Road Trip

Wednesday

$3.29 a gallon gas
226 miles
9 geocaches found
4 Georgia counties
3 GA State Parks
2 GA Delorme pages
1 tick bite

I was wrong about people mailing Christmas cards from Santa Claus, Georgia, it can’t be done, there is no Post Office. I think people mailed it to City Hall where they used a special postmark, then carried the cards up to Lyons for actual mailing. The city hall building was locked up at 2:00 o’clock on a Wednesday, so we couldn’t get a definitive answer on how it worked.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 919

Santa Claus, GA

Tomorrow morning we start a small trip to meet up with the Florida wing of the Morrison Clan. Aiken to St. Augustine is about 300 miles and in typical Bogardus fashion we will be taking 2 days to get there while geocaching through five Georgia State Parks on a slightly zigzagy route. Our path will take us right through the small town of Santa Claus, GA.

I have known about this place almost since we have lived here, because some people would drive there to have their Christmas cards postmarked there. Always thought that would be a cool thing to do, but it is 100 miles away and who looks at the postmark anyway? We’ll find out who, because Donna is finishing up a couple of late Christmas cards tonight which we plan on mailing from there tomorrow.

I would have thought that there would already be a geocache in town, but nope there’s not. We have a small bison tube lying around the house that is perfect for hiding somewhere, so I’ve attached a couple of little super-strong magnets to it and if we spot a suitable location, there will be one there tomorrow.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 915

Worst BBQ Ever

We went geocaching today in Crawfordville, GA and A.H. Stephens State Park. We took along a coworker and because the Miata does not seat 3 comfortably we took her car. Crawfordville is where Hollywood comes calling when it needs to film in a quintessential small southern town. There have been about a dozen films that have used this town as a bit player in them and there are 8 caches here with names that are the titles of those movies. We looked for 4 and found 2. The two we missed I don’t count as DNFs because they were in locations that made us very nervous searching which was only heightened by the fact that we were driving a car with New Jersey plates. There were 6 caches in the state park that you can get to by land and we found 5 of them.

Probably the most recognizable movie that was filmed in town was “Sweet Home Alabama” and for lunch we decided to eat at the BBQ place that was used in the bar scenes (Stella’s Roadhouse) of the movie. We were talked into getting the Plate by the almost surly woman behind the counter at Heavy’s as it included meat, brunswick stew and coleslaw. We opted for a rib plate and a chicken plate to split between the three of us. The coleslaw was too vinegary and had way too much pickle taste. The “stew” was run through a food processor for too long as it was kind of a sickly looking brown mush. The only thing remotely edible was the meat and that was overpowered by the amount of BBQ sauce it was covered in. Interesting place to visit, but you don’t want to eat there.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 911

The Rock House


The Rock House

We spent the whole day, and I do mean the whole day, geocaching. We were gone from 6:30 AM until 6:30 PM traveling a total of 250 miles. We had breakfast at Dunkin’ Donuts in Aiken, lunch at McDonalds in Louisville, GA and dinner at Cracker Barrel in Augusta. We found 11 caches, collecting 5 GA Counties, 2 GA DeLorme map pages and 2 GA State Parks, while DNf-ing just one. We walked a total of 6 miles, 3 in one state park, 2 in the other and 1 more chasing the rest of the caches.

There were several memorable finds, including the last one, The Rock House outside of Thomson, Georgia which was built around 1785 and is the oldest stone residence in the state of Georgia. The home is now owned by the Wrightsboro Quaker Foundation and has been rumored to be haunted. The Augusta Paranormal Society visits this location from time to time. Maybe because it was light out we didn’t see any ghosts.

The first find of the day was pretty cool too, but that is a story for another day.

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 907

Saturday By The Numbers


High Falls State Fall State Park

397 miles driven.
13 hours away from home.
6.2 miles walked on 4 different trails.
5 caches found.
4 restaurants in Greensboro, GA that we didn’t get served dinner in.
3 meals out (AKA, The Trifecta.)
3 GA State Parks completed.
2 DNF caches.
1 cache found, but too impatient to sign the log.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 891

I Bet They Were Beautiful Last Week


Hey! Weren’t You Just Here Two Weeks Ago?

Why yes, we were.

