Geocaching for the Blonde

21 May, 2011

According to Harold Camping, today is supposed to be the Rapture.  What better way to spend the last day than geocaching with my brother Woodhick803 and my sister-in-law Wiscongranny?  It was a beautiful day for the Rapture; the first sunny and almost hot day in weeks and weeks.

Now let me state that I keep my hair blonde for a couple of reasons.  The most obvious one is that it somewhat hides the gray that insists upon showing up in greater and greater amounts every day.  The second reason is that I can easily explain away my failure to download today's caches into my GPS.  There must be a good punch line there somewhere:  "Did you hear about the blonde who went geocaching without downloading the co-ordinates for the sites?"   Argh....

Bowles Falls, not too far off I-77 at Sandstone, is beautiful!  I imagine this spot is cool and refreshing even during summer's hottest days.  Here you see Woodhick803 trying his best not to fall in the water.  We made this find harder than it was, wandering into some terrain that would be marked as a 5 (the higher the number, the rougher the terrain), only to spot the cache from the other side of the creek.

WARNING!!!  This place does NOT sell ice cream.  It sells tacky WV memorabilia.  It sells country cutesy decor stuff.  It sells junk food.  It even sells beer.  But it does NOT sell ice cream.  Can you imagine?  A geocaching staple.  No wonder the parking lot is deserted.

Geocaching gives me a great excuse to go tromping through the woods and to see places unknown to me.  This cache was found off the Tom Honaker Road, between Hinton and Athens, WV.  Easy hike, but what was so nice was listening to all the birds singing, something I miss by being a "town girl" now.

 Woodhick actually found this cache, so I'm not sure why Wiscongranny and I are posing for the photo.


There were other caches to be found  - some in the woods, some urban caches too.  We finally did get our ice cream and also had a terrific dinner at Outback.  The Rapture didn't happen - other than when we felt rapture at finding well hidden caches.

For more about today's adventure, check out Woodhick803's blog.  I'm sure he's going to be harping about blondes who forget to download their caches.  What do you want to bet?
 http://cachingin--geocachingme.blogspot.com/  (Oh wow - he hasn't posted his blog yet.  I'm off the hook for a bit longer.)

And for more about geocaching in general, visit http://www.geocaching.com/.

In the meantime, get outside and play!  (And remember to download your caches.)

There are Giants Among Us

Don Quixote battled the windmill, thinking it was a ferocious giant.  If he would ever have the chance to visit the Beech Ridge Energy Project, I believe that he would either (a) drop further into insanity, or (b) be frightened out of it altogether.

The first stop of the latest geocaching trip was a visit to "Don Quixote's Nightmare," a cache located on Beech Ridge in Greenbrier County, West Virginia.  The cache itself was a lot of fun, being a multi-part, and having me read countless scraps of paper for the co-ordinates for part two, only to have dear brother (and the owner of this cache) to point out to me that the co-ordinates were written in plain sight.  Argh!

Hopping quickly out of the truck to get a good look at this giant, I was first impressed, obviously, by the sheer enormity of this wind generator.  Woodhick803 told me that the generator is about 390' in height at its tallest - that's more than a football field! 

Secondly, I was impressed by how quiet it was.  There was a slight whooshing sound, but nothing that was obnoxious.  More like white noise.

It was a little disconcerting, though, to look up at the blades and see the clouds moving.  Intellectually I knew that the generator was well-seated and stable, but with the clouds moving it gave all appearances to be falling.  Very eerie.



Each blade is approximately 100 feet long.  Here you can see a blade on the ground and more wind generators in the background.  There are 64 windmills here, making it a small wind farm.

Size matters!  Here I am standing in the part of the blade that would be attached at the hub.  I'm 5'4" and there's still room over my head.

Again, size matters!  As stated earlier, I'm 5'4" and there's at least that much of the blade above me, making this part at least 10' high.

This is the smallest part of the blade.

These blades were damaged somehow, probably in transportation.  I'm thankful that Invenergy has left them there on the ground so you can actually get some idea of the massiveness of these guys.

By the way, the wind farm is located on a county road so there is no problem getting up there to see them. 


This was definitely the highlight of the day.  I've been trying to think of the best superlative to describe them, but even "awesome" and "magnificent" don't seem to do these giants the justice they deserve.

