BAIT & SWITCH

We're like fish I guess, or maybe small animals. We respond to bait, something that is attractive in some fashion and draws us to a place, or way of acting, or even that waiting hook.

Those waiting geocaches are surely the bait. We enjoy finding them, dangling there attractively. Waiting to pull us in. Tuesday November 1 was the day Joyce, Sally, and I took the bait and went on another of our day long geocaching adventures. The switch comes later on.

First off was the Whipple Company Store, Whipple WV. I'm sure you know where that is, right?? It's an old coal company town outside of Oak Hill. The old building is the only one of it's type still existent and is an architectural gem. It's all wood and I'm sure it is an absolute tinder box, being over 120 years old. We found the cache and were quickly on our way.

Next stop Fayetteville, and the statue honoring the Marquis de Lafayette for the first stop on a three part multi-stage cache. No joy on this one. Some as yet unidentified mistake led us down an incorrect path for the third and final stage. Oh well, we'll check our math, recalculate, and return to the area in the future. "Multis", caches with more than one stop necessary to find the hidden treasure, are a welcome change from the normal way of geocaching. More work equals more fun, or more room for error in this case.

Not all caches seem aptly named. This one, outside Summersville WV is called "Nice View". What has happened here is that the Corp of Engineers, who have responsibility for operating Summersville Lake (I never knew you could operate a lake but there it is) have drawn the level down more than 50 feet below normal winter pool in order to inspect the Summersville Dam (aka the Gad Dam), a once every decade operation. So what we are seeing is something out of the ordinary as it turns out. Find it, sign it, and travel on.

Checking out the signage for the trail to another find.

Joyce heads out to seek another hide. This trip sent us in the direction of several differing types of caches--multis, the usual guardrail quicky, hides in the woods. Caches in new and shiny boxes, forlorn and soaking abandoned children awaiting adoption. Generally a good mix. Even a couple of DNFs.

Do you know where this restaurant is located?? Me neither, but I might be able to find it again. It's the Longpoint Bar & Grill outside Summersville and it's the switch of this post. We had planned to dine in Summersville at the, yep you guessed it, "Durry" Queen. Instead we happened to pass the Longpoint and noted that it was open. We really didn't expect too much when we pulled in, just the usual pre-prepared junk burgers and hot dogs. I suppose you can get that at the Longpoint, but why would you want to. We found a nice bowl of brown beans (hillbilly soul food no less), real honest-to-goodness home made corn bread and then actual honest to God scratch made cakes. I've never liked carrot cake--until now--and probably will never find the like of what we found at the Longpoint Bar & Grill again. Excellent food in a completely unexpected place.

Bait & Switch, geocaching the bait and the Longpoint Bar & Grill the switch. A great day in all respects.

A NOTE FROM LUKE

Today I received a note and several pictures from my Grandson Luke. Luke is interested in geocaching and urban exploring and is a skilled welder and something of an artist in metal. Here's his note and my my captions for his photos:

I thought you might enjoy a peak at my new tool and a few of my treasures. Through geocaching, hiking, and general exploring I have found myself in need of a small excavation tool for bones or small artifacts. I made this trowel as a result. It folds up with the hex tool in the handle to fit in my bag quite nicely (next to my pocket microscope and monocular.)

Not sure if you are or ever were a Doctor Who fan, but the case I made for the unit is the TARDIS.

I cleaned and mounted the raccoon skull and vertebrae myself. I'm currently working on a deer jaw and a few vertebrae.

The last picture is of my treasures. Some of it are objects from caches, others are artifacts from urban exploring or hiking. The clip on the left hand corner came from the ruins of a house from somewhere around 1929. That was the what the date stamped on the half buried sink said anyways.

My friends just call me a nerd, but I figured you might have some appreciation for this stuff :)

Check out the TARDIS here. I didn't know what it was either.

JOYCE'ES BIG DAY

6-3-3 Remember those numbers, they're important. More later.

Geocaching has a funny way of acting sometimes. Some days you're hot and some days you're not when you think in terms of being able to find the hide.

