Geocaching

Special Super Bowl Post

Right now it looks like Troy’s seven fingers up is at risk as the Steelers trail 21 to 17 near the end of the 3rd quarter.

We finally got a really nice day for geocaching, so we headed over to North Augusta and snagged 8 of 10. Seven of the eight finds were along the rails to trails Greeneway and one of those caches was quite the adventure. It was off the trail and down a steep embankment to almost the Savannah River. It was so steep that we had to walk down and up using a zig-zagging path similar to Tour de France cyclists in the Alps. We ended up walking a shade over 6 miles doing those 7 caches.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 938

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

Hostess Truck Version 2.0

This model is recognizable by the Hostess logo on the back and the rearview mirrors that I didn’t have time to put on the first version. I’m thinking for Version 3.0 I might have the rear door open with hundreds of tiny Sno-Balls tumbling out of it. I did this one at home using Elmer’s Glue and I’m not that happy with the results. At work I have a glue stick that works a lot better, but more importantly I have a very well lit area that makes it easier to see the cut /fold lines. The glue stick is an easy fix, but I’m not sure what to do about the lighting.

First up today was the usual Saturday breakfast at DD while reading the Weekend Edition of the WSJ they get. We enjoy reading it so much we thought about getting it home delivered, but you can only get the weekend paper if you subscribe to the Monday through Friday editions as well. Those we probably wouldn’t read, so it would be a terrible waste of paper, plus the cost was more than we wanted to spend for a newspaper for one day a week ($119 a year.)

Then we went out in the 27° morning and did a few local and semi-local caches. We found the first two we looked for and then it went down hill from there, ending up finding just three of the next seven. We were about due a few DNFs as we hadn’t had one in three weeks and 30 caches.

We finished out the day at Olive Garden with friends. We always go out to eat early to avoid the crowds, but that plan didn’t work tonight. We arrived at 5:15 and ended up with a 50 minute wait for a table. If it was just Donna and I we would have just walked next door to Wendy’s, but we had Rudy and Patti to share stories with while we waited, so while the wait was long, it was pleasant.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 931

Ice Ice Baby


I assume this is a statue of a little girl, but it could be a boy because it was so cold out here this morning that my junk had sought refuge internally too and I wasn’t even standing thigh deep in ice.

It was 24 degrees out when we left the house headed to Augusta for an MMC breakfast, but first we wanted to do some geocaching. Close to the breakfast joint was a huge baptist church that had 6 caches scattered around its very large grounds. It was Saturday morning at 7 AM, so we figured we’d have the place to ourselves…wrong. They must have had a Christian Men’s Breakfast because not long after we pulled into the parking lot several cars came zipping in after us. We ended up only getting 3 of the more far flung caches before leaving because we were getting eyeballed by the new arrivals.

The church also happened to be right next door to the Hyundai dealer, so we wandered over and eyeballed some vehicles. It was confirmed that the Genesis Coupe has too big a butt for our liking.The good news is Donna approves of the Sonata in Pacific Blue which is my first pick. We both like the looks of the Accent as well. Now it comes down to some test driving, waiting until the slush fund has enough money for a decent down payment and doing the bullshit car dealer price dicker dance. Their web site listed a blue SE at $23,450, but the two they had on the lot had stickers of 26 and change and then the dealer added paint protection scam for $800, so the price for the car ended up in the high twenty seven thousand range!

After breakfast we did a bit more geocaching at a park in Augusta and then a couple more in North Augusta along the Greenway. Ended up with an even dozen finds and no DNFs, although we were close to not finding the one entitled The Secret Garden where the above photo was taken.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 926

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

Rye Patch


Rye Patch

We had big plans to go geocaching this morning, but they fell through when we opted to sleep in and just stick around the house. We did go out later with a friend and grabbed 2 caches that were real close by, one in Hopeland Gardens (where the photo was taken) and one in the Aiken County Museum.

Right now Donna is in the other room on the laptop making big plans to go caching tomorrow morning. We’ll see how that goes, it is supposed to be 22° at sunrise.

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