Bushwhacking, Raining, Wining, and Braining

Friday was my last day of full-time work, at least at The Mailbox. Our boss, Sharon, put together a nice Zoom presentation featuring photos of her ten favorite Mark Moments, which I think we all enjoyed. It certainly hit some of the high points from the day job over all these many years. The idea of retirement hasn't really sunk in yet, since tomorrow would have been just another day back at work, and now it won't.

Friday evening, Brugger and I rode up to Martinsville and met friends Samaire and Stephen at La Plazita, a relatively new Mexican restaurant in Uptown Martinsville. The food was pretty good, the service a little less brag-worthy. Stephen said it's been much better on their previous visits, so I'm sure I'll give the place another try before long. Afterward, we retired to Pleasant Hill, where we put our heads together to come up with some ideas for the upcoming release of my collection, Fugue Devil: Resurgence, which Samaire's company, Black Raven Books, is set to release in the spring. We didn't knock off till sometime in the wee hours, but it was both productive and enjoyable.

Yesterday, Ms. B. and I headed down to Autumn Creek Vineyards, where we met friends Terry & Beth for wine and picnicking. The new owners of Autumn Creek — David & Laura — made us feel very welcome, which we appreciated. The wine is decent; North Carolina wine, to be sure, but decent.

This morning, the usual Sunday geocaching gathering of the No-Dead-Weight Irregulars — Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie), Old Rob (a.k.a. Old Rob), and Old Rodan (a.k.a. me) — appeared questionable, given an ominous weather forecast and Natalie not feeling tip-top. However, it wasn't raining at our regular meeting time, and Natalie said she felt better, so off we went, this time to several destinations in and around Winston-Salem. We sought several along the Salem Creek Greenway, all of which were fun, particularly since no rain was falling at the time. Just above, you see me at a cache called "You Shall Not Cross!" (GC9N9HQ). I did kind of want to cross, but since the remains of the old bridge are blocked off, I just opted to stand there for a while.

After that, we snagged a couple of other random caches and then headed to the Muddy Creek Greenway, a few miles west of town. By now, splatters of rain had begun, and once on the trail, it began coming down in earnest. Did this dissuade us? No, because we are tenacious (though I've heard some folks of our acquaintance use any number of other descriptors). We had a fairly long hike ahead of us — about three miles round trip — but we managed to make it somewhat longer and far more difficult. After finding two of our three target caches, we failed to look closely enough at the map to determine that bushwhacking to the next cache without backtracking to the greenway was actually a bad... BAD... idea. The river, we learned, is of considerable breadth and quite in the way. Apart from the plummeting temperature and increasing downpour, we now had dense, tangled woods and lots of deep muckity-muck to complicated our journey. This ended up adding a couple of extra miles of hiking before we could get back on the greenway and backtrack. I'm sure the extra workout in the cold and rain did us a spot of good, don't you think?

It wasn't necessarily fun, but at the end of the day, most gratifying.

This coming week, I plan to put in significant work on my current Ameri-Scares novel and, hopefully, start plotting a new novel for grown-ups. It feels like high time.

Onward.

Big honking railroad bridge over the Salem Creek Greenway

I've not been this wet since the last time we hiked 5.4 miles in a downpour. Some call us tenacious.
Some call us other things.

Bethania Birthday

Bewilderbeest, Fishdownthestair, Old Rob,
Diefenbaker at “Goliath”

Today was this old man’s birthday, and as birthdays go, it proved right enjoyable. The entire weekend, though, whirled through so fast and hard it barely registered on my radar. Ms. B. missed the lot of it, for she was gone on a crafting retreat in Georgia. Poor thing, that Ms. B.

Friday after work, I headed to the old homestead in Martinsville, where I hosted a relatively mellow evening with friends/fellow writers Stephen Provost & Samaire Wynne. We sat out on the back deck with tiki torches burning, enjoying wine and snacks, until fairly late in the evening. On Saturday, I went straight down to Winston-Salem, where I spent most of the day cleaning out my brother’s house (now technically mine) in preparation to get it on the market as soon as it’s possible. That was a long, ugly job, but with ample help from Phred’s friend/executor Jane and my friends Terry & Beth, we emptied it of the vast majority of its contents. I did manage to snag a couple of geocaches for good measure.

Once back home, I found my former next-door neighbors Paul & Jamie hard at work on their house as they prepare it to be listed for sale soon as well. We partook of some fine beverages and, a bit later, ordered Mexican food from Luna’s, which we enjoyed on my front porch.

This morning, I met friends Old Rob (a.k.a. Old Rob), Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie), and Cupdaisy (a.k.a. Debbie, a.k.a. Bewilderbeest) in Historic Bethania, just north of Winston-Salem, for a day of the rigorous hiking and geocaching. We found some fun ones, didn’t find a frustrating one, met a friendly snake, and enjoyed a late lunch (a damned fine burger for me) at The Village Tavern in Reynolda Village. One cache, which turned out to be our favorite of the day, led us to what is surely the most massive (if not the tallest) sycamore tree I believe I have ever seen. And a big old thing it is, with numerous trunks, perched right on the edge of Muddy Creek. We clambered all over that thing, taking in the various views. Of course, we signed the cache log.

After caching, I had to make a last stop (for now...) at Phred’s house to grab a few things that wouldn’t fit in my car yesterday. I didn’t collapse from exhaustion when I got home, but I came about close as one might care to. I reckon that’s what happens when you are no longer on the younger side of old.

Rounding out the nice birthday, I received payment for a short story coming up in a new anthology from Dark Regions, and a contract for another one recently accepted for publication in another upcoming book. I will offer up a big “yay!” for both these things.

I sleep now.

Ermengarde the Snake, named after a character played by Shoffner in a theatrical show some years ago.

Meeting of the half-minds (Natalie, Old Rob, Scott, Bewilderbeest)

 
L) Looking up at one of Goliath's many trunks; R) view of Muddy Creek from Goliath