rid of it. Rather than call professionals — an admittedly expensive prospect — they employed a couple of friends, a pair of electric chainsaws (one of which got stuck in the tree for a day or so), an assortment of wooden boards, a footstool, and a pickup truck (which got stuck in the mud in their backyard for a day or so). 

"Maybe if we put this over here, and that over there...?"

At this point, the chainsaw is stuck in the tree, and the truck is stuck in the mud.

On Friday afternoon, I headed to Martinsville while the trio of men were out there working, so I didn't get to see how things eventually unfolded. But when I arrived back here yesterday, the tree was gone. The fence between yards (which I believe actually belongs to the neighbors behind the next-door folk) failed to escape damage (relatively minor), and there are deep ruts and mud splatters aplenty in their backyard (and part of ours). However, to the best of my knowledge — and by some minor miracle — none of the guys out there suffered death or dismemberment. I guess you'd call that a win for do-it-yourselfing.

More snow fell in Martinsville than here in Greensboro, but there appeared to be less ice and far less property damage. I have no idea whether it was actually storm-related or not, but the heat pump at Pleasant Hill had ceased the pumping of heat, so I found the house rather chilly. Yesterday morning, I managed to engage a service tech, who determined the system needed a new thermostat. He installed one, which got the heat pump working again, but a most complicated device, this thermostat. I hope I can figure it out without needing to go back to school to get an engineering degree. In any event, I managed to get the Christmas decorations taken down and finish up a significant writing project, which I'll be promoting the hell out of in the coming days.

St. Matthew's Episcopal Church
in Hillsborough

Since today's weather, at least for the morning, appeared conducive to geocaching, three old farts — Scott (a.k.a. Diefenbaker), Old Rob (a.k.a. Old Rob), et moi — decided to head eastward to several different locations, culminating in Hillsborough, where a new Adventure Lab cache awaited us. First, we headed to the Haw River Trail in Graham to see if we could snag first-to-find honors on a newly published hide (we did); then we zoomed over to a nearby park & grab hide, of which we made very short work; and finally, we moved on to Hillsborough. The Adventure Lab cache ("Historical Churches of Hillsborough") took us around the town's picturesque historical district, to... guess what... several historical churches. Hillsborough is a lovely town to walk around, and we enjoyed the opportunity to see the sights (again).

We topped off our Hillsborough outing with a visit to Hillsborough BBQ Company, which is a longstanding tradition when we're over in that neck of the woods. I'm a smoked beef brisket junkie, and Hillsborough BBQ Company has historically had some of the best brisket I've ever tasted. Some time ago — over a year, I'm guessing — we had visited to find the brisket not quite up to snuff. Not bad, just not top-notch. Someone we met on another caching trip told us that the restaurant had changed their smoking time or process or something, but the brisket was definitely inferior. Regardless, I wanted to make sure they had another chance, and this time around, it was better. Much better. Maybe not quite what it used to be (and certainly not as eyes-rolling-back-in-the-head-incredible as The Smoke Pit in Salisbury, which is now our favorite brisket venue), but we were altogether satisfied. Plus I found a really good, jalapeno IPA (Fire Escape, Asheville Brewing Company). So Hillsborough BBQ is most definitely back in my good graces (not that it ever fell very far).

But speaking of falling far....

The most frustrating — no, infuriating — issue of the weekend was discovering that Blogger (and by default, Google) fucked up my blog in numerous instances by their constant altering of code. At one time, formatting this blog, including placing photos (for which one might have a reasonable expectation of being permanent, since they're from Google's own blog photo hosting site) was simple. You could pop a photo in, place it as you desired, look at the html code, and see the photo ID in the code. No longer. Now you get typical Google Photos gobbledygook for the ID, leaving you with no way to trace it back to its origin. But the worst issue here was that a shitload of my blog photos, mostly from 2017, now displayed only broken link images. So I ended up spending a massive amount of time replacing and relinking the pics — with no guarantee the code will actually hold. Jesus God...  this constant ABSOLUTELY GODDAMN NEEDLESS fucking around with the blog code by bunch of technological halfwits is so infuriating, if it were up to me, I'd shitcan the lot of them (the decision makers, anyway) and make sure not a one of them could work in a technological environment ever again. Maybe cleaning shit out of pigpens would be more suitable.

Anyway. Go on, git. Bye.

Three Old Farts: Old Rodan, Old Diefenbaker, Old Rob

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Yes, that tunnel you see right there. That was the No-Dead-Weight Irregulars' primary target on last Sunday's geocaching outing because, yes, there is a geocache in there. The team had a pretty full complement — Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie), NCBiscuit (a.k.a. Linda, but just for this one cache), Old Rob (a.k.a. Old Rob), and this old dude. As far as tunnels go, it wasn't a particularly lengthy one, but it did present a physical challenge or two to conquer before one could access the cache. And there was, quite literally, a light at the end. Scott turned out to be our wade-the-waist-deep-pool-and-scale-the-ladder-to-grab-the-cache man, and he did admirably — until he dropped the cache in the above referenced pool, which required him to come back down, retrieve the cache, and climb back up. I'm sure it was all as much fun for him as it looked, and we each earned a smiley in the deal.