When BatikFreak10 (sister Sally), Wiscongranny (wife Joyce) and I get together to go cache hunting our competitiveness quickly comes to the surface. We're all competitive. We like games and compete with each other almost every time we're together, on one level or another. Who can make the cleverest play on words? Who can find the wittiest response? Who can get out of the truck and find the cache first? We seem to be like 10 year olds at times. Of course, this is all part of the fun and it ties back into being hot one day and cold the next when hunting those hidden boxes of ( more or less) worthless swag* (*stuff we all get) and a (usually) wet log book.

Here I'm just breaking in to one of my cache finds. This one contains some nice swag, but as usual we did not take anything home as a souvenir. Finding the cache is much more important than taking anything home.

Sometimes we find a treasure not confined in a box. With summer quickly closing, this find of flowers will soon be gone until next year. Winter will arrive with its own caching pleasures: Being able to see rocks and views hidden since last winter come to mind. Frozen ink pens will have to be replaced with pencils for logging cache visits by those not already in the know. GPS'es, cameras, and cell phones will have to be stored inside layers of coats and sweaters and exposed to the elements only briefly--batteries and cold do not play well together.

BatikFreak10 displays some nice swag, although she chose not to add this monkey to her collections.

And now for Joyce'es day.

When I mentioned above that sometimes you're hot and sometimes not, Joyce was definitely hot on our Sunday outing. BF10 & I would be searching around, turning over rocks, digging under rotting logs and generally upsetting the resident insect population when Joyce would stroll up and simply point to a spot and say "It's right there, can't you see it?" And she was always right.

Things that were seemingly invisible were suddenly made clear. The lost was found. The obscure made obvious. Sheesh!!

It is a funny thing, the way it is seemingly one persons turn more than the others during any given caching outing, but it seems to be true. And Joyce was definitely having her turn Sunday.

6-3-3, the count for the day. Yes, we keep a count during each and every outing, to see who is having that hot day. At the end of the day the score was Joyce 6 finds, Sally and Dan three each. And no DNF's (did not finds) at all!!

And the really important thing is that we all had a good time being together.

INTERNATIONAL GEOCACHING DAY & A DINNER THAT COULDN'T BE BEAT

If an area can be judged as being "wilderness" or "civilized" because of the availability (or lack thereof) of the Dairy Queen chain of "Hot Eats, Cool Treats" (their words, not mine) stores along with the availability of really high end cuisine, then Pearisburg VA is the most urban center we have yet visited during our Geocaching adventures. More on that later.

Saturday August 20th, 2011 was declared to be the first International Geocaching Day by the powers in charge of the only somewhat organized sport/hobby of Geocaching, Groundspeak International. So of course our group--BatikFreak10, Wiscongranny, and obviously yours truly, Woodhick803--headed out bright and early for what would prove to be an extremely long but highly successful cache hunting trip.

Our trip was centered upon the small town of Narrows VA, but that simply meant that our area of treasure hunting would extend from near Glyn Lyn VA east to Pembroke VA. These towns are only a very few miles from Narrows. It is possible to adjust search areas by diameter from a center point or even along an extended route.

Wiscongranny (wife person Joyce) and BatikFreak10 (sister Sally) show off a find near Glyn Lyn, located in a nice town park and huge camping area. Events going on here while we we were cache hunting included a multi-day tent revival (Baptist I bet) featuring some "well known" (his words I bet) evangelist and a concurrent Old Fiddlers gathering. The fiddlers seemed to be having more fun. As you can see, even with all that activity we were still in an isolated area of the park. Nice place, and useful on many levels.

Our caching day moved quickly to the town of Pearisburg VA. I had only ever visited Pearisburg once or twice in the past while hiking on the Appalachian Trail--the AT passes right through the town--and remembered it as being sleepy and generally down trodden. Things have changed. It's still a small town, but seems quite lively and doing OK in these hard times. Here's a nice civic display of tiles, each individually hand made by local citizens and displaying items of interest to that maker and hopefully everyone else.

Pearisburg is also home to a set of four (I think) wall murals spread around the town but close enough together so as to provide a nice walking tour. BatikFreak10 caught this one. Most photography in this posting is courtesy of BF10.

Yep, Pearisburg is civilized alright. Our now obligatory stop for afternoon ice cream was here, an actual Dairy Queen, and one in good shape and fairly modern too. The Blizzard treats were large and cold. Great on a hot day.

I'm logging in on one of our last finds for the day. We managed to crowd in 15 finds and 2 DNF's (did not finds) for the day.

