Geocaching

Half Day

We only worked a half day and after lunch at home we hit the road to the SMH. We grabbed three caches on the way up and had our first DNF in three weeks behind an abandoned shopping center in north Spartanburg.

Instead of driving the whole way from Newberry on I-26 as usual, after the miss in Spartanburg Donna let me finish the trip on US176 which parallels I-26 to Hendersonville, but is a lot more scenic and more of a Miata road – read windy, twisty, switchbacky.

Guess what we had for dinner? Right. Pizza at West One in H-ville. We opted for a change of flavor and went for the prosciutto pie. This is the third variety of pizza we have tried here and we are both hard pressed to pick a favorite.

Started down, went up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 423

Give me a J! Give me a Z!

What’s that spell? Nothing, but it does finish up Alphabet Soup – South Carolina Style.

I mapped out a loop that took us almost to Columbia because that is where the closest Z cache resided. We also needed a J and there were two of those within a couple miles of the Z. SC302 to I-26 to US1, there were 14 caches within a 1/2 mile of the route and we did 6 of them.

Cross off one more county, Lexington and one more DeLorme page, 37.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 412

Birthday Boy Goes Caching

We came back from the SMH via US25 instead of the Interstate and snagged a few caches on the way.

The eight finds put us over the two hundred mark, 202 to be exact.

We crossed off three counties, Greenville, Laurens & Greenwood, bringing us to 17 of 46 completed in that challenge.

Plus we filled in 3 DeLorme pages, 17, 18 & 33 meaning we are now finished with 14 of 47 pages.

We also crossed off the letter X from the SC Alphabet Challenge leaving us needing only J & Z to complete the 26 needed for that one.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 412

Rainy Saturday in NC

Hairy HedgeIt was a quiet and rainy day here at the SMH. We were up early enough to get the lot mowed and give a bad haircut to the hedge in front of the porch (before picture to left) before the rain started.

We didn’t get in any caching because we are not hard core enough, a little (and it was not always little) bit of precipitation scared us away.

So we stayed inside and watched all of Disc 5 of Season 7 of West Wing this afternoon and we now have just the very last 3 episodes to watch. We are still not sure what we are going to replace it with in our TV rental queue, quite possibly nothing.

After West Wing I spent the next three hours watching the FRS lose to the Yankees again. I know the games don’t really mean anything standing wise, we’re not catching them for the division and we have a lock on the wildcard, but if they don’t at least win tomorrow I’m going to have to take an incredible amount of grief at work on Monday from my manager…

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 409

Numbers

96,000: Saturday while leaving of town the Emperor crossed over that many miles.

398: Number of the Emperor’s top transitions since 10/24/08

194: Total number of caches we’ve found so far.

37: Number of caches we have DNF’d

14: Number of SC Counties we have found caches in.

11: Number of pages of the SC DeLorme Atlas we have found caches on.

7: Number of minutes left until the next episode of TDTVS2 starts.

Started up, went down, back up, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 398

Caching Out

Guess what came in he mail today? If you said a newly refurbished Garmin eTrex Venture HC, give yourself a lollipop. We’ve loaded it with batteries and taken it with us so we can compare how it works against our new Vista HCx tomorrow.

This morning after Breakfast with the MMC(tm) we took a drive down to Jackson to do a little caching. Jackson is in Aiken County, which we obviously already have, but it sits on a fairly desolate DeLorme Page (51.) We were 2 for 4, but that was OK as we only needed one to be considered a successful expedition.

Plan A was to drive up early Sunday morning to Florence for Breakfast with Laurie(tm), but we opted for Plan B, leave at 4PM on Saturday. This way we could do some caching on the way up too. Three for four with one abstention before it got too dark to see. Added two more counties, Calhoun and Orangeburg and two more DeLorme pages 45 & 46.

Started down, went up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 395

Back Pads

This was our Friday afternoon off and I put it to good use by replacing the back brake pads on the Emperor. Donna put it to good use by having the time to try out a shrimp salad recipe she saw on a Barefoot Contessa cooking show.

I spent the evening plotting out caches along routes for the two statewide challenges we are doing. Now we just have to hope that on Sunday we don’t get the 60% chance of rain, but fall into the 40% no rain range. And she spent the evening watching Food TV looking for other meals to try out in case we fall into the 60%.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 392