DNF Logs

We looked for 15 caches over the three days from Friday night to Sunday afternoon and found 8 bringing our total to 237 finds since 2/15/9. We missed 7 bringing our DNF total to 46 (which reminds me, I need to update the In Depth Statistics page.) Here are the logs from our most interesting misses:

Friday
“I Spy” #6 ~ A Fountain
We were on our way to the coast for the weekend and mapped out a few caches for along the way. Turns out around 5 PM on a Friday is a fairly busy time in this small town. As I was taking pictures of the surroundings and the wife was holding the GPSr letting it settle, an older model GM car pulled in abruptly near us and a gentleman hopped out.

Gesturing wildly as he approached and trying to get out a story about how he was stranded in Williston and had family in Aiken or vice versa (I think, his back country southern drawl was barely coherent) and could we help him out. I said, “Oh, we don’t carry cash.” And he tried his plea again. This time my wife pointed across the street towards a busy parking lot and said, “Why don’t you try over there?” He replied, “I don’t know anybody over there.” To which my wife responded, “You don’t know us either.” This logic so stunned him that he walked back to his car muttering and he drove over to the mentioned parking lot.

We took this opportunity to hightail it east out of town.

Saturday
Mitchellville Beach Park
We got to Stage 1, wrote down the numbers we needed and headed off blissfully following the arrow on the GPSr to Stage 2 passing a couple and their two dogs looking for shells on the way.

When we got about 60 feet away from Stage 2 the arrow pointed to the Public Use/CIA object mentioned in the description, but it was perpendicular to our path and while we could see the object in question, we couldn’t get there from where we were.

So we turned around headed back the way we came, passing Stage 1 again and also the dog couple who still had there heads down looking, making a beeline for Stage 2.

Solving for Stage 3 we subtracted a 1 instead of 3 for the first letter and that made made the GPSr point back over where we just came from. Back tracking again, passing Stage 1 and the heads down shell hunters for the third time. A 1/3 of a mile later the needle was now pointing, because of the approaching high tide, out into the water.

Rechecked our numbers and realized our mistake. Re-entered the correct coords and you can guess where they pointed, that’s right, back to where we were just a short time ago. I know this couple were dedicated to the business of hunting for shells because on the forth time by they still hadn’t looked up at us. By the Stage 1 sign once more and over to the spot where the final stage should have been.

We were led right to where there was a geopath through the under brush and we searched and searched and came up empty. I backed up about 75 feet let the GPSR settled and followed it right to a second swath through the underbrush lining the path about 15′ from the original spot. Both of us looked and looked and looked but couldn’t find any tupperware.

For something that advertised no bushwacking needed we sure didn’t find any spot that fit the bill, but we did find plenty of places that had been bushwacked.

Sunday
Cryptozoologist Taylor’s Nessie
We arrived early on a quiet Sunday morning and parked right next to Stage 1. Not more than 50′ away was a Ford Crown Victoria with stripes on the side and a light bar on the roof.

We stood there anyway, read the engraving on the stone monument and then did the cipherin’ to find the coordinates for Stage 2. When we plugged them in they pointed off in a direction that was behind some fencing whose gates were still closed.

We didn’t feel real comfortable hopping the fence and traipsing off across the dew covered grass with Johhny Law parked there, so we drove off.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 455

Blogger’s Night Off

HHI Veteran's Memorial Park

Veteran’s Memorial Park on Hilton Head Island

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 454

The Long Way Home

It is about 140 miles from HHI to Aiken and it usually takes a little over 3 hours to make the trip, but today it took us eight. No problems, unless you count 6 DNFs against just 4 Finds, but it was a bit longer than we had planned on spending on the road.

Caching

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 454

Nice Morning

We drove down to HHI last night because I have to do a little Hilton Head Condo Rentals web page updating. Some photos needed to be taken, units removed and dates updated. We will be meeting Donna the Condo Queen for dinner, but until then we are going to do some geocaching of course. We watched the beginnings of sunrise from the balcony of the condo we were staying in, then took a nice walk on the beach as the day began in earnest.

The sky over the water to the east was just awesome this morning:
Sunrise

If you looked to the opposite direction, you got another pretty good show, a double rainbow:
Double Rainbow

I’m cheating and posting a Saturday entry on Sunday because we didn’t have internet at the condo. The choice was between high speed net access or ocean front condo, a no brainer, ocean front wins every time…

Started up, went down, back up, down again, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 453

Talking Birds

1. This morning we stopped on the way to work to take some cash out of the ATM. Donna sat in the car, I walked up to the building and inserted my card into the machine. For every button I push on the ATM it emits a pleasant little beep.

Donna could hear some birds off to the right in a lie of hedges between the bank and a home. She also heard what she thought was a different bird coming from the big tree near the ATM where I stood.

Donna heard the birds on her right move over towards me and the other bird. At the same time, as I wound down my transaction, I heard a couple of very noisy birds so close that it sounded like they were in the ATM alcove with me.

The birds I heard were in the tree not the ATM alcove and the different bird she heard in the tree was my ATM button presses. So, did the beeping ATM talk those birds into moving from the hedge into the tree?

2. On our lunch time walk as we passed the car we could hear a crow in a tree in the pasture next to the plant, “Caw, caw. Caw, Caw.”

The Weather Channel was calling for a 30% chance of evening showers, so we had left the top down with the cockpit cover on, but the skies were now looking kind of dicey. As we walked, we discussed whether or not to just put the top up. I thought that it was probably going to be OK with it down as the clouds didn’t look like big rain producers, but I was not real certain.

As we neared the car on the way back, that same crow was still speaking loudly, “Caw Caw! Caw Caw!” It seemed like he was talking to us and it sounded like he was saying, “Top up! Top up!” So we put it up.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 449

Cover Tunes

The other night as we sat in the Flying Pie in Newberry waiting for our pizza I was enjoying a song over their sound system and then the next one too. I hadn’t heard either tune before, but when they finished the DJ (do you still call them that?) mentioned the titles and that they were cover tunes. It was a satellite radio channel and we were in the middle of a Coffee Covers segment.

Usually if a song is real good, a cover of that song will be real good as well. It is pretty hard to ruin a great song (although most piped in grocery store music is the exception to this rule.) Sometimes the cover can be even better than the original, case in point, Gary Jules cover of a Tears For Fear song, Mad World from the Movie Donnie Darko or the Bangles cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s Hazy Shade of Winter.

The new Lincoln car commercials are using cover tunes to plug their new MKX. I kind of like the redo of The Church’s Under The Milky Way, but I’m not too sure about the Blue Oyster Cult Burnin’ For You redo.

Started down, went up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 445

First Vacation Planning Setback

The plans for next year’s trip to New Mexico is in the very early nebulous state. One week or two? Fly or drive? Fly partway and drive in the middle? Drive the Miata or rent a car for the drive?

Plan A is to fly to Albuquerque for just a week and rent a car. Stumbling block number 1, but not a deal breaker, is you can’t rent a convertible there. Only one company, Budget, even listed one, but claims they are sold out. I can rent a convertible in Phoenix (465 miles away) for $560 a week or Denver (462 miles away) for $400 a week, heck we can rent one in Augusta, GA (1532 miles away), but that would mean a 2 week trip and the car rental would be $1,300.

You would think that New Mexico would be a great place for convertible rentals.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 442