DNF's are usually pretty depressing for me. I consider them as a sign of personal failure on some level, but these two were different. We knew before heading to the cache locations that the caches were, in all probability, missing. Several DNF's had been logged at each cache before we went to the locations. We headed to the locations to simply verify that they were indeed missing...and they were.

Our day had been long, we didn't finish our hunting until about 6:00p.m., supper time by any standard. When we were in downtown Pearisburg we had noted a restaurant called The Bank located in a turn of the 19th-20th century bank building, what we found was beyond belief. Most (all?) small towns are not blessed with high quality, gourmet dining. Pearisburg has it in spades in The Bank. Major cities many have one or more restaurants of this quality. Small towns? Almost unheard of. Pearisburg, that most sophisticated of small towns, who'd have thought. A Dairy Queen and The Bank, all within two blocks of each other.

The only down note for the day: While we were searching for our cache target (successfully as it turned out), Joyce took what might have been a terrible fall after missing a step at the civic tile display pictured above. She ended up with a skinned nose and a badly bruised hand from catching herself while falling. We cleaned up the scuffed nose and skinned knees and continued on our way. Joyces' call on that decision. I guess when you have cache scratch fever, nothing is going to stand in the way. As this is being written she sports a bruised right hand and two "quarterback smudges" under her eyes but no real damage all things considered.

THEY AIN'T NO DURRY QUEENS IN THE WILDERNESS

Yesterday Joyce and I took a day off from our busy schedules (why are you laughing?) and went for a long drive up past the Cass area and into Virginia. We also took along the GC'ing gear in hopes of "bagging a few" while out riding around. Little did we know that we were about to descend into what can only be described as a cultural wilderness.

We had driven up through Durbin (lunch at a local diner was surprising good) and then continued across Rt U.S.250 into Virginia, bagging caches as they appeared along our route.

Later, as we made our way towards home, it came to be time for the now customary ice cream stop-and not a Dairy (pronounced Durry--don't ask) Queen to be found. In fact, as we mentally reviewed our travels up to that point, we realized that we were in what can only be described as a Durry Queen wasteland. Not one had we seen all day!!

Then, rescue in Churchville VA!! Not a Dairy Queen, but a useable substitute. Thank goodness for the Tastee Freez. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to survive.

5 for 5 on the day and no DNF's.

By the way, if you are reading this you may be called upon to post bail at some point in the future. We tend to run the back roads at what can only be described as criminally high speeds.

WG & WH803 MAKE THE FTF (with an oddity thrown it)

If you've read along much at all, you know what most of the title means: Wiscongranny (wife person Joyce) and Woodhick803 (me) made the First Time Find on a cache.

FTF'ing, recording that special first time find, is one of the little extras in the geocaching world. It's fun for some reason, being the first one to that new and shiny hide. The owner is waiting with bated (well maybe not entirely) breath hoping that someone will hurry to his or her newly concealed treasure chest. And sometimes there's an extra gift for those who make that one time only find. A little money, a store gift card, an extra clever toy or...who knows what awaits the FTF'er.

Today we headed out early for the Cranberry Glades Wilderness and Monongahela National Forest to search for one of those newly hidden treasure boxes & we were successful in our hunt.

A short and pleasant walk on a clear and wonderfully cool morning (the entire East Coast has been under a heat wave the past few weeks) took us to within a few yards of the cache. Then it was a short bush whack to a likely site & voila!! We found it!!

Wiscongranny shows off our find. Note the FTF gift bag. Like most everything stored or hidden in a cache it's a simple ziploc bag--where would hikers and hiders be without them?? Note too, that's real money in there. $10.00 worth!! And like other FTF cash we've found, it will never be spent, but rather it will be placed on our growing shelf of swag--Stuff We All Get--remember?? Our shelf of toys and treasures now holds several FTF goodie bags too. How cool is that--if you are a geocacher that is.

Look again at the open cache Wiscongranny is displaying. See the small item dangling down the front?? Kind of hard to make out, but it's a travel bug (TB) attached to a stuffed mermaid figure, officially named "Marlee the Mermaid". Now here's the oddity of our find and picking up the Mermaid TB, it is owned by my sister BatikFreak10. She had placed it several weeks ago in one of her caches so that it could make its way to Key West FL, fitting country for a mermaid indeed. And I had no idea at all that Joyce and I would find it here in today's FTF cache. Odd indeed.

