Geocaching

Leaf Peeping & Caching

We took a half a day off from work and drove up to North Carolina to retrieve our extra sheets and towels from the SMH and do a little leaf peeping. Early on in the drive we noticed that in the lower elevations in SC there were quite a few trees already changed and a lot that already dropped their leaves. We both thought that this would mean that as we got into the mountains everything would be dull and empty, but boy were we wrong. Along I-26 in the upstate of SC the trees were in peak color and as we got into the higher elevations of NC they were still plenty colorful.

Now that we are here the weather has turned against us. In the beginning of the week it looked like rain so we were hesitant, but as the week progressed the fore cast looked better. Yesterday when we made the reservation the chance of rain on Saturday was down to 20%. It is actually misting and wet that we are here and if you check the forecast for tomorrow in the SC upstate they are calling for a 70% of rain.

We have several caches mapped out do to for our challenges in the morning on the way home, we will just have to see how it turns out in the morning. Rain we head straight home, misty we cache until damp, dry we rack ’em up.

Started down, went up, back down, up again, down again, up once more, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 461

Gasteracantha Cancriformis

Red Spiked Spider

At one of our caching stops on Sunday we were in a patch of woods that had three of these jewel box spiders in large webs between trees. Made us make wide paths and hope against hope that we wouldn’t forget where the webs were in our hunt for the painted peanut butter jar.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 456

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

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

98,000 Pieces of Coal

Loading CoalSaturday the MMC took a trip to Winnsboro to visit the South Carolina Railroad Museum. This weekend there was a visiting steam engine to give that old time feel (and smell) to your train ride. We combined the Club’s monthly breakfast with the train event, plus following the hour long train ride we drove to a nearby town for lunch making for almost a full day Miataness.

After lunch Donna and I went our separate ways from the group because we had an alternative agenda, that’s right, geocaching. Before leaving we made tentative dinner plans with another MMC couple to meet in Lexington at the Uno Chicago Grill at 5:30 to complete the Trifecta (all 3 meals out.)

Got all caught up chasing camo’d containers in the north central part of the state and ended up not being able to make it back to Lexington in time for pizza with Rudy & Patti. We were disappointed on two levels. With the dreary day and approaching of dusk we opted for the more direct way home from where we were and resigned ourselves to eat in Newberry at whatever place we could find. Luck was on our side though, willing to dine in a Hardee’s or a Subway, we stumbled on The Flying Pie on Main St and had a wonderful pizza about half way between the thin crust of West One in Hendersonville and the thick Chicago style pie in Lexington.

Saturday by the numbers:
299 – Miles driven on the day
98,000 – Total miles now on the Emperor
1 – Tank of gas used
5 – O’clock wake up call
14 – Hours from leaving home until returning
58° – High for the day, 20 below normal
9 – Cars in a line (7 Miatas, 1 Boxster and a Jeep)
11 – Mile train ride (5-1/2 under steam power)
100 – Pounds of coal burned by the train per mile traveled
8 – Caches found
3 – SC County Challenge caches and
2 – DeLorme Challenge pages finished

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 437

Full Day

SMH SunriseWe were treated to a nice sunrise from the second floor deck of the SMH. Grabbed a couple shoots through the screen on the porch and this is one that the camera didn’t actually focus on the screen (I didn’t even think that it could focus on something that close.)

The rest of the day was spent wandering around the back roads near Hendersonville with no particular destination in mind, but to capture a few of the 400 some odd caches within 25 miles of H-town that I have loaded into the GPS. Snagged a half dozen of them. The leaves are just starting to change around here, perhaps 20% or so are now yellow, orange or red which made the rural roads twinkle in brief flashes of color as we zipped down them.

SMH SunsetMy sister and her husband arrived at their southern home around mid-afternoon and we spent several hours catching up over dinner and a UCONN football game on ESPN. We didn’t see the sunset, but on our evening walk we were treated to some interesting reddish clouds.

Like the last time we met them here in late July, we spent one night at the SMH and then vacated the place so Allen’s sister and her husband could spend the night there. Like last time, they weren’t supposed to get to the townhouse until later. In July we left in the early afternoon and missed them, this time we hung around until about 8 PM and they still hadn’t showed up. We are getting together with Diane and Allen in the morning for breakfast at a local restaurant and we asked if the sister and brother-in-law would be joining us, but he laughed and said, not that early. 8:15AM? The last (and first) time we saw his sister and her husband was at Diane and Allen’s wedding about 20 years ago. My paranoid side is now convinced they are avoiding us.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, up again, down again, up once more, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 429