Alone on the Laurel Bluff Trail

Wee little frog sleeping on a leaf

I needed exercise, and bad, and I really wanted to hike after work today. I have no geocaches in town to hunt, and when I hike, I’ve gotta hunt things. Yes, I’ve just gotta. So, having found all the caches on all the trails nearby, I broke down and decided to hunt Munzees. There’s a shit ton of them on the Laurel Bluff Trail, just north of Greensboro, so I made that my destination. At least I got to satisfy the need to find things in the woods. It was a beautiful, almost chilly afternoon, and — much to my surprise — I found the trail almost totally bereft of other human beings, which delighted me no end. More often than not, you go into the woods seeking solitude, and the trails turn out to be like goddamn I-40 at rush hour. Over the course of nearly three hours, I saw exactly three other people on the trail. Not a bad hourly average. I put in just over four miles — two miles out and two miles back — so I did go out bit farther than a lot of casual hikers do. So, color me happy. I did indeed find a shit ton of Munzees, as well as the odd bone stuck in a tree; a few wee, tiny frogs sleeping on leaves; and a pair of slightly sore feet. I did take the opportunity to check on a cache of mine called Hellraiser (GC4D26T), which lurks a short distance from the trail near a big beech tree in which someone carved “Hell is just ahead” in 1961.

When I got back to the parking lot, I was surprised to find it full of cars. I really don’t know where all the people were, since it seems that if they hiked out on the trail, our paths would have crossed. I dunno, maybe they were all sitting in their cars for hours, as muggles will do.

Stoopid muggles.

L: "Oh, the leg bone's connected to the tree bone...." R: You're not my stepping stone....

A Stellar Start (NOT)

2021 has not exactly kicked off on a stellar note. DC riots and Capitol-storming aside, things on the family front have not quite gone as hoped. My brother, Phred (a.k.a. Alan) is in dire straits, health-wise, and this has cast a pall over even the more pleasant aspects of life. Dealing with Mom’s estate has presented me with more than its share of challenges, but right now — thankfully — I am able to step back a little to deal with other priorities.

The other day — Thursday, I believe it was — I took a little respite by heading up to the Laurel Bluff Trail, up at Lake Townsend. Friend Natalie had placed a slew of Munzees out there, and while I’m only so enamored of the Munzee concept, it gave me a fine excuse for an early evening hike. The sunset was gorgeous, and I ran into scarcely a soul out there, which made for a relaxing, contemplative outdoor experience.

On Friday, Kimberly and I headed to the old homestead in Martinsville, primarily to take down the Christmas decorations, which is always rather sad; perhaps more so this year, with Mom gone and Phred not doing well. We did have a fine dinner from Third Bay Cafe, watched The Mist, and played a bunch of fun tunes on YouTube till the wee hours. Once back home on Saturday, we set to work on the house upgrade; got a good spot of painting done in the kitchen.

Today, I hiked on the Blue Heron Trail to do some cache maintenance, which wasn’t as much fun as hiking to find caches, but it provided me with some much-needed exercise, and the weather was just right.

I’m putting the finishing touches on my Ameri-Scares novel, New Hampshire: Ghosts From the Skies, which I anticipate turning in this week. Then I have a short story lined up for an upcoming Lovecraftian anthology, which I hope will fly. Those are the high points, I reckon, but the low ones will be lurking around every corner. There’s just no way around them at this point.

But we maintain. Peace out.

A lovely evening on the Laurel Bluff trail, with the sun's last rays highlighting the trees across Lake Townsend

Fresh paint and primer brightens up the kitchen a bit....

Hell Is Just Ahead

In my near-daily hunt for geocaches, I'm continually discovering new places in and around Greensboro. There are still miles and miles of trails I haven't gotten to yet, and each trail I find strikes me as more scenic or interesting than the last. Yesterday, I put in three miles on a portion of the Nat Greene trail that I'd never hiked, and today, despite high heat and humidity, I did a good four miles on the Laurel Bluff trail. I'm bushed and a little sore, but the hike was a real experience, and I wish I had taken my camera with me. At one point, I passed a cairn-like pile of stones with an old, rusted tricycle mounted atop them. That's not really something I see all that often.

In these southern woods, beech trees are everywhere, and if you've ever seen a beech, you probably saw lots of initials and messages carved into its trunk. After all, what else is that smooth, gray bark there for? One beech on the Laurel Bluff trail bears the message, "Hell Is Just Ahead," and it's dated 1961. (Needless to say, there's a nearby cache bearing the same title.)

In contrast to the Nat Greene trail, which was brimming with hikers and mountain bikers yesterday, there appeared to be nary a soul besides myself in the woods today. It was remarkably quiet, though the wildlife was plentiful. Saw quite a few deer, rabbits, frogs, a luna moth caterpillar, and...a black squirrel. Now I've seen plenty of gray squirrels and red squirrels, but I've never come upon a black one. Okay, maybe he had been playing under a parked car somewhere and gotten covered in grease, as my dog used to do when I was a kid, who knows? But anyway...he was black.

I saw this harbinger of odd things just as I came upon Hell Is Just Ahead. And right about then, a great horned owl started hooting somewhere nearby. A beautiful, melancholy sound; a little eerie, even. I do love those owls, even if they are not what they seem. Appropriately, I dropped a Twin Peaks postcard into the cache. The next one wasn't too far away, so I decided to bushwhack straight to it rather than return to the trail. This was when things got a little odd.

Apparently, I had entered the wrong coordinates in my GPS for that next cache because I ended up heading south rather than north, which was away from where I knew the cache ought to be. Soon, I came upon the foundation of an old house out in the woods, and then I heard low, furtive voices not too far away. I felt distinctly uncomfortable, so I started back toward the trail, heading due north.

I walked...and walked...and walked...but the trail seemed to have vanished. By this time, I'm starting to feel like I'm in The Blair Witch Project—though in a version cast with a lone dude who is far more dashing and resourceful than the original cast members, and armed with a bamboo whacky stick. I bring up the coordinates to the next cache, which is about a half mile away, and head straight for it. When I get there, I find the trail again. For the rest of the hike, I resolve to stay on it.

On the way back, the trail did nothing funky; it ran pretty much true east-west, and I never did see the divergence that had led me up to the old foundation. What happened, I'm fairly certain, is that bizarre forces altered space for a brief period, intending to deliver me to those unknown parties carrying on furtively near the old remains. However, when said forces realized that, yow, that guy's got a bamboo whacky stick, they thought better of it and put me right back where I belonged.

Smart, those bizarre forces.

It was a good hike. Six out of six caches found. That makes a total of 407, I believe.