Geocaching

Big Brother

We took the day off from work today to run some errands, one of which was to go get the Sonata’s windows tinted. Because we were dropping it off and coming back later to get it, we had both cars on the move. Breakfast was at DD and as I looked back at the two cars parked in adjoining spots it really affirmed yesterday’s comment on the size of the Miata.

We killed the two hours while the Purple Whale got his sunglasses by doing a little local geocaching and we found 7 of 8.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1009

Beach View = No Internet

We took Friday off and drove down to HHI for a “working” vacation geocaching along the way. We managed to grab 5 caches on the way down, not many, but they were quality caches towards our Georgia Geo Challenges as they counted for 3 counties and one DeLorme page. The second half of the day was rained out so we headed to Hilton Head instead of looking for the other two caches in 2 Georgia State Parks. We figured we would get them before heading home on Sunday. Of course when we made it to the condo it was sunny.

This turned out to be a good thing in two ways. First, it allowed us to take pictures of 4 of the 5 condos that needed updating, freeing Saturday morning for a nap. And second, we found out when we got home on Sunday, we would have never found the cache in Fort McAllister State Park because it had been moved and I still had the old coordinates loaded.

The whole time we spend on the Island we had beautiful weather. Saturday morning we got in nice long walk on the beach and for most of the return trip we shadowed a dolphin as it fed in the surf. The above mentioned nap. Takeout lunch from Gruby’s NY Deli on the balcony of the condo. The last set of condo photos was taken in between one set of folks checking out, the clean up and another set of people checking. DTCQ took us out for a nice dinner at the Skull Creek Boathouse where we ate and watched the Kentucky Derby on about 12 big screen TVs. (How is it that someone who lives in a horse town could have no clue that the Derby was being run that day?)

Sunday morning we got going early as we wanted to get to Skidaway Island State Park near Savannah when it opened. There was a bonus cache we were eligible to find that was tide dependent. It needed to be sought at low tide because you had to cross tidal marsh to retrieve it. Low tide this morning was 06:51, the Park opened at 07:00 and we made the trail head by 07:10. And although we were only like 30 minutes past the listed time for low tide, it was a little scary crossing the marsh. Being total landlubbers, we understood the principles of how tides worked, but were not too sure that the sine wave profile usually shown for tides was 100% accurate and wondered if it was more digital looking (i.e. on|off|on|off) and we might be washed out to sea at any moment. In spite of our worries we did make the find and get back to dry land safe and sound. To say the official State Park cache was a let down after the bonus cache is not an exaggeration, but it was still an awesome cache in its own right with marsh views, palm trees, Spanish moss and a close encounter with a white tailed deer.

We then headed home to the usual Sunday evening drudgery of washing clothes, grocery shopping and getting ready for the work week ahead.

Today we drove the Miata to work and for the first time ever it seemed small. Tonight the big car got a bath for tomorrow’s appointment with the optometrist for some sunglasses (windows are getting tinted.)

What A Difference A Couple Of Days Make

In the image above, near the center bottom, you will notice a nice round green spot. In an effort to ease some of the traffic on Whiskey Road (the slightly angled road along the right side) the city devised a cut through between Whiskey and Silver Bluff Road (on left). After a couple of years of planning, they started construction last year. They got the round drainage pond dug and partially filled, the single lane road around it completed and while they were finishing up the access approaches, part of drainage pond wall was determined to be unsafe. For the last 8 months there has been zero activity, so we figured they had abandoned the whole project.

On Sunday Donna and I decided we would place a cache on the inside of the circle between the road and the interior chain link fence. Last night we bought a small Tupperware container, covered the top with camouflage tape and filled it up with small goodies. I created a geocache.com page for it, but did not publish it yet.

Aiken’s Crater Lake

You are looking for a small camoed lock-n-lock container in an interesting area.

The city officials will tell you that this is here because they are attempting to relieve traffic congestion on Whiskey Road, but this location makes no sense for that. And what is taking so long to complete the project?

The real story is late one night a couple years ago a UFO crashed on this spot and created a round hole in the ground. It was deep enough to be below the water table and the site quickly filled with water. Roads leading to the site were built to allow truck traffic for bringing in salvage equipment so the recovered space craft could be whisked away to a secret location on the Savannah River Site.

