Month: May 2011

Beach View = No Internet

We took Friday off and drove down to HHI for a “working” vacation geocaching along the way. We managed to grab 5 caches on the way down, not many, but they were quality caches towards our Georgia Geo Challenges as they counted for 3 counties and one DeLorme page. The second half of the day was rained out so we headed to Hilton Head instead of looking for the other two caches in 2 Georgia State Parks. We figured we would get them before heading home on Sunday. Of course when we made it to the condo it was sunny.

This turned out to be a good thing in two ways. First, it allowed us to take pictures of 4 of the 5 condos that needed updating, freeing Saturday morning for a nap. And second, we found out when we got home on Sunday, we would have never found the cache in Fort McAllister State Park because it had been moved and I still had the old coordinates loaded.

The whole time we spend on the Island we had beautiful weather. Saturday morning we got in nice long walk on the beach and for most of the return trip we shadowed a dolphin as it fed in the surf. The above mentioned nap. Takeout lunch from Gruby’s NY Deli on the balcony of the condo. The last set of condo photos was taken in between one set of folks checking out, the clean up and another set of people checking. DTCQ took us out for a nice dinner at the Skull Creek Boathouse where we ate and watched the Kentucky Derby on about 12 big screen TVs. (How is it that someone who lives in a horse town could have no clue that the Derby was being run that day?)

Sunday morning we got going early as we wanted to get to Skidaway Island State Park near Savannah when it opened. There was a bonus cache we were eligible to find that was tide dependent. It needed to be sought at low tide because you had to cross tidal marsh to retrieve it. Low tide this morning was 06:51, the Park opened at 07:00 and we made the trail head by 07:10. And although we were only like 30 minutes past the listed time for low tide, it was a little scary crossing the marsh. Being total landlubbers, we understood the principles of how tides worked, but were not too sure that the sine wave profile usually shown for tides was 100% accurate and wondered if it was more digital looking (i.e. on|off|on|off) and we might be washed out to sea at any moment. In spite of our worries we did make the find and get back to dry land safe and sound. To say the official State Park cache was a let down after the bonus cache is not an exaggeration, but it was still an awesome cache in its own right with marsh views, palm trees, Spanish moss and a close encounter with a white tailed deer.

We then headed home to the usual Sunday evening drudgery of washing clothes, grocery shopping and getting ready for the work week ahead.

Today we drove the Miata to work and for the first time ever it seemed small. Tonight the big car got a bath for tomorrow’s appointment with the optometrist for some sunglasses (windows are getting tinted.)

Sorry I Said Anything

I guess I was right last night when I said the only thing keeping the Angels from beating the FRS was the rain because after the rain delay the Angels ended up wining the game in 13 innings at 2:38 AM this morning.

Today it would have been merciful if MLB had the 10 Run Rule as Los Angeles beat Boston 13 to nothing.

The Emperor got a workout tonight as we took it over to Augusta for the monthly MMC Dinner where a brief meeting broke out.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1008

1,000 Raindrops

The Sonata passed the thousand mile mark on its way to DD this morning in an intermittent rain.

If you stick around on a page here for more than 10 seconds you will notice that I have indeed added a photo of the Purple Whale to the banner. I cheated and just “photoshopped” it over the top of the Emperor. I’m not sure I like it for a few of reasons, 1) the sudden blast of blue in an otherwise maroon and gray page, b) the cars relative scales and iii) it looks photoshopped.

It looks like the only thing that can keep the Red Sox from beating the Angels is the rain. It is tied 0-0 in the 5th inning at Fenway and the tarp is on the field. Looking at the Weather Channel map the rain will taper off about 11:00 PM, so if they do play this I’ll be reading about it in the morning.

What A Difference A Couple Of Days Make

In the image above, near the center bottom, you will notice a nice round green spot. In an effort to ease some of the traffic on Whiskey Road (the slightly angled road along the right side) the city devised a cut through between Whiskey and Silver Bluff Road (on left). After a couple of years of planning, they started construction last year. They got the round drainage pond dug and partially filled, the single lane road around it completed and while they were finishing up the access approaches, part of drainage pond wall was determined to be unsafe. For the last 8 months there has been zero activity, so we figured they had abandoned the whole project.

