We started out heading for the Augusta Canal Tow Path for a walk and to maybe find a cache or two, but a senior moment on the part of the driver led to ending up at Phinizy Swamp for a long walk and three geocache finds.
No, we haven’t decided to drive to all the South Carolina Post Offices and take their picture with a Sonata in front…
On our way to work Friday morning we stopped off at DD for our breakfast and a free doughnut* on National Doughnut Day. We got up early to account for the time we would waste reading the Wall Street Journal, but for whatever reason there wasn’t a copy there, so we finished eating earlier than anticipated. The only thing to do was to take a the long way to work. We drove what used to be Loop 1 of the Aiken Bicycle Club’s 4 Loop Century backwards and when we passed by Vacluse’s tiny Post Office we noticed that across the street was a big parking area and a patch of woods, causing both of us to think, “That would be a neat place for a cache.”
So late yesterday evening that is just what we did.
Today, instead of an email notification that the cache was published, we got an email from the South Carolina reviewer, “Thank you for your cache page submission. The maps we use show a railroad track within about 120 feet of your cache location. Railroads typically have a right of way that extends 150 feet to either side, and trespassing onto the right of way is a federal offense. Please relocate your cache so that it is not within 150 feet of a railroad track.”
So late this evening that is just what we did.
*with drink purchase
But if I don’t post for more than 2 days I get angry letters…
The above picture is from last Sunday’s Georgia geocaching adventure and tonight after the MMC monthly meeting we walked a block over to find a newish cache and drop off the Travel Bug we grabbed near where that picture was taken, all we took from the cache was a plastic coin that looks a little like pirate treasure, which reminded me that last night I watched the middle two thirds of TDPM, commercials and all, on the ABC Family Channel and the day before, Tuesday, my manager told me he had seen the fourth installment, On Stranger Tides, over the weekend and it was the best of all the Pirates of the Caribbean flicks, but I can’t really trust his judgement because he is a New York Yankee fan and because the FRS have lost the last three games in a row after taking over first place in the American League East Division the MFY are now back in first by two games.
Warrenton – Milledgeville – Gray – Monticello – Mansfield
10 Finds – 4 GA Counties – 2 DNFs – 1 GA DeLorme Page
Looking back up the canal at the headgates from a pedestrian bridge across the canal on Sunday. We were standing where we were, because there is a geocache right at our feet.
Plan A was a bike ride this morning, but some early morning fog kept us off the roads. So we put Plan B into action, a walk along the Augusta Canal. Donna nd I were frequent visitors here back in the day when would come over with our mountain bikes. Today, we walked.
The trail along the Augusta Canal Tow Path is probably the last place left around here where we can take a walk along a path lined with a fairly high density of geocaches, with about 20 caches along it’s 5-1/2 mile length. We started our walk this morning at the canal head gates and walked a little more than a mile and a half of it. Some of the hides along the canal are really close to the water so as to be accessible by kayak as well as by walkers and cyclists. This makes for some tricky descents down the steep 7 or 8 foot drop fro the path.
I was wearing jeans and not my usual cargo pants so I had the small notebook I use to record finds and DNFs in my back pocket instead of a side pocket. When I went to log in find number three I noticed that I didn’t have the notebook. The wallet was still in that pocket, but no notebook. The last place I used it was at find #2 so we walked the couple a tenths of a mile back and scrambled down towards the water. It wasn’t there.
We turned to continue down the canal to get couple more caches and wouldn’t you know it, before we got back to cache #3, there lying on the ground on the path was the notebook. Back in the pocket it went. We passed the already found cache and made our way further along the trail to cache #4. Another scramble down the hill and number four was in hand. I reached for the notebook and it wasn’t there! The wallet was still there, but I did take the hint and stored the wallet in the knapsack for the remainder of the day.
We walked further down the trail to get one more cache and then on the way back we kept an eye out, but never did see that notebook again.
At one point along the trail there was a set of stairs that led down to the Savannah River and that is where the above photo was taken. I have never seen the river so glass-like.
We got up 2 early for a Sunday morning 2 drive a loop through Georgia today. We found 4 caches and DNF’d 2, but we made the most of that small amount of finds because by the time we were finished a little after 2:30 this afternoon we got to cross off 2 State Parks, 2 Counties and 2 DeLorme Pages of our Georgia Geocaching Challenges.