DAN GETS AN OWWY (OR TWO) WHILE BATIKFREAK10 & WISCONGRANNY TAKE THE FALLS

We were at it again this past Saturday-of course I mean Geocaching. We'd wanted to get out for the past few weeks but one thing or another always seemed to get in the way. Finally we were able to break free. And we had an excellent day, a good mixture of cache types, a place or two we'd never seen before, and excellent weather--a high of 70* in the middle of July. Of course, there was suffering too. More on that later.

We hit Camp Creek State Forest for our first find and then went on to the well known Brush Creek Nature Preserve for our second and third finds. We had never heard of the place either and were pleasantly surprised when we got there.

Mash Fork Falls at Camp Creek SF is suffering from the recent dry weather, but there is still a trickle. These falls, about 5 feet or less in height, will be beautiful with a little increased flow when fall arrives. Our caching find was nearby, within sight of the falls.


Then we moved on to our second and third finds of the day at Brush Creek Falls Nature Preserve.

American Gothic, Geocaching style.

Woodhick803 & Wiscongranny show off the best in summer Geocaching fashion.

Camp Creek State Forest and Brush Creek Preserve are both the sites of extensive logging operations in the early part of the 20th century. Much of the hiking we did in these natural areas was on the remains of old logging railroad grades. The tan/beige object just above the right most flow of water is the remains of a cut stone bridge pier. The RR tracks would have passed just above the falls back in the day.


We've been under a fairly long spell of dry weather recently, not too surprising in mid-summer. For a look at the Falls after some heavy rain, go here. Quite a difference.

Although I'm modeling the ever popular "Sonic Dog" bit of swag (yes, I took it home too), the finds around the two falls areas belong to BatikFreak10 and Wiscongranny, so to them goes the credit for "taking the falls"

We are always on the look out for an unusual find, and today's was an excellent example. The cache owner had hollowed out a section of log after slicing off a slab to serve as a top. The top keys into the hollow inside so that everything stays in place and looks natural. He (she?) then placed the log hide in a small area of woods in a city park in Princeton WV. Sure looks natural here too. An excellent hide.

Sometimes I think that Geocaching means "Let's go for ice cream" to Wiscongranny. A lot of her finds seem not to be caches, but Dairy Queens...but this one is not the best sit down restaurant in Princeton WV. Good ice cream though.

Finally, our 12th and last find for the day goes to BatikFreak10. This is a Travel Bug Spa (aka motel). As with a lot TB motels and spas, this one is located at a truck stop area and is designed as a repository for travel bugs making their way to ???, wherever their destinations may be.

Now for the pain and suffering part of the day. I'm not one to whine and complain, but it was a really tough day. I got some poison ivy on my left ankle, TWO WHOLE BUMPS!! And then I got scratched on my left elbow at another cache, THREE SCRATCHES!! LOL We had a fun day :-)

AFTERNOON DELIGHT

Not all geocaching expeditions are, well, expeditions. Sometimes you just want to get out for a few hours and "find a couple". Yesterday was one of those days.

When I mentioned to Wiscongranny (loyal wife person Joyce) that a new cache had just come up in the geocaching weekly newsletter and that it was located at Union WV, a small community less than 30 miles from our home, she jumped at the chance to say "let's go get it!!" And I have to say, who am I to object...I know my place.

So off we went for a nice ride and a couple of finds.

The Union Confederate Memorial was placed in 1901 by a group of local women. Union lies in Central Monroe Co WV. Greenbrier and Monroe Counties have more in common with VA than the rest of West VA and, like Greenbrier, was of strongly Confederate sympathies. The memorial was placed outside the town limits of Union so that as the town grew it would gradually surround the site. Now, 150 years later, the memorial still lies somewhat outside the actual town of Union. The site is quiet, peaceful and well kept.

As you can see, not much has changed except for the addition of those power lines in the foreground. This mansion dates from before the Civil War and would have been witness to fighting in the area. Some years ago a film entitled Sommersby was filmed in Virginia. Still existent slave quarters were purchased from the family here and moved to the filming location for use in the movie.

Our second (and final) find of the day was located near the water tower at the town of Lindside WV.

Like I said, not a big day with numerous finds, but rewarding none-the-less.

LUKE!!

