Hiking

The Geocaching Devaluation

Pioneer Trail

We haven’t been doing a lot of geocaching lately, but today was to be a day to get back out there.

We have always been fair weather cachers, but mainly the lapse is because we have run out of local caches of the type we like to hunt. In August Geocaching.com ran a 31 Days of Caching promotion and during that time the local caching group endeavored to place a new geocache for each day. Several of them were along the bike/walking trail adjacent to the newest section of I-520 and a few of them were at least regular sized containers, more like our cup of tea, so this was where we were going.

As we were finishing up our morning beverages at our usual spot, Donna said, “I don’t feel like geocaching.” “My feelings aren’t hurt,” I replied. “Can we just go for a walk in the woods?” she asked. That is what we did.

132,000 Spider Webs

Lake Greenwood

We did something this morning that we haven’t done in what seems like quite a while, got in the Miata and drove a ways for the express purpose of geocaching. It started out as a big overnight trip that included 3 South Carolina State parks, but settled in as a shorter, day trip that went to one State Park and back. Lake Greenwood State Recreation Area is about 50 miles from us and had 4 caches to find.

One cache was on a nature trail that started near Campground #1 and we got about 20 yards down the trail and the results of all our recent rains presented us with a water crossing that would have left us with wet feet, so we doubled back and found an alternate way to the trail. We made a good bit of progress on the loop before realizing we might have already passed the closest we would come to the hide, about 350 feet. During our bushwhack through the woods to the cache I must have ran into thousands of spider webs. I even kept walking into them after I started waving my walking stick in front of me like a machete to knock them down.

After finding the cache and signing the log we headed back to the trail and because we didn’t follow the exact same route, ran through a ton more spider webs. Upon reaching the trail we just headed back the way we came, never finishing the loop. It was hot, humid and muddy and we still had 2 more caches to find on the other side of the park. Did I mention there were a lot of spider webs? Even on the trail we had just walked 15 minutes ago?

The other trail was way less muddy and only slightly less spider webby. It followed along the shore of the lake and after finding both of the caches on it we headed over to the nearby road so as to enjoy the slight breeze available out of the woods and the lack of spider webs.

The last cache was actually not on the park grounds, but on the road to the park from the state road that passes by. Seeing as Donna had found the first 3 hides and it seemed like the only reason I was here was to part any spider web for her like Mosses parting the Red Sea for the Israelites, I was very happy to spot the final container before she did.

As we got in the car to come home the odometer in The Emperor stood at exactly 132,000 miles.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1233

Its Thursaturday!

Walking On A Horse

It is a day off of work because of the holiday, so even though it is Thursday it feels like a Saturday. Tomorrow won’t feel like Sunday because it is back to work. We went for a walk in Hitchcock Woods this morning and this afternoon I listened to the FRS on the radio while Donna baked brownies to send over to a local National Guard Unit in Afghanistan.

Last night we missed out on the fireworks at Fort Gordon in Augusta because we were scared off by the weather (they had them anyway.) So tonight we got on the tandem and rode over to the east side of town to a small festival that was going to have fireworks. They didn’t have them for budgetary reasons. They will have fireworks at the end of tomorrow night’s Augusta Greenjackets game. Maybe we’ll go see them if the weather cooperates and if we feel like sitting through 2-1/2 hours of stupid corporate sponsored, fan participation stunts interrupted by a baseball game to get to them.

Merrell And ?

We went for a 4 mile walk in Hitchcock Woods this morning. Started at the Fulmer’s Stable entrance and headed uphill until we couldn’t go any further then looped back a different way down the hill. Because our start point, being near the stables, is a major horse riding meeting spot, we have to keep our heads down while walking around near there to avoid the recycled hay piles. As we walked I kept noticing a lot of small flowers along the trail. About a third of the way through our walk I decided to document all the different ones I saw.

Because I can only positively identify what the very last picture is of, the first person who can identify the kind of flower, plant our fungi in all of the first nine pictures will win a fabulous prize of my choosing. Just leave your answers in the comments.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1230

Carpet Of Ferns

Carpet of Ferns

After breakfast at the usual place we went for a walk in Hitchcock Woods. A nice little 3-1/2 mile trek and we had the woods practically to ourselves, only seeing a group of three people walking one trail over and a woman walking what looked like a dozen leash less dogs, some of whom trotted over to give us a closer look. When Donna asked her how many dogs she had with her, she replied, “Too many.”

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1220

A Walk in the Woods

Memorial Gate

For the first time in quite a while we went for a walk in Hitchcock Woods. From slightly chilly at the start to just right at the finish, it was a great day for one. For the drive home we even got to drop the top on the Emperor. It was a busy day in the woods too; we saw 5 folks on horseback, 3 fox squirrels, 2 people entering as we were exiting and 1 lone jogger.

Friday we ordered the cabinets and counter top. Yesterday we bought a pendant light for over the sink, the white subway back splash tiles and picked up our online ordered faucet. Today we meet with the contractor and set a date, he starts demolishing our kitchen on February 4th. I also wrote him a deposit check of 30% of his fee and it took two tries. I ran out of room the first time when the figure was X thousand, X hundred, X tens, X ones point XX cents, so we rounded up to X thousand & X hundred dollars.

This evening we spent our $200 microwave allowance on a really cool retro looking microwave, a 4 slice toaster and a new electric teapot.

The only thing left for us to buy for the project now is the under cabinet lights and it is turning out to be harder than I thought. The little puck lights I first picked out were going to be like $80 for both sets. The contractor poo-poo’d them as they were more homeowner DIY and not really set up to be hardwired in like he planned. So I started hunting the web for something more appropriate and mostly found stuff the pushed the $400 mark for our set up. Gotta find a sweet spot somewhere in between those two.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1192

Off The Hook

While sitting on the couch last night using the laptop to plan today’s geocaching adventure to Columbia, Donna was watching Diners, Drive-In and Dives. We were thinking of eating lunch at California Dreaming, but our plans were changed by the 10:30 episode of Triple D, which featured a place called Pawley’s Front Porch.

First stop though was Sesqui-Centennial State Park in northeast Columbia that has 10 geocaches. Looking at the map at home it seemed like most of them were on the shorter loop that closely circles the lake. Turns out I was wrong, they were scattered all over the place, on and off, some of the dozen or so miles of trails. We ended up spending 3 hours and walking 6.4 miles finding 8 of 8 of the caches attempted.

After driving to 5 Points in downtown Columbia, we circled the block, asked directions and still got turned around. We ended up walking the last block before finding the restaurant around 1:30. After a 30 minute wait we were seated and ordered our burgers. I had the Wadmalaw (chipotle BBQ sauce, fried pickle chips, applewood smoked bacon and cheddar cheese), Donna had a Rockville (sauteed Vidalia onions, wild mushrooms and gruyere cheese) and Joan opted for the Front Porch (cheddar cheese.) The fries and onion ring sides were alright, but the burgers were awesome and worth the wait. Three hours later I was still full.