We went geocaching today and managed a measly four finds, of course that is all we really looked for…it started with a rare non-Florence visit with Cousin Laurie and ended with a disappointing meal at a place we used to love.
We picked up Laurie in her hometown and drove the 15 miles to Cheraw State Park to search for our first cache. It was a quick and easy find at the end of the boardwalk at one corner of a huge lake. Once over it we opted to continue walking on that side of the lake. There were some horse trails that we unsuccessfully attempted to find using the typically cryptic state park map, so we ended up walking along a long dirt road to a place called Camp Forest. If I was scouting movie locations for the next teen slasher/horror film, I had found it.
After lunch in Cheraw we drop Laurie off and headed home the long way which included a couple more stops in state parks that are part of our latest obsession, the Sandhills Challenge. First up was the H. Cooper Black Jr. Memorial Field Trial and Recreation Area which is a very large equestrian area with zero human trails. The cache was a small container hidden on a set of metal viewing stands in front of a show ring. The second state park was Goodale near Camden where there was no big trail, but we took a short walk along a small steam trying to wait out a ranger parked in a truck near GZ. He never did move, but we went over and made the find anyway, because we figured he knew what we were after, so we wouldn’t technically be muggled. A picturesque feature of the park, one that is becoming quite familiar to us, is the mill pond with cypress trees:
We sandwiched in the other cache while driving between the last two state parks. It was at a Scotch Cemetery that had caught our eye on the drive up in the morning, not even realizing then that there was a cache at it. We didn’t spend long exploring the grounds once we did get there, because by this time the temperature was dropping fast and the wind was picking up.
Dinner was at a Maurice’s BBQ place in Lexington. Maybe it was just a bad day at this restaurant or maybe our tastes budshave changed, but neither one of us enjoyed the mustard based pulled pork sandwich as much as we thought we we usedto.