My family visited here last week and I had a chance to take my Grandson Luke (AlcubierreWarp--Google it as two words) out for a small taste of Geocaching. I guess some switch must have gotten turned on by the experience. When he got home he took to caching like a duck to water, as the saying goes.

Luke, excuse me, AlcubierreWarp, sent me these shots of one of his earliest Geocaching trips at home in Illinois.

With over 200 caches within 20 miles or so of his home in Monticello, it looks to me like Luke can go Geocaching for a long time to come.

What you can't see here is the fact that when this shot was taken the temperatue is near 100*F!! Summer in IL can be as cold as the winters hot.

Good luck to my Grandson. I'm a blessed and happy man.

ODDITY

A quick note about one other find this past Sunday.

This travel bug--named Sweet Home Alabama--has just started on its trip to visit the 50 states. It is on only its fourth stop. But pause to checkout its travel history: It left Alabama a few weeks ago and with only one intermediate stop found its way to a cache I own. From there it traveled to a cache BatikFreak10 owns. Then Sunday I picked it up to move forward on a later caching expedition. In other words, this TB has made only four stops thus far, and three of those stops have been in my or Sallys' hands. Interesting.

ROOTS, RAIN, & THE BEST SIT DOWN RESTURANT IN MULLENS WV

Lots of things to talk about today. In a nutshell we had a busy, successful, and interesting day Geocaching yesterday. Grab a coffee, turn on the Ipod and let's get started.

Early morning (there are some who consider 9:30a.m. as early) found us back on the road. The first pic is, I suppose, kind of an Easter only cache, but it worked on a nice Sunday in June too. The cache is in the largest egg. Quick grab and go. This one was in the cache owners front yard so no problem with reaching into his property.

One of the caches on our "must seek" list for the day was located at the site of the baseball diamond at Tams WV, just a mile (or less) up the "holler" from Stotesbury. So we took the time to visit Stotesbury while in the area.

Quite some years ago (about 1950 to be exact) our dad worked for the Koppers Company as a company store manager. At that time he was based in the coal camp town of Stotesbury WV. Stotesbury, and its attendant mine was founded by the E. E. White Coal Company. There is a long and interesting history of Stotesbury available on line. Check it out here. The photos alone are worth the visit. Neither one of us had been back to Stotesbury since we were little kids and have fond memories of Dad and the store where he worked so hard.

BatikFreak10 (sister Sally) told me about going to the store for the day with Dad during the Christmas Season and touring the third floor toy display. The display must have seemed like a visit to Santas' workshop. I remember Dad taking me to the buyers display in Beckley WV where he would make toy selections for the coming Christmas Season at the Company Store. I'd look briefly at the toys for the "little kids" but would move quickly to the real stuff--the sleds, paint by number sets, and of course the forbidden B. B. guns. What a time!!

Dad and the friends and hangers on around the Company Store usually played horse shoes during their lunch break. Dad was supposed to have been one of the top players and had a "dead on" aim for the peg.

We knew that Stotesbury had pretty much ceased to exist many years ago--the mines long since played out and most everyone moved away. The church above now occupies the site of the Company Store. The store itself burnt about 1960. Interestingly, the church was moved from a nearby ridge (hillside to flatlanders) and positioned on the store site. Dad would have played those horse shoes right about where the picnic shelter now sits.

Stotesbury now consists of about 5 well maintained and properly kept up homes, but their origin as company housing is still quite obvious. Most of us picture coal camps as places of misery and squalor, and sadly sometimes we are right. But coal camps could also be places of happiness with a strong sense of community.

Our cache assignment was located at the Tams Ball Diamond site. Now completely reforested, the site gives little hint as to what it once was. But push through the rank undergrowth into the trees and civilization can be glimpsed. Cut stone, rusting sheet metal, broken tools are in evidence if you will but pause to look. We made a quick find and were on our way, leaving Tams and Stotesbury to the quiet past in the memories of those who lived, played, and worked there. More about Tams.

And now for the rain part of our adventure!! The shot below was snapped in extreme haste. I was far up on a ridge top, BF10 not far behind, with the almost constant crackle of thunder in our ears. Seconds after taking this shot we were deluged in a major Thunderstorm.