Today was our annual trip to the mountains with the MMC to view the fall colors. When I emailed a reminder to the membership, I remarked that Donna and I reserved the right to cancel the event if there weren’t at least two other cars going on the trip. So guess how many showed up? Right, two. Should have picked a larger number. A couple in one of the cars had never been to see the Georgia Guidestones, so we just had to stop.

We had a route planned that went north and west in Georgia ending up in Walhalla, SC for lunch before turning around and returning south and east in South Carolina. Trouble with the plan was that we had too much time built in for rest breaks (it probably would have been just right if we had twice as many cars and the temperatures had been 15° warmer like they were supposed to be), so when we got to I-85 and about 20 minutes from Martha’s Marketplace Cafe, it was only 10:30 AM. An adjustment was made to the route that was to take us on a loop northwest to Franklin, NC before coming back into Walhalla.

We were now in the mountains and the fall colors were nice, but noticeably past peak. At a break in Clayton, GA with traffic on four lane US441 heavy, the clock past noon and the distinct possibility that the scenery would not improve we made another adjustment to the route. Someone pointed at the GA map and said, “What’s that little gray line heading due east towards SC and route 28?” GPS’s and Smarty Pants phones were consulted and it was called Warwoman Rd. I said, “Let’s go. I’ve heard Miata.net chatter about that road. And it was good.” No one complained about the lack of fall color on this stretch of the trip. As one driver put it later, “All I saw was a white line on my right and a double yellow line on my left.” Once we got back in South Carolina on Rte. 28 we hit a sweet spot of altitude and chlorophyll-less-ness making the show out the side windows quite nice for about 15 miles or so.

Lunch in Walhalla at the Brian & Donna Pre-Approved Dining Spot was very good. The only negative was the service was slow, but I got the feeling that everything that happens in Walhalla happens slow. The trip home was uneventful and because we traveled about 50 miles less than we normally do on one of these excursions we got home in daylight and at a decent time for dinner at home.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 881

Georgia State Parks Geo-Challenge


Georgia’s Stonehenge, just outside of Elberton.

Seeing as we have completed the South Carolina DeLorme Challenge and have in our hot little hands the coordinates for the final cache in the South Carolina County Challenge we were looking for a new adventure. The Georgia State Parks Geo-Challenge looks like a winner. There is a geocache in 42 of Georgia’s 48 State Parks and we are setting off to find them all. Today we bought a yearly pass to Georgia State Parks creating an October 31, 2011 deadline for us to finish this challenge.

Seeing as we were also scouting routes for the MMC’s Leaf Peeping run in two weeks we headed up to the northeast Georgia mountains to start the Challenge. Here is the log I wrote for our first successful find in the series:

We arrived at the park office to get a trail map and stumbled on a small group of Augusta area geocachers. We chatted for a bit then hopped in our respective cars for the drive to the cache. I headed out first with them in hot pursuit. At a fork in the road, I went right, while they, after hesitating went left. Donna and I had plugged in the trailhead parking coords and attacked it from that way. The other 4 used the “drive on the road that will take you nearest the cache” approach. Amazingly enough both teams converged on ground zero at the same time.

Using the hint, I walked right to where I suspected the ammo can would be. It wasn’t. I then did a quick 360 scan and spotted a UPS. Headed over to where I was sure the cache would be, only to be foiled again. Another horizon scan and another UPS, this better be it. On our way over there my wife tripped on a branch, falling down as a distraction, so I could make the find before the Augusta group. Way to go girl! (OK, I’m kidding about the distraction thing. But she really did take an accidental fall as we approached the cache. Total damages, a bit of wounded pride, one scraped knee and probably have a black and blue patella tomorrow.)

We all signed the log, rifled through the schwag, trading nothing, and each group dropped in a Travel Bug. The Augusta folks that needed to stamp their GA Park Geo-Challenge passport thingie did and then each group headed off in opposite directions, back off to their cars. We had left our passport back in the car, which was par for pretty much the way our day was going, so when we got back to the car, we grabbed the paper and walked back to the cache again to stamp it.

After stamping the page, yippee, one down forty-one to go, we grabbed up the TB that one of the Augusta cachers had just dropped off, to make the trip back doubly worth it. I hope the rest of the State Park finds are this interesting?

It wasn’t the first one we tried though, we missed out on the cache in Tallulah Gorge State Park, but that is a story for another day, and do I mean story.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 868