Hiking

Good Thing…

…we were on foot.


Bridge Ahead Closed To Carriages

We went for a walk in Hitchcock Woods this afternoon and finally placed the new cache. We had hoped to get it placed yesterday, so it would be published this morning, but life intervened. I’m waiting to send it to the reviewer ’til a little later this evening so that no one will be tempted to go hunting it, against the rules and all common sense, tonight.

In the recent past I’m sure I have complained here about how cold it has been here, so in the interest of fairness I shall now commence to whining about today’s weather. The high was nearly 15 degrees above normal,, so that when we went walking in the woods this afternoon the trails were crowded with dog walkers, horseback riders and a few just plain walkers such as ourselves. Worse yet was that I actually broke a sweat on our three and a half mile trek. All that traffic did have a side benefit, it spooked a group of deer so that we caught sight of five good sized does streaking across our path about 50 yards ahead at one point.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 936

Hawk Field

A slight break from the papercraft madness, at least picture-wise, as today’s photo is of Donna and friend Joan taking a brief rest at Hawk Field in Hitchcock Woods. We had two purposes in the woods today, one was a nice walk on a nice winter afternoon (~4.5 miles) and two was scouting a geocache placement. Mission accomplished.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 932

Fulmer’s Stable


Fulmer’s Stable

Fair weather cachers no more. Admittedly, we slept in an hour later, until 7:00AM, and lounged around DD reading the Sunday paper until almost nine, so it was a bit warmer than it would have been at sunrise, but it was still cold enough to require hats, gloves and a warm coat. We did a few caches (6 total) that were between here and Augusta. After a lunch break we headed off into Hitchcock Woods to check on possible locations for our first legal hide there.

While we were way out west in South Carolina looking for a couple caches we ended up close to a couple of car dealers, so we stopped in and walked around the lots looking at possible new vehicles. First up was a Toyota dealer and even though I had no Toyotas on the short list, I wanted Donna to take a look to see if there was anything there she liked. The only thing that caught her eye was a Yaris. They’re kinda cute, but too small in a non-premium way.

Across the street was the Nissan dealer. The first thing to catch both our eyes was a bright blue 370Z. Wow, at 33K, more than we were looking at spending. They did have a couple of Altima Coupes, one in gray and another in very dark red. They did have a 4 door in the blue, but it was an uninspiring shade of navy. On the way back of the lot we passed right by one of those new mini-SUVs, the Juke. Donna commented that it looked like it had been in fight and lost. You have to admit its funky profile has a passing resemblance to a recently pummeled head with knots on it. Her next words were, “Juke, they should have called it Joke.” Next week, maybe we will cruise a Hyundai dealer.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 925

Let’s Do The Time Warp


Hitchcock Woods Simplified*

This morning I got up and blew the dust off the single bikes and filled their tires with air. Donna and I had decided we were going to see what it felt like not to ride the tandem. At the last minute I realized that the cyclecomputer clocks were one hour ahead. Dang, I forgot about those a couple weeks ago when daylight savings time ended. As I was breaking out the instructions on how to change the clocks, Donna said, “Forget about them, let’s go.” Try as I might I felt slightly askew in the space time continuum the whole time. The weather was so nice that by 10:00 AM (possibly really 9:00 AM) we had our breakfast at an outside table at the Atlanta Bread Company near the end of the ride.

As if the 16 mile bike this morning wasn’t enough, Donna, I and a friend went for a 2-1/2 mile walk in Hitchcock Woods in the afternoon. It was pleasant enough that I walked in shorts. Because of the nice weather the woods were busy, we saw a group of two horse riders and then a group of 4 more as we were standing where the above photo was taken. There were also several people walking their dogs, including one woman who was talking on her cell phone while her dog was checking us out about 50 yards away from her. As we exited the woods a truck slowed and the woman behind the wheel asked if we had seen a muddy border collie. I said no. After she drove off my mind kicked in gear and I remembered something. I should have told her yes, the last time I saw that dog was when he was way ahead of you on trail while you yakked on your phone.

