DUCK TAPE IN THE MORNING & FAILURE AT DUSK

It wasn't exactly a dark and stormy night, but it was definitely a dark and gloomy day. You know, spitting snow and rain, much colder than advertised (darn you National Weather Service!!)--think 30* and not 40--and heavy cloud cover. What else can a dedicated geocacher or two do...but get out and go searching!!

Our day would take us from Mabscott to Sophia and later Lake Stephens by way of such scenic spots as Lillybrook, Odd, New and of course Coal City (again). I have to say here and now, all roads do not lead to Rome, at least in Raleigh Co WV. In Raleigh Co. they all seem to lead to Coal City. A few weeks ago I had never even heard of Coal City, and my life seemed to be progressing well. During the last three Geocaching trips, BatikFreak10 (BF10) and I have been in or through Coal City at least once during each and every trip. Who knew Coal City would occupy what seems to be a pivotal point in the geocaching life of Raleigh County.

We stopped off in Mabscott to pick up a Travel Bug (TB)--a little object a geocacher can send out to travel the world and visit specific spots if desired--to move it to another location. I had placed my TB in a nice cache last fall and it had never moved elsewhere. I was disappointed to find that all TB's in the cache (three were listed) had been--more or less--swiped, stolen, purloined, heisted. Someone had been taking the TB's and...who knows what. I don't even want to think about it. Oh well, it happens. Not to be dissuaded, we continued on with our day.

Pictures and captions follow:

Out to Little Beaver State Park to finish up the three caches located there. Little Beaver is a nice swimming/picnicking park. Lots of woods in which to hide caches too. We had found one of the three listed for the park last trip and had run out of time to do more, so back we went.

BatikFreak10 shows off one of the hides. We are well off the hiking trails so almost no chance of this being seem by muggles (those uninitiated into the geocaching world). Believe it or not, a hide like this is hard to find. We all tend to look at the ground, under rocks and such, for caches. No one ever thinks to look up. Thanks to BF10 for this one.

Up close you can see why this one is sort of unique. The container is not silvery metal as you might have thought, but a plastic container covered in the well known duct tape product. Even the strap handle is made of many layers of the sticky stuff. Fun.

We found the other cache listed for Little Beaver Park too. On to such places as New and even Odd.

We're just outside of Ghent WV, and stopped at a long abandoned road side park. Are you old enough to remember when there were many roadside parks throughout the country? They usually consisted of a picnic table or two, a water pump and if you were lucky the pit toilet wasn't too dirty and even contained some TP. Those parks are mostly gone now, but here we found a cache located in an abandoned fire pit and this plaque honoring the lady who helped found the WV roadside park system back in the day. The park is overgrown and mostly unidentifiable now. People are too busy to stop, cook a burger or two, and spend quiet time with the family.

Just outside the community of New (it's not a town but a gathering of homes--don't blink) and I'm digging in to a cache for the log. BF10's camera doesn't make good pics. I'm not that bald.

Why are you laughing?

Now this is what I call SWAG!!
And yes, it now has an honored spot in my small but growing swag collection.

I don't often pick up swag, but this one caught my eye and struck my fancy all at the same time. What you can't see here is the fact that the eye shakes and vibrates when the figure is moved a little. First class swag indeed!!

And so it went throughout the day. Drive, cache, eat, then repeat. 14 finds for 14 hides. And then we came to the end of the day and the end of the road...

Have you ever seen the movie "McCabe and Mrs. Miller"? It starred Warren Beatty and Julie Christie and was released in 1971. McCabe was a gambler and Mrs. Miller was a prostitute. At the end of the movie McCabe was killed by the bad guys. He died in the snow and gathering gloom of a very dark evening. No one was there to morn his passing. And that's pretty much what happened to BF10 and me.

We headed out to Lake Stephens Park for that last one of the day. We hiked a very short distance into the woods to find...nothing. We missed I guess, or looked in the wrong spot, or...who knows. We searched for nearly an hour, turning over every log, looking in every tree. It was darkening, snow and rain were falling. I tried to wipe the water off the screen of my GPS only to find it had frozen. We died in the snow and dark, with no one to morn our loss. We were probably more downcast than necessary, but we had died. 14 for 15 and we should have batted a thousand.