 

Diefenbaker signing the logsheet, moments
before he dropped it into the water below

After we emerged from the not-so-daunting darkness, Ms. NCBiscuit left us for different pastures, and the rest of us meandered Chapel Hill way, where we grabbed a quite a few more caches, most of them of high quality. A fine day of it overall, akin to the days of old, when the full gang could spend the better portion of the day hunting all varieties of caches, fit in all kinds of decent exercise, and lay waste to a passel of decent vittles. This time around, we found a fine feast at Casa Maria Latino Restaurant on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. We've been there numerous times, and it's always quite good, though for whatever reason, they weren't serving alcohol — a bummer because some of us had been craving margaritas. Don't know whether they lost their ABC license or what, but I hope it's not a permanent situation. More often than not around here, a restaurant loses is liquor license, and the next thing you know, the restaurant has ceased to exist.

On last Friday, after an early workday, I met friend Skyhawk63 (a.k.a. Tom) over in Pilot Mountain to hunt a newish Adventure Lab. It was enjoyable enough, and we completed it readily. I snagged a few additional hides afterward on my way to the old homestead in Martinsville. I hadn't been into Pilot Mountain in ages, and I did discover that, like Eden, NC, they also have their very own Bigfoot. It's a very flat Bigfoot — a piece of sheet metal on the side of a building in the middle of town — but I always do get a kick out of seeing him around as much as I do. To think so many people live their lifetimes never seeing Bigfoot and consequently not believing in him. Well, I've seen, and I believe.

Mount Pilot's very own Bigfoot

Apart from the geocaching, I've done precious little these past couple of weeks other than work like the dickens on a story for a new anthology. Due to so much happening on the homefront, I had missed the official deadline, but I still had a small window to get the story in. I trust it will please the editor. I found it, in the end, a most gratifying tale to write.

And I'll be back hard at the writing in the coming days, for I need to get back on the Georgia book for the Ameri-Scares series. I had started into it a while back but had to put it aside for a time while the wedding, the home renovation, estate business, and the regular day job ate up every hour of every day. I like to keep busy, but I really hope things don't build up to that beyond-intense pace for a long, long time... if ever.

Today, of all things, I did something I've not done in over a decade: I went out and played golf. Friend Terry invited me to go along, and I decided to do it. Years and years ago, I was quite the avid golfer, but these past few decades, it really hasn't been in my repertoire. Today, I scored about as well as one might expect after ten-plus years away from it. But I managed to nail a few beautiful shots, and I really did have a great time. I don't know that I'm going to become a habitual offender again on the golf course, but then... stranger things have happened.

And that's all for now, so sayonara and peace.

Falls Lake Rail Trailin’

The Vaccinated But Still Socially Distant No-Dead-Weight Irregulars

No fire-breathing Tyrannosauruses on today’s geocaching adventure, but we did encounter a fire. The Vaccinated But Still Socially Distant No-Dead-Weight Irregulars — Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie), Old Rob (a.k.a. Old Rob), and ye olde fart (moi) — met up at Falls Lake in Durham County to hike one of the area’s rail trails. This one is the long-abandoned Durham & Northern rail line, which dates back to 1887. There are ten caches along this particular stretch, and we set out to find them.

The hike took us about a mile and a half out to a point in the lake accessed by the narrowest of land bridges. The cache out there — “Guardian of the Point” (GC1DN30) — was an easy favorite for us, as the scenery out on that long, narrow strip of land turned out to be pretty spectacular. And we found fish. Dead fish. Many dead fish. They had clearly been swimming around there during a period of high water, and when it receded, they were trapped. Well, that really wasn’t what I would consider a favorite moment, but it was different.

Smoke pouring from hollow tree

One of the caches along our trek — “Loco Fuel” (GC5K7D4) — may have been the victim of the fire-breathing tyrannosaurus I sought yesterday (“The Lair of a Fire-Breathing T-Rex”), for at ground zero, we found not a cache but a sizable area of scorched earth. It was recent enough that we found smoke belching from the trunk of a hollow tree right at ground zero. Much to our chagrin, we couldn’t come up with even a melted lump of plastic here, though since we do know the cache owner, we took it upon ourselves to replace the container to (hopefully) keep it in play.

Once finished with the rail trail, our crew sallied forth to Hillsborough where we took a tour of several of the town’s myriad historical buildings by way of a recently published Adventure Lab cache. This one proved fun and edumacational. Then we made our way to Hillsborough BBQ Company for the first group lunch we have had in quite some time. Happily, we were able to sit outdoors, which we all still prefer.

And after all that, exhaustion set in. My birthday is coming up, so I may be even more exhausted at this time next week.

That is all.

