Ouch!, Riverbend Ramble, and a Bunch of Aged Geocachers

Yep, there's a geocache at that wreck you see above. I think I can safely say it's one of the most unusual settings for a cache I've seen in quite a while. It was placed by friend and fellow geocacher, Skyhawk63 (a.k.a. Tom), whose birthday happens to be today. To celebrate, he and his wife Punkins19 (a.k.a. Linda) hosted a caching event at the Freeway Dining Room in Reidsville. It was a fun event, with damn good food and quite a few cachers in attendance.

Afterward, I teamed up with friends David & Diana (a.k.a. David & Diana), Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), Night-Hawk (a.k.a. Tom) and Rhodorooter (a.k.a. Dave), for a little ride up the road to Danville, where a few relatively new caches awaited our attention. Our primary target was Riverbend Ramble (GCB9J29), a six-stage multi on the Danville Riverwalk Trail, which both Night-Hawk and I had made some progress on a short while back, but we had failed to solve the clues to reach the final stage. This time, with invaluable assistance from David & Diana, we were able to decode the necessary keys and find the cache. It turned out to be great fun, all the more so because the temperature finally turned somewhat more tolerable (87℉ rather than triple digits, and there was an occasional almost-cool breeze).

 

We successfully hunted a couple of others nearby, and then I dragged my near-exhausted self back home. This evening, I'll be in my regular seat on the Sunday evening  Lovecraft eZine Podcast, which will feature John Langan talking about his new fiction collection. He will be appropriately heckled.

 

Laters.

Riverbend Ramble or Bust

Well, for me, it was a bust, but at least it was a fun—if mercilessly hot and muggy—bust. A handful of new geocaches came out in Danville this week, and I'd picked up one of them the other day after taking Brugger to the airport for her latest trip to Michigan to look after her folks. My primary target was a new, six-stage multi called "Riverbend Ramble" (GCB9J29), out on the Danville Riverwalk Trail. I got out to the trail about 9:30 a.m., but the heat and humidity were already inching up toward a most uncomfortable high.

 

I found stage one, which was pretty clever and in plain sight, without any trouble. But at the very next stage, the trouble began in earnest. It involved sorting out a fairly complicated code, the description of which left me with more questions than answers. With the help of friend Tom (a.k.a. Night-Hawk), who had gotten through a portion of the multi yesterday, I figured out how to calculate the numbers I needed. However, at stage three, I couldn't locate the container that was supposed to be there. I found a magnet on what was clearly the host, but no container; however, the cache owner let me know that this was not where I would find the stage. So, after my unsuccessful search, I set out on the Riverwalk to get in my daily mileage on foot, which I did (although I'm not sure the oppressive heat did my health any real favors).

 

The same cache owner had a couple of other new ones around town, so I went after those and found them with no problem (the one at the driving range, pictured above, was quite fun). Not long after I got back to Martinsville, another cacher logged a find on the multi—so it's possible our paths crossed out there and we didn't even realize it. Alas! But that leaves me with a fairly involved cache to continue hunting on a later trip to Danville, so I'll be looking forward to that.

 

Kim will be back on Tuesday evening, so if the weather cooperates, I should be able to fit in some Greensboro caching before I go to pick her up. The cats and I will be very happy to see her back.

Old bridge over the river and trail, which is barely still standing

That old muddy river