On Sunday Donna and I decided we would place a cache on the inside of the circle between the road and the interior chain link fence. Last night we bought a small Tupperware container, covered the top with camouflage tape and filled it up with small goodies. I created a geocache.com page for it, but did not publish it yet.

Aiken’s Crater Lake

You are looking for a small camoed lock-n-lock container in an interesting area.

The city officials will tell you that this is here because they are attempting to relieve traffic congestion on Whiskey Road, but this location makes no sense for that. And what is taking so long to complete the project?

The real story is late one night a couple years ago a UFO crashed on this spot and created a round hole in the ground. It was deep enough to be below the water table and the site quickly filled with water. Roads leading to the site were built to allow truck traffic for bringing in salvage equipment so the recovered space craft could be whisked away to a secret location on the Savannah River Site.

Try not to stay to long searching at ground zero due to residual radiation…

We went back over there tonight to put the container in place and when we pulled up to the entrance of the circle road, it was blocked by lots of yellow heavy equipment. And on the side of the circle we were going to place the Tupperware, the asphalt of the road was already peeled up. I guess they finally got approval to fix this mess or maybe they are just going to tear it all up and fill in the hole.

Now we are going to have to find another spot for our cache.

Picture Post

A couple of random photos from Saturday’s MMC Road Rally final destination, the Yacht Club at Grand Harbor on Lake Greenwood.

Twins

When we went to bed last night our plan was to go for a bike ride on our single bikes and then get some breakfast at the Atlanta Bread Company. But this morning when we got up I suggested an alternative, eat at home and get in an early morning walk in Hitchcock Woods. We had a lovely 4.6 mile walk and had the woods nearly to ourselves. As a bonus the Kalmia were blooming nicely.

Later in the morning, swapping Miata for Sonata, we went out driving around the backs of local shopping centers trying to locate where I took the header image of this blog. I wanted to use the same wall and take a picture of the Purple Whale in front of it and rotate the two images. The one place I was sure was it, either wasn’t it or they had cleaned up and repainted the wall. Oh well. Later on we did find this cool blue wall and I may try and make it work.

For Sunday lunch we headed over to Firehouse Subs and as I pulled into a spot in front I noticed through the window a decent sized group of adults at a table. Almost in unison they turned and watched us park. I thought, gee, I know this a sharp looking car, but hadn’t anyone ever seen one before? When we entered the store the adults, mostly dressed in the same color scheme, had gone back to their subs and in the back of the dining area sat about a dozen 12 to 13-year old boys in baseball uniforms. There must be a tournament over at Citizens Field and they were eating lunch between games.

As we sat in our usual spot, the counter looking out over the parking lot, I realized why the adults all watched as we pulled in, a row over and two spots past where we parked, was an Indigo Blue Pearl Hyundai Sonata, with a dealer tag on the back. One of those folks recently bought an identical looking car to ours. Theirs was the Turbo Limited, so the only exterior difference was the 2.0T & Limited badge on the right side of the trunk.

After a while the kids were done eating and they all headed outside to wait on their parents. One of the kids walked over to our car and opened up the back door. I hadn’t locked the door because I normally don’t and I still haven’t gotten used to the whole radio fob in the pocket routine. Donna perked right up because her purse was on the floor of the back seat. She said aloud to me and the group of parents, “Get that kid out of our car.” I jumped up and opened the restaurant door and said to him, “That’s not your car. That’s your car!”, while pointing at the other Sonata. Poor kid, I think he was a little confused when he opened the door and didn’t see the stuff he was expecting to see in there. He was pretty embarrassed about it.

As a side note, I wonder if they asked permission to use the logos on their baseball uniforms from Major League Baseball? The were from Columbia County in Georgia and they called themselves the Mudcats. The C on the caps with a catfish inside, the lettering of Mudcats on the jerseys and the color scheme was identical to the uniforms of the Double-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds in Zebulon, NC, the Carolina Mudcats.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1008