I signed some piece of paper I found in the cache for both of us. I have no idea whether it was the actual log or not, and then we dove for cover behind some nearby rocks. We were 50 feet or so below the top of the knob so weren't too worried about being struck by lightening but were scarcely out of the rain at all.

How do you photograph wet? Neither of us are professional photographers and all we had was our digital cameras, but we are well and truly wet to the core.

I have an idea: Want to experience how wet we were? Head out into the back yard, turn the hose on full force and have someone spray you--head to foot and everywhere in between-- for 15 or 20 minutes. Turn frequently, leaving no spot unsoaked. You'll get the idea.

But at the same time we were not overly uncomfortable. The day was warm, the rain warm also. In due course the rain stopped, clothes were wrung out and we continued on. Most of us think we simply cannot be wet, after all Mom said that it was so. But being wet in the summer can be a fairly negligible experience.

Fortunately lunch was actually before our shower. We are at the very best sit-down restaurant in Mullens WV. Like much of coal country, Mullens is not in the very best of shape economically. Truthfully I think this is perhaps the only sit-down restaurant (or perhaps the only restaurant of any kind) in Mullens WV.

Finally, we had a nice day and found some nice caches. We found some of our roots slightly the worse for wear, but still bright and shiny in our memories. What more can you ask.

A NO ICE CREAM FOR YOU KIND OF DAY

We were at it again this weekend with some good successes and one big frustration. Check it out:

Our trip took us from the depths of the forest to the downtown city lights of Princeton WV. We found caches, scenery, poison ivy (yes, welcome to summer in WV), but had our difficulties finding ice cream.

Bowles Falls is situated less than 100 feet from a well traveled, and surprisingly well maintained, dirt road. I wonder how many have even seen the falls. Unlike a lot of our scenic spots this one is free from trash, garbage, and drug paraphernalia. Maybe because it lies on fairly rough ground that requires some effort to travel across. The forest here has made amateur photography difficult, even with the standard digital camera. But the area actually did seem this lush and green. Beautiful spot...

And with a cache as an additional draw for coming here. A lot of caches are placed at or near scenic spots and the seeker is rewarded with something of interest or beauty in addition to the cache find. This one was nestled in the roots and rocks directly behind me.

After lunch at the very best sit down restaurant in Hinton WV (in the words of the locals, "that'd be the Durry Queen") we traveled on. But let's take a break here to discuss geocaching and upscale dining.

Our lunches are usually a hurried affair for one of several reasons. First, we probably have waited far too long to eat and are totally famished. Or secondly, we are forced to eat too early because the next cache is located some distance away and in some remote location. And finally, we are simply in a hurry to get back to caching. We seem to become drawn to "just one more, just one more..."

We have become connoisseurs of the American Hot Dog. I've heard that hot dogs are sort of death by chemical, but we seem to have gravitated to the quick and easy hot dog and french fries. I guess all hobbies and interests have their downsides. But quick and easy it is for lunch. Grab something to eat and back to caching.

Lunch is over, back to caching.

Later we were treated to a trip to a remote ridge line and a great walk in the woods. Parking was here at an old but still active church. if I remember correctly, this one has a sign indicating it was founded in the 1880's.

Sister Sally (BatikFreak10) and Joyce (Wiscongranny) model the find. This was an exceptionally nice hide. Lots of upscale swag and even an actual official Geocaching log book. The thoughtful owner even sent us a thank you note for visiting the cache once we logged our find. How nice is that? It is we who should thank him/her.

We cached on into the afternoon, finding caches hidden here and there and seemingly everywhere. We saw some clever hides and some not so clever hides. We even found a cache (not pictured) that required that we buy or improvise a tool in order to retrieve the container from its hiding place. Fun!!

And then it was time for ice cream. Friends, have you ever tried to find ice cream when you're far from civilization? Actually we weren't even far from the big city lights of Lenora WV. The owners of this store have missed a sure bet. I think their business model (I'm sure mom and pop actually know about things like business models, business plans, and market research) have chosen not to sell ice cream!! What makes this decision so incomprehensible is that they are located less than a half mile from a major state resort park (Pipestem State Park), a major destination for family camping and other types of extended stays. The store sells all kinds of shoddy trinkets, food items, beer (of course), but no ice cream. So what did we do??

We went another half mile down the road to the store that does sell ice cream!! And we were happy :-).

For more, read BatikFreak10s Geocaching Blog.