All that remains of an old trestle

Something fishy

Heading out to the distant point

The view from GZ back the way we had come

Little River Regional Park

It was just friend Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott) and a grumpy old fart (a.k.a. me) on the geocaching trail today. We headed out this morning in fairly frigid temperatures, bound for Little River Regional Park & Natural Area, a few miles north of Hillsborough. The park lies half in Orange County, half in Durham County; the dividing line is clearly marked on the trails through the woods. Thanks to friend Maingray (a.k.a. Rob), eleven relatively new caches at the park, which neither of us had visited before, awaited our attention. The temperature warmed up to about 50 over the course of the day, so it turned out better than tolerable.

The trails here are quite nice, both for hiking and biking, with beginner, intermediate, and advanced trail difficulty levels for the cyclists. Scott and I put in somewhere between three and four miles on foot. We encountered a handful of folks on the trails, but for the most part, we found ourselves mostly isolated in the woods, which I particularly appreciated. We did find all the caches we hunted, so happy day.

If we’re lucky (or not), perhaps one or more of the short women will accompany us on next weekend’s outing. It’s nice to feel tall now and again.

Scott demonstrates his "I'm not really sleeping" approach to finding geocaches.

Our track (in purple) through the park. The smiley icons denote the caches we found.

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.

Haunting Hillsborough

Another Sunday, another geocaching outing, this time to Hillsborough with The Usual Suspects: Suntigres (a.k.a. Bridget) and BigG7777 (a.k.a. Gerry). Enough newer caches have been published in recent months to justify making a run over there, but one of the main draws for us today was lunch at Hillsborough BBQ, where they do the beef brisket better than just about anyone.

Most of today's caches were of the park & grab variety, but at least a couple of them offered some challenge on the hunt. There's a virtual cache (meaning there's no physical container to find; you visit a specific landmark and answer questions about it) called "Hillsborough Old Town Cemetery" (GC7B67D), which I had claimed back in April, but Bridget & Gerry still needed it. I was happy to accompany them back to the location because it really is one of the most beautiful atmospheric graveyards around. We didn't see any walking dead around, alas. Doesn't mean they weren't there; we just didn't see them.

Once again, I have pretty much cleaned up Hillsborough, at least until someone places some new hides out that way. Hope someone will — I'm sure it won't be long before I'm craving that brisket again.

The Haunter of Hillsborough

Nice view of the Hillsborough Old Town Cemetery

The Usual Suspects: Suntigres (Bridget) and BigG7777 (Gerry) at the William Hooper House in Hillsborough

Da Nukular Family

"Da Nukular Family" (Team DNF) at some old ruins
not far from "Riley's Rest"

If one is to be coerced into geocaching by a bunch of ne'er-do-wells, one might as well be coerced on a beautiful August Sunday, particularly when it's Hiroshima Day. Today, I was essentially forced to venture out and about with my extended nuclear family—Yoda Rob, Cupdaisy, Robgso, and Suntigres—because there had been wishful blathering on someone's part (not mine... really) about a visit to Hillsborough BBQ Company, which is one of this group's favorite destinations for lunch when out on a geocaching expedition.

And so it was, left with little choice but to comply, I transported this crew into the wilds of Orange County between Hillsborough and Durham, targeting some caches in the deep woods, others along the not-so-lonely country roads. Our primary target was "Riley's Rest," GC3N27Z (Note: this web page is viewable only to premium geocaching.com members), a fairly compact little multi-cache at a tiny, ancient family graveyard in the woods not far from the Eno River. There are eight marked graves in this old boneyard, where members of a certain Riley family lie in repose. Five of the graves, marked with rough stones and crudely carved inscriptions, date back to the early to mid 1800s. Three of the graves, which have granite markers and more legible inscriptions, date to the late 1800s and early 1900s. To find the cache, one has to find information on the grave markers, do some math, and then go hunt the container, which we found in good condition.

"An Ode to Pork," posted at Hillsborough BBQ Co.

Another of the day's favorite locations we discovered just west of Hillsborough, on an overgown, all-but-abandoned trail at King's Highway Park, which Old Rob and I had visited some time ago hunting a number of now-archived caches. There was a relatively new one here—"King's Highway: Trestle View," GC6GWJ7 (Note: this web page is viewable only to premium geocaching.com members)—that took us to an aging, very high railroad trestle over the Eno. I believe the tracks are still active, but given the evident condition of the trestle, I'm not sure I'd want to be riding on a train passing over it.

Luckily for her, Cupdaisy made herself useful and provided us with a nice cache bar today. Captain Morgan's Long Island Iced Tea makes for welcome refreshment after a long, hot hike in rugged terrain.

And so, indeed, fulfilling the most ardent desires of this damned, depraved, and deviant nuclear family, we partook of a rather late lunch at Hillsborough BBQ Company. For me, the beef brisket plate, which is dang near unbeatable, and a refreshing concoction of rum, ginger beer, and lime called a Dark and Stormy something or another. It was good, yes.

At the end of the day, we picked up 13 caches, bringing my total find count to 9,561. Some people say I have a problem.

No. Just no.

A couple of views of the old railroad trestle

The little graveyard at "Riley's Rest"

Damned, depraved, and deviant Team DNF at Blackwood Farm Park

A view across the Eno River from "King's Highway: Trestle View"