Road Trip

Belton And Back

Although we swore we were going to be staying home this weekend because we will be on the move the next two, we couldn’t stand it. We had completed the Alphabet Soup – South Carolina Style Challenge a couple months ago by grabbing 26 caches within the state’s border, each one beginning with a different letter of the alphabet, we hadn’t done the final stage in Belton. That was today’s destination.

We started by doing the bread crumb series of caches which start in North Augusta and end in Greenwood (or vice versa.) At each cache you get part of a set of coordinates and after doing all 6 you end up with the whereabouts of 2 different caches, one in each of the end point cities. Seeing as we were heading north, when we got to Greenwood we plugged in our bonus cache coords and headed off for it. When we pulled into the park where it was located the place was jammed with cars and people soccer balls. Turned around and left, to come back another day.

We also had a few others to look for on the way up and way back besides our goal cache in Belton. We finished the day with 10 caches found, 2 counties checked off, one more DeLorme page complete and one DNF.

Unfortunately the DNF was for the one cache we really wanted, Alphabet Soup. I know I really shouldn’t wear shorts when caching, but I’m willing to put up with a few random scratches for comfort, so I risk it. Hunting for this cache I really regretted it. Here is the log I left on the cache page:

It was easier finding the 26 letters of the alphabet caches than it was finding this one.

Walking along next to a stream when the arrow of the GPSr points 40′ into the the brush perpendicular to the trail. After about 5 feet in I knew I was not coming out of this unscathed, there were pointy thorns aplenty tangled everywhere. I got within 25′ of GZ and couldn’t get to it for the brambles. Backed up a few feet and attacked at another angle. Different briars stopped me, still about 25′ away.

Struggled back to the trail looking for another way in. Spotted something promising about 15 feet further along. Only a few steps in and already it was major pokeville. Dodge. Weave. Duck. GZ is 25′ way. Dang it. I’ve already been stuck several times, so I barge along parallel to the trail and get myself locked in real good in a tangle of stickers. Check the GPSr, yep, 25′ away. Losing a little more skin and blood I forge through the stickers in that direction.

I stop when I get to a point where there is an inch of water on the ground. The arrow on the GPSr is pointing back the way I came and you can guess as to how far away it said I was…twenty-five feet.

My wife, who had given up long ago because of the briers, talked me out of the sticker bushes before I passed out from blood loss and we mumbled and grumbled our way back to the car. I am not going to look good in shorts for several weeks…

If we ever come back for this one I’m bringing a DR Brush Mower!

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 475

Is That A Water Tower In Your Pocket?

Water Tower
Or are you just glad to see me?

We took a “little” trip to do some geocaching today. After going 0 for 2 in Hampton County last weekend on the way home from HHI, there was one more left that we wanted to try and it was only 72 miles away (as the crow flies.) We warmed up with a series of 4 ammo cans in a park in Jackson, SC. Then we drove through the bomb plant to get the other half of a multi that we had gotten Stage 1 of last Sunday. We ducked into to Georgia on US 301 to visit the country’s oldest operating Welcome Center (dedicated January 1962) and the grab nearby cache. On the return trip back into SC I took a picture of my state’s Welcome Center. It was closed in 2000.

The drive down was on really back roads passing through only a couple towns and they had populations of less than 3 digits. We made it to the spot where our goal was, at a boat ramp on the Savannah River called Stokes Bluff Landing and we might not have found the cache if we didn’t read the clue. We decided to loop into Georgia and come back on the west side of the river and pass through Augusta before coming home, but when we hit US 301 we turned right. Passed that GA Welcome Center again and retraced our route back.

About 200 miles of driving with the top down on a beautiful fall day. We were 11 of 12 in finding caches for the day and it wasn’t until I got home and logged them online that I realized we really blew it by missing that one, our total cache finds stands now at 249…

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 470

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

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