HIDING IN A SURREAL SOUNDSCAPE

This is really a story about sound, but that's for much later. First there's this that you need to understand:


Somewhere in la Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has a lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps a skinny nag and a greyhound for racing.

Thus read the opening sentences of "Don Quixote", by Miguel de Cervantes. Written in 1605 and considered by many who study such things to be the first modern novel, Don Quixote plays a part in all this. Bear with me a while as I tell my story.

I have been working the past few weeks on a cache located near the Beech Ridge Wind Energy Project, in western Greenbrier County and finally was ready to put the cache(s) in place and have the cache made active for other geocachers to find. This Wikipedia page will give some of the details about the wind energy project. It is not exactly correct in all respects but will give a little background about the project and wind energy farms in general.

Beech Ridge is about as remote as it is possible to get in Greenbrier Co., being a 15 mile drive from civilization (Rupert WV) to the ridge itself. I had wanted to make this cache a little more challenging than your typical guard rail cache and had decided upon a cache that would consist of three separate, but interconnected, hides. The seeker would have to find the first cache from the published documentation and would then need to find the second cache from coordinates found at the first location. He (she) would then find the GPS coordinates for the final (and main) cache at the second site. Only the final hide would contain a log book and the treasured swag (stuff we all get, remember?).

Yesterday was perfect for going to hide a cache. While it did not qualify as a dark and stormy night, it certainly was a dark and gloomy day. Just right for messing around in bushes and behind rocks hiding things. Everyone would be too busy finding their way through the gloom to notice or wonder about Joyce and me tramping through the fog.

Now we can begin.

I'm hiding the first stage here. The peanut butter jar works perfectly for this hide. The coordinates for the second cache are written on a piece of paper in the jar. Oh yes, there's a lot of junk paper in there too. The seeker will have to find the right scrap in order to be given the next set of coordinates.

Joyce gets to model the second stage hide, a simple water bottle. I used this container because recycling is a nice idea and the bottle will fit into where I have in mind to hide it. The coordinates are hidden within the container, believe it or not, although at first glance--and second glance too, come to that--the jar appears empty.

Finally we are at our destination, and the reason for including Don Quixotes opening lines becomes evident. Beech Ridge is a wind energy farm, a collection of 67 windmills all generating electricity. The name of my cache is "Don Quixotes Nightmare" in honor of the gentleman of La Mancha; he who tilted at windmills, thinking they were a race of giants--for wind turbines truly are a race of giants. And today I am unable to show you a standing wind turbine for the fog on Beech Ridge cut visibility to less than 150 feet, but I can show you some staggering details. I am standing near the base of one turbine blade. The blades are over a hundred (100 feet) in length each and each tower extends nearly 400 feet into the sky. These are truly a race of giants.

Joyce is standing inside the base of the blade. That's a manhole behind her. A person can climb inside the blade for quite some distance, for inspection I suppose.

A hundred or so feet from the picture above and Joyce is at the blade tip. The detail shot below shows the back side of the blade where Joyce is standing and the reason for this blade not to be in use. A lot of fiberglass, plastic foam and fiberglass matting have been injured. Are these blades reparable? I have no idea.

But as Arlo Guthrie says in that song about Alice's Restaurant, I didn't come here to talk about geocaches, or even wind generators. I came to talk about the sound. Let's wait for it to come around again on the guitar...here we go

The sound here is unimaginable. The blades turn slowly, they're too big to do otherwise. But even at what seems to be low speeds, they are traveling at a terrific rate due to the diameter of the circle they describe. The blade tips are usually traveling at nearly 100m.p.h.!! This day, when we could not see the towers, may have been perfect for being here for the sound. It seemed to come from everywhere at once. Some trick of the fog and wind I suppose.

The sound is not loud in and of itself, but is pervasive. You cannot seem to get away from it. Turn, look up, look out, look around, the sound is always...over there. Or up there. Or even more troubling...behind you. It seems to come from all around and overhead, all at the same time as the blades are turning. It is a low rumbling whoosh that sometimes seems to waver, I guess as the wind changes and eddies somewhat. It is as if some great prehistoric bird or other beast is circling and turning, always out of our sight, but with us well in its sight. It seems to mesmerize you into stillness, prey for who knows what.

Comfortable and mysterious at the same time. A wonderful experience.