To read more about the day, check out Woodhick803's blog:  http://cachingin--geocachingme.blogspot.com/

Get outside and play!

Tadpoles, Numbers, and Hidden Boxes

17 April, 2011

A few weeks ago Woodhick803 and I were out in the cold and snow searching for Lake Stephens #2 Cache.  A DNF (did not find) bothers WH a whole lot more than it bothers me, so when the cache owner posted that this cache had indeed disappeared and was now replaced, WH was practically knocking down my door to get back out there and search.  And search we did.  WisconGranny (sister-in-law Joyce) made the trip with us this time (yay!) and we looked for quite some time, even going so far as stepping on the board that sheltered the cache.  Finally the eyes found a suspicious shade of green, close to nature's, but a shade off and - ta da! - there was the prize!

You know how easily I get distracted on these geocaching trips, but Woodhick was to blame for this one.  He was the one to spot these frog eggs.  If you look closely, you may even be able to see some tadpoles.  This made me think back to elementary school when someone always brought in frog eggs for the class to watch.

Another distraction of the day was this scene of a recent coal train derailment just at the entrance of Lake Stephens.  I couldn't help but imagine the noise the wreck made, let alone the fright of those driving on nearby route 3 as the coal cars came within inches of the roadway.

Last trip I posted that sometimes the cache isn't the only reward that you get when searching.  Remember the labyrinth at Caldwell's mini-park?  This excursion, however, the cache was indeed the reward.  Here you see WisconGranny and I posing in front of an electrical transformer (I guess) behind Fayetteville's Walmart.  I'm doing the "Vanna" thing and showing you the cache.  Yes - the numbers!  We searched everywhere, cursing our GPS units for returning us to the transformer.  The clue said the cache was at eye level; we saw nothing at eye level (or above or below) that even remotely resembled a cache, even to the point of wiggling screws, locks, and hinges to see if one of them was a fake one.  Finally, in desperation, I wiggled the numbers and - ta da! - there it was!  The numbers were the cache!  Magnetic numbers, made to look like a serial number.  How clever is that! 

Every good caching trip includes a hearty lunch or, in this case, dinner.  We relived the day and its highlights over ribs and onion rings at Dirty Ernie's Rib Pit in Fayetteville, WV.  Love me some good ribs!

To read about the day from Woodhick's perspective, check out his blog http://cachingin--geocachingme.blogspot.com/

Thanks for a great day, WisconGranny and Woodhick.


                                            Until next time - get outside and play!

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

9 April, 2011:  Met WisconGranny and Woodhick803 in Alderson for a day of geocaching, particularly a series called The Greenbrier River Geocache Trail.  It was a nice group of caches, taking us on a scenic drive along the Greenbrier River.

THE BAD
Carlito's in Fairlea was the scene for lunch.  During the chips and salsa portion I broke a tooth.  Well, I take that back.  I didn't really break it.  It just sort of crumbled away.  Obviously it was ready to go.

THE UGLY

These are the broken off pieces of tooth.  No pain, but I definitely feel like the stereotypical hillbilly woman with rotten teeth. Just need a good chaw of Redman now and the picture would be complete.








THE GOOD
By far, the best stop of the day was in Caldwell at Riverside Park.  It wasn't that the cache was so good, but the small park is home to a labyrinth dedicated to taking care of our Mother.

Nice stuff, right?  To read more about the day, check out Woodhick's blog http://cachingin--geocachingme.blogspot.com/2011/04/sometimes-cache-is-secondary.html?spref=fb

Get outside and play!

94%

25 March, 2011

During my careers as both student and teacher, 94% was pretty good, but on my last geocaching trip that 94% was laughing at me.  14/15 caches found for the day - the last one was the one we couldn't find!

It was a cold and dreary March morning.  Add in some snowflakes and low 30s temperature for good measure and you'll have an appropriate setting of the most recent outing for Woodhick803 and me.  We headed off to Little Beaver State Park to finish the caches there that we didn't have time to look for last trip.

Here I am, all bundled up (sans hood for the photo), even wearing my warmest long johns which had already been put away for the season.  This was quite an usual cache in that it wasn't hidden, but that was what made it tricky to find.  We get so used to looking on the ground, under leaves, or even in rock crevices, that we sometimes forget to look up.