*a photo from an overlook near the Chalk Cliffs in Hitchcock Woods post processed with a filter called Simplifier by AmphiSoft in Paint Shop Pro

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 902

Accidentally Surreal


We went for a nice walk in Hitchcock Woods this morning after a surprisingly uneventful breakfast at Dunkin’ Donuts. For most of the second half of the walk we could could hear the baying of dogs from the Aiken Hounds out for their weekly drag hunt. At one point they were so close that when a rider came around a corner ahead of us we jumped off the trail expecting a dozen dogs and a group of more riders, but it was just the one.

I took a few hand held bracketed shots while out on the trail and when I got home this evening I used the the built in High Dynamic Range function built into Paint Shop Pro to combine them. In the image above I forgot to hit the Align Images button and I kind of like the surreal quality it gave the scene. Click on the photo to see what it looks like when the HDR is done “properly.”

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 866

Christmas In October

Yesterday while on our morning break walk, with me wearing my new V-neck T-shirt birthday present, I mentioned that I had an idea of what I wanted for Christmas. A new pair of hiking boots. My old faithful pair of Hi-Tec’s were starting to look a little ratty and the soles were getting kind of worn down. I figured new boots were the perfect gift, something that I didn’t really need, but wanted and are reasonably priced (unlike most things that make my usual Christmas list.)

This morning Donna asked if there was any place locally that I might be able to buy those hiking boots. I told her possibly Academy Sports over in Augusta. She then asked, “Do you want to go over and see?” It took a couple of seconds before I finally realized she was offering not to just look, but let me buy some.

My mom didn’t raise no fool (I left home too early), so I said,”You know, there is a place here in Aiken that sells Merrell shoes, they might have something.” Not too much later I was the proud new owner of a pair of size 11 Moab Mid GORE-TEX XCR in Dark Earth.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 848

112,000 Rain Drops

Diet 7-UP was on sale at Walgreen’s starting this morning so we hightailed it over there to pick some up. The price of four 12 packs for $11 with a bonus of a $2 coupon for use on your next visit was about as good as it gets. We managed to make it to the store with the top down, but had to put it up to go inside, which we expected because for the first time in about a month we are going to get some rain. There were only three on the shelf, which we expected and why we hustled over there early on a Sunday, but the the guy running the place offered to check in the back, he came out with one, which we didn’t expect. On the way home the Emperor passed the 112,000 mile point, which I expected, because we went the long way home just for that reason.

We started yesterday morning with a 4 mile foray into Hitchcock Woods. They were having a “Festival of the Woods” with lots of programs, events and demonstrations. We would have liked to have seen the raptor demonstration, but knew we wouldn’t stay long enough for it because it didn’t start ’til after noon. So we just opted to hike in from one end and end up at the Show Ring where all the action was, just to see what we could see. As we got close to the ring we came across a few folks horseback riding. I thought maybe I’d snap a photo or two of them, but my camera wouldn’t come on. My first guess as to why was that the battery was dead. That guess was confirmed wrong when I opened the battery door, the battery wasn’t there. It was home still plugged into the charger. Oops.

We ended up yesterday with a 2.9 mile walk around Phinizy Swamp in Augusta with the MMC. The staff of the Swamp offer a full moon walk a few times a year, but we had the place to ourselves because we are special and one of the docents is a club member. Even though it was not the actual night of the full moon and we were stuck with just a waning gibbous with 95% of the visible disk illuminated we all had a great time. Because it was still pretty dark we thought we saw silhouettes of several types of egrets, maybe an owl and possibly an alligator. We did see a small possum as we had to use a flashlights beam to shoo him away from the boardwalk we were both were on.

Because we were a few minutes early for the Club meet up, Donna and I roamed the deteriorating parking lot of the deserted Regency Mall and grabbed 3 geocaches.

Started down, went up, went down, back up, back down, up again, still up.
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