Road Trip

Brian & Donna Buy A Lottery Ticket

We needed a renewal on Retirement Plan B, so we made a trip to Georgia to buy a chance at the next ten drawings of Mega Millions. Augusta is about fifteen miles away as the crow flies, but our round trip was 200 miles long.

It included a route that took us through the South Carolina counties of McCormick and Edgefield. You can guess why the long circuitous route, geocaching, but what was the significance of the counties? It was because of the South Carolina County Challenge. If you find a cache in every one of South Carolina’s forty-six counties, you will get the coordinates to this bonus 47th cache and then you can add this “prestigious” goal to your caching resume. Eight down, thirty-eight to go.

On our way home we stopped in at Books-A-Million to buy something that will help us accomplish a sister challenge to the county one, the South Carolina DeLorme Challenge. You buy a $20 book and you have to find a cache on each of the 63 pages it takes to cover the state to get the coords for the final mystery cache and another trophy for the mantle.

The rules don’t disallow using the same cache in both challenges, but to us that would seem like cheating, so we will be getting at least 109 more caches in South Carolina. I’m willing to bet it will be a lot more than that.

I only wish we knew of this stuff back a few years ago when we were going on those Post Office Photography Safaris.

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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 388

Full Day

Not Easy Being GreenThis morning we did get to the WNC Nature Center and it was interesting destination. I’m sure they are doing good work, but it came off as more of a minor league zoo and is mostly aimed at kids. We left Edward Scissorhands (Allen) at the town home so he could prune, trim and shape the landscaping, while Diane, Donna and I took a pleasant drive north to Asheville and then to the east side of town via the Blueridge Parkway.

There were three caches within a 1/4 mile of the nature center, so after we had our fill of wild animals in captivity, we went out looking for captive containers in the wild. The first one was spotted by Donna as it hovered right over my head in a tree I was standing near. The second one we only gave a half hearted attempt at because it was supposed to be at the edge of a small stream in a small park, but to get to it you had to fight through a large patch of plants with large thorns on them. The third was near a soccer field in the same park, but there was a broom less game of Quidditch taking place, so we didn’t even leave the car.

Lunch was back in Hendersonville at West First wood fired pizza. After eating lunch we went back to the Stricker Mountain Home and packed our bags. We were vacating the place so Allen’s sister and her husband from Charlotte could spend Saturday night in the guest room.

We are back home and while it was fun to see their new place and visit with my sister and Allen, there is no place like home.

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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 315

93,000 Empty Seats

93,000 Empty SeatsWhile circling the Lowes Motor Speedway loop road looking for the registration building, the Emperor rolled past the 93,000 mile mark.

Today’s mission was a resounding success. We spent the morning watching all variations of cars race around 3/4 of the big oval and a t-shaped infield course at the Speedway. Lunch was a taste bud tantalizing mixture of red beans and rice with andouille for me and stuffed shrimp for Donna. That was after our appetizers of Crawdaddy Fondue Dip for her and Rat Toes for me (don’t worry, I saved you some Mark.) We found some nice light hikers for Donna that were cheaper than expected and we snagged three caches (1 at the race track and 2 near the mall.)

I even have the film I kiddingly promised, but it is so lame I won’t post it. I decided to use the camera and take a short video of our friends Miatas as they went by. The movie consists of about 3 seconds of cars flashing by and then the next 12 seconds are of my (and Donna’s) feet and legs as we walk away from the fence. I forgot to push the shutter a second time to stop the movie…

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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 279

Sick & Tired of Feeling Sick & Tired

We are packing up our cough medicine, decongestants, expectorants and throat lozenges and going on a day trip. We have been threatening to go to the Concord Mills Mall for several weeks now and it is high time we did.

Donna needs a new pair of hiking boots, so a trip to the Bass Pro Shop is in order. We’ve both had a hankering for the spicy food at Razzoo’s just across the parking lot from the BPS. As an extra incentive Clunk (or is it Thunk?) is racing his Miata, AKA POS, at Lowe’s Motor Speedway at NASA Firecracker Run. We are going through geocaching withdrawal too.

So we are loading up the Miata. Film at Eleven.

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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 277

Lucky Seven

GEOffery the GiraffeAfter last night’s dinner in Lexington we continued west on I-20 to Florence. We were going to met Donna’s cousin for breakfast at the Cracker Barrel on Sunday morning.

I picked out seven caches in northwest Florence near the HIE where we were going to be staying, so we would have something to look for before we met Laurie at 8:30. The first one we even walked to because it was behind the McDonald’s at the same exit.

Another cache was right down the road from the hotel near a boat ramp. It was back in the woods a hundred yards or so and we had been doing the drunken bee dance for about 10 minutes and getting a little frustrated. It was an ammo ca, it shouldn’t be this hard to find. It was kind of trashy in there too, cans, bottles, plastic bags, etc, amazing how much considering how far away we were from where humans should have normally been. We were standing there deciding whether we should dance some more or give up, we had the time constraint of the breakfast meet and all, when I saw some black boat line at my feet and wrapped around the base of the tree we were standing next to. My natural curiosity led me to see where the other end of it went. There, suspended about 20 feet above our heads by that black rope, was an ammo can.

We found six, but elected to ignore the last one when Donna read in the logs about there being a lot of ticks in the area where it was hid. We had run out of time anyway, when we got to the Cracker Barrel it was already 8:27. Laurie’s car wasn’t there. She is normally very prompt, so we knew we wouldn’t have to wait long.

Pretty soon it was 8:40 and still no blue Honda Accord, so we broke out the cell phone and gave her a call to see where she was. She wasn’t answering her cell, so figuring I had mislabeled her numbers in our phone’s directory I tried the home number. She answered and I asked,”Where are you?” “Home,” came the reply. She quickly put two and two together and knew why I was calling on a Sunday morning, so she added, “That’s next week.”

Earlier this week when via emails we agreed to meet for breakfast, both Donna and I overlooked the fact that Laurie had put the date of 6/7 in her email. We just assumed that it was to be this Sunday.

I guess we will be eating breakfast at the Florence Cracker Barrel two Sunday’s in a row.

Having been promised seven caches today and only getting six in Florence when we went out shopping this evening we made a slight detour and stopped by to visit GEOffery the Giraffe.

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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 224

It Didn’t

The weather that is. It was raining when we got up, so we decided to take the Interstate back instead of US25. This put us off the Geocaching Along A Route plan, so that even when the sun did come out towards the end of the trip and the top came down we were nowhere near anything to look for.

Here is a photo from yesterday. The 404′ Hickory Nut Falls at Chimney Rock Park.

Hickory Nut Falls

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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 212

Chimney Rock

Chimney RockSpent most of the day with sister Diane and husband Allen.

We started the day at Chimney Rock Park where we spent about 3 hours walking up, around and about on the trails and stairs there. Lunch was on the outside deck at a small Mexican place in the neighboring town of Lake Lure where Donna and I had eaten a couple years ago on a fall leaf peeping expedition. It was as good as we remembered it.

From there we made another run to their now revealed secret hideaway. We drove around, got a tour of a model home where the decorating budget was probably more than the cost of our home in Aiken. Allan then took a look at a different lot and spent several minutes talking to the developer’s son trying to work a deal.

After a two hour break for afternoon naps we went back into downtown Hendersonville to see the end of the big plant & flower show and get some dinner. Two words: West First. Best pizza since, well, ever.

Between yesterday and today we are 6 for 6 in geocaches. Five of which Diane & Allen have done with us (we may have converts on our hands.) Tomorrow on the trip home we may do a few, weather permitting.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 209