Try not to stay to long searching at ground zero due to residual radiation…

We went back over there tonight to put the container in place and when we pulled up to the entrance of the circle road, it was blocked by lots of yellow heavy equipment. And on the side of the circle we were going to place the Tupperware, the asphalt of the road was already peeled up. I guess they finally got approval to fix this mess or maybe they are just going to tear it all up and fill in the hole.

Now we are going to have to find another spot for our cache.

Georgia State Park Geocaching

On the trip back from Robbinsville, North Carolina today we knocked off three more Georgia State Park caches, along with 2 Georgia Counties and one DeLorme page. We walked a little over 6 miles total in the three parks and in one place I thought for a minute we were in an Enchanted Forest. The trail kept going up and up and up, so it seemed like they had figured out how to make a loop trail uphill for the whole length.

We’ve had the Sonata now for a whole three days and there are 731 miles on it, 702 of which are ours. At this pace in the first year of ownership we will accumulate 88,938 miles.

Today’s “Holy Crap This Car Is Big” story came at a driver exchange in a Burger King parking lot in Commerce, Georgia. At the previous driver change when Donna gave up the driver’s seat to me, she didn’t move the seat at all and I had to squeeze in. So this time she thought she would do me a big favor and move the seat all the way down and back. Trouble was, once she got the seat in that position, she couldn’t reach the door handle anymore to let herself out.

Saturday in North Augusta

We started out trying to find a spot for the MMC to breakfast next Saturday. It is our turn to take the troops to someplace for breakfast and we thought we had a spot that would work well, until we went inside. It failed on so many levels that we didn’t even breakfast here. We ended up at Burger King at Exit 5 of I-20. We split their Ultimate Breakfast (not really all that ultimate), read the Augusta Chronicle and watched the golf fans eat before they headed over to Augusta National.

Next year we may join them. For the first time in, I don’t know, like forever (47 years), you can apply for a chance to buy daily tournament tickets. At the risk of lowering my already very narrow chance of getting tickets, you can go and apply too. You can register to get your name thrown in a hat for the right to buy Practice Round tickets, four per day ($50 each) or two Daily Tournament tickets ($75 each.) The last time we entered in the “lottery” for practice round tickets an got them was 1993 or 1994. We figure we are about due.

After breakfast we headed over to the North Augusta Greeneway (photo above) to try and find the 3 new Green Lion hides and to attempt one of his that we failed to find, twice, but now had a solid hint for. We did manage to find those four and four more around town before shopping for some new blouses for work for Donna and consuming a gi-normous lunch at Ruby Tuesday.

We came home and spent the afternoon watching the one golf tournament we watch all year.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 991

Patched Hat

Spent a couple hours in downtown Augusta this afternoon. The Emperor was getting his hat repaired. On Monday we made a quick run to Jones St and Remond’s Upholstery to get an idea on what needed to be done about the delamination of the top’s fabric behind the passenger seat. Randy thought they he could do a fix that might get me another year before I had to replace the whole thing. He needed more time than any of us had that night so we made arrangements to return today.

Because he was who I bought the top from and did the install, he felt that I should have gotten more than 2.5 years out of it before it failed, so he offered to fix it for nothing. Because he wouldn’t take any money, Donna decided to bake him some of her famous chocolate chip cookies as payment. He glued a large piece of fabric over the tear area, covering it entirely, and extending it beyond where either of the top bows might move over during transitions. The fabric he used was a little “slipperier” than the top’s current lining. To make it even he did the same to the non-ripped driver’s side too. You can hardly pick out the repair work unless you know what you are looking for.

We dropped off the car and the dozen cookies and walked a few blocks south to the Mellow Mushroom for lunch. Afterward we walked along the Riverwalk. We were going to do some caching and attempted an Earthcache along the Riverwalk, but one of the requirements was a picture of us at GZ and the camera was in the trunk back at the upholstery shop. We tried one more, but because of where it was and the logs of those before us, we didn’t try very hard before giving up.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 979

A Walk in the Woods

We did a little geocaching this morning, very little, one cache. We also made a half-hearted attempt at a second and a no-hearted attempt at a third. The first one was worth the drive. A nice little 2.2 mile hike in the Stevens Creek Heritage Preserve. From there we headed into Augusta to test drive some candidates for our next new car. We drove four, nearly drove 1 and didn’t even sit in the sixth, but that is tomorrow’s post.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 975