You can see how the cache owner has wrapped rope around the tree to enable the finders to lower the cache.  Pretty clever.

I'm easily distracted on our geocaching trips.  I named this Canada goose Bert and it looks like he's banded.  Bert and friends were honking and hooting that morning at Little Beaver State Park.  I love to watch them come in for a water landing.

We headed on to New, WV, which is soooo new that it isn't even there, although the road sign is.  Again I got distracted - see the icicles?  Brrrrr!!!!










Woodhick803 (aka Dan, my big bother, er, brother) is like a little kid hunting for hidden treasure or maybe wanting to get to the Christmas presents first when it comes to geocaching.  It's an ongoing joke, but true, that he's out of the car and on the prowl before I even have the door open.  Here he is looking through the SWAG (stuff we all get) at the New Cache.

By this time we were both ready for lunch.  After a couple of quick finds,we had some pretty good taco salads at Paco's in beautiful downtown Ghent.

This trip, as our last, took us to Coal City.  This time, however, we traveled over the river and definitely through the woods and through such metropolitan areas (snicker) as Odd and Josephine.  Let me not forget, either, such places as Pigshin Hollow and Hoo-Hoo Hollow.  By the way, if you pronounced that word "hollow", you're not from West Virginia.  Any home grown person would know that it's "holler".  Don't ask me why.  I don't know.

 Yes, that's most definitely an arm and hand rising up from this gravesite.  Pretty spooky, huh?  We almost missed the cache near this cemetery; several cachers before us had commented that they couldn't find it, sending Woodhick803 and me into a lengthy discussion of whether or not we should go looking for it.  Woodhick found it (and it had nothing to do with this scene).  He says you have to look for it where it is, not where it isn't.  Well, duh!  He was quite tickled with himself for that find.

So that brings us to Lake Stephens, scene of the elusive 15th cache.  We looked up the hill; we looked down the hill; we looked where our GPS units led us; we looked where our GPS units didn't lead us.  But obviously we kept on looking where the cache wasn't, instead of where it was.  94%.  Argh...........

Get outside and play!

It Was a Drybees Kind of Day

17 March, 2011

I finally had the opportunity to geocache once again with friend Drybees, the lady who introduced me to geocaching. 

Drybees had a medical appointment in Charleston, so after that and a good lunch at Red Lobster (geocachers love eating as much as caching, doncha know?) we caught a few caches, all in the Southridge area.  I think we found four caches that day, along with one DNF.  (Boo!  Hiss!)  We both laughed, however, at one cacher's description of the container he used.  He called it a "bottle", but it actually was a 35mm film canister.  Not quite the same in my opinion.

Fun day with a great friend.

Get outside and play! 

How Many Geocachers Does it Take to Find a Mill?

Saturday, 12 March, 2011

It was a geocaching kind of day, but that wasn't what was going on.  On our last trip out Woodhick803 had discovered some ruins and, being the naturally inquisitive type of person that he is, had to delve further into this mystery. 

<enter Waypoint_Wayne>

YES!  It really was Waypoint_Wayne of the "Phone a Friend" cache, my all-time favorite!  WW, WH, and I met up at IHOP early (for me) one Saturday morning.  The "boys" poured over railroad charts and discussed whether or not those ruins could be from Spangler's Mill, an old woolen mill located in the Fitzpatrick area of Raleigh County.  Off we drove to that location and hiked along the railroad tracks for a mile or so, crossing several bridges where you could see Piney Creek racing along below us.  <Gulp!>  The guys did all the searching - I was just along for the sunshine, the hike, and to photograph this historic occasion.

 




A coal tipple spotted along the way.  Coal tipples were used to clean, sort, and load coal onto railroad cars.








Coltsfoot in bloom.  I love spring!

The beavers have been hard at work on this tree.  Didn't see any of the critters though.

See the holes?  I'll bet they were made by a hungry woodpecker and, by the size of the holes, probably a pileated woodpecker at that.  Those guys are huge and remind me of pterodactyls.








The answer to the titled question is still unknown.  However, I did find out that Waypoint_Wayne's wife is a former co-worker of mine.  There's a funny story there too about recognizing your own children, but I'll let it lay.....

Get outside and play!