Bright and early (at least for me), Woodhick803 (aka my brother) showed up at my house and off we went for what turned out to be a fun and rewarding day. First stop, Almost Off Your Rocker at Beckley's Cracker Barrel. He'd hunted for this one once before and I had looked for it twice, but this time I just knew where it had to be and, sure enough, it was. Yay!
Stop #2 at Tamarack where Woodhick picked up "A Cache for Woobie." I had already been there, so it was kind of hard to play dumb (no comments, please!) about the cache's whereabouts, but WH walked right up to it. A very pretty spot - you'd never know it was there.
Next stop - Intersection Cache. Although I hadn't planned on visiting this site today, Woodhick wanted me to look for it so he could blog about it http://cachingin--geocachingme.blogspot.com/
Poor old Woodhick - I thought he was going to have the proverbial hissy fit when I walked right up to it. Poor guy had looked there twice earlier and only found it this morning on the way over. Hehehe! My turn to gloat! Hehehe! However, I do have to admit that it was an extremely clever hide, so maybe I should cut him a break. (Nah. I'm his sister, remember?)
We then started working on a series called "It Was Here" - seven caches all on sites where Beckley landmarks (if you can call them such) used to be. Some have changed for the better, others not so much.
Who remembers Pizza Inn? Yep, replaced by another drugstore (don't we have enough, yet?) - with a nicely hidden cache. You're really going to date yourself though, if you remember where the old Moonlite Drive-In used to be. Guess what's there now. At least it's stayed in the same genre - the Galleria movies are there. And so is a cleverly hidden cache. Woodhick and I have some disagreement going over who found this one. He picked up the box that was hiding it, but I actually called out and touched it first. Eh, I'll let him have it. After my Intersection Cache find, I guess I should be generous to him, right?
Woodhick had yet to pick up Rock the Cache Mall, so while we were in the area, we drove by. Nicely hidden, but you can spot it as you drive by, which makes it not so nicely hidden after all, I guess.
The Vo-Tech Center (what an eyesore) has been replaced by Thornhill Park. A lovely, clean little park, nice fountain, and a pickup of yet another "It Was Here" clue.
Our only DNF (did not find) of the day came next (well, after a delicious lunch at Aangan. I think we choose our geocaching adventures by good restaurants). It was at the site of the old "Big Bite." I never remember it being the BB, but I do remember it being the Burger Boy, probably Beckley's first fast food hamburger joint. I remember it had a big satellite type of light up on the top. This was WAY before Ray Kroc had ever come to town. We visited this site three times today, never finding the cache. It has us stumped, for sure. :-(
The former sites of Big John's Packette and the Palace Theater were next on our list. Never went to Big John's; I always thought it looked a bit shady, but I do remember seeing "Rocky Horror" at the Theater. Yes, there's a cache hidden there.
Off to Wildwood Cemetery for In Memoriam. I think I backed-up into something. Both Woodhick and I felt a bump, but neither of us could find anything that I would have hit and the car was undamaged. Perhaps a ghost was crossing the road?
I had stopped by New River Park a day or so ago and found this cache. Thought Woodhick deserved a chance at it too. It was his cache today, but here I am holding it. Please notice the Vanna White modeling. (Too bad I wasn't wearing one of those evening gowns...)
Woodhick also needed Groce 'n Cache at our local friendly Kroger store. An easy find for him, even with muggles around.
What a day! 13 finds and only 1 DNF. Pretty good caching. Now we're planning our outing for Geocaching Day, celebrating 10 years of geocaching on, what else, 10/10/10.
Get outside and play!
In true George style, I would expect nothing less than working your day around where you can eat. Heck, I have even been known to plan my road trips around where we can eat at any given time of the day. You brought a tear to my eye with the mention of Grandpa George, he would have figured out the peanuts & cracker jack right away, thanks for helping me think of him today, it's a great thought.
ReplyDeletei think your Dad and my Dad would have liked each other. same/similar interests!
ReplyDeletemy dad would have a ball game on the tv in the den at dinner time and another one on the radio AT the breakfast nook table AT dinner time! LOL!!
sounds like a great caching day!
joann