Nathaniel Green Trail - Lake Brandt, NC

After several days of pretty steady rain I was able to hit the trails around Greensboro NC again. This time I went after seven caches along the south side of Lake Brandt on the north side of town. The fall leaves were just beautiful. The temperature was in the 60's and the sun was out. I started out about 8 a.m. and didn't see anyone on the trail until almost lunch time. The solitude was great. And there is nothing like finding those "regular" size ammo cans and lock n lock boxes. Even with the leaves covering the ground and more sky showing above I experienced lots of signal bounce in the woods. I use an Etrex Legend with no real bells and whistles so I don't know if that makes much difference in reception. I have learned a few tricks to using it though. For instance, I note that the needle lags behind first but that the increase or decrease in distance to ground zero tends to continue irrelevant of the heading shown by the needle. At times I also note that the needle will indicate a heading that is 180 degrees off. Knowing that the gz is in the direction of the tail of the needle, I have found myself tracking the tail of the needle, not the arrow itself. I can cross reference with the distance. If the distance is declining I'll continue to track the tail of the needle until it either swings around or I get to 0.0 distance. I often find that in order to fix the gz I have to track in from several angles and consider the point of intersect as ground zero. Thus far this has worked well when I get poor signal in an area. On the Townsend Lake Trails I experienced all the above but was able to find all but the most difficult caches there. Admitted, there were two that just eluded me completely. The geo-trails indicated that I was at ground zero but these were four star difficulties. My favorite cache of the day was Jose's Hat Exchange (GC1CFVT). If you go after Jose, be sure you have a ball cap to exchange. It is truly a big blue well-hidden rubber maid container!

Cache #1000 on Pilot Mountain!

The day started with a speaking engagement in Shady Grove Baptist Church near Boonville, NC. We had a great time there and then Paula, Brandon (our grandson) and I headed over to Pilot Mountain. For the last few days I've been waiting for this day to complete 1000 geocaches. I picked the Pilot Mountain Earthcache (GC1195C) as number 1000 because it is such a special place. Just before leaving the church we received a phone call from two good friends who wished to join us for my 1000th find. Danny and Robin arrived just two cars ahead of us and we piled into our clunker to head up the mountain. The park rangers told us that it would likely be a 20 minute wait as they only allowed cars in as parking became available. The five of us reached the higher parking area and tracked the 130 some feet to the site of the earthcache. We gathered most of the necessary information from a park bulletin board and then took the required photo showing that we were present at the site. Then we visited two other overlooks to get a spectacular view to the south of the pilot. This rock formation, being quartzite monadnock, has withstood erosion while the rest of the mountains in the area have worn down over the eons. The Cherokee and other tribes in the area called it Jomeokee, meaning "Guide". For miles around Pilot Mountain stands out and can serve as a guide to those navigating the area. Not only the North American Indians but also the early settlers who came into the area, some of my wife's German ancestors included, used Jomeokee to help them in their navigation southward. Today the Pilot can be seen for miles. Whenever I land at the Piedmont Triad International airport in Greensboro I always watch for the Pilot and know I'm close to home. For those of you who remember the Andy Griffith Show from the 1960's you know that they always talked about going over to the town of Mount Pilot. The town of Pilot Mountain, siting at the base of the real mountain, is that town in real life. Mayberry is nearby Mount Airy, NC. After completing the requirements for the earthcache we headed back to the car and our friends, Chanak80 and Chickenlvr413 pulled out the fixings for a tailgate party right there in the parking lot. What a nice way to celebrate this milestone in geocaching. On the way home we picked up another cache. Upon arriving home we found that two of our daughters along with other friends and relatives had a surprise celebration ready for us. I'm thankful to each one of these dear friends and family for making my special day a whole lot more special! Now for 2000. Do I need a new GPSr for the next one thousand? Will Paula continue to put up with my passion for this sport? The questions and the quest never end.

An Early Christmas Gift

SPOILER ALERT

Several months ago I introduced two close friends to geocaching. Wow! They really took to it and are enjoying hunting those ammo boxes and Lock n Locks out in the woods. We've gotten together on two opportunities and gone caching. It's really been fun. What do these friends and a Christmas Tree have in common? The other day I went looking for a few caches near Wendover Avenue and Interstate 40. One was called Oh Tannenbaum (GC1K1M2). I found a safe parking place along a paved road in what looked like one of those developed areas where in the future someone is planning for a business area. I got out and followed the needle of my GPSr into a field that was the size of a typical city block and covered with small pine trees. Most of the trees were 10 feet tall or higher and they were pretty thick. As soon as I entered the trees I was out of sight though I could hear the cars going by. I tracked about 150 feet and was approaching the GZ when there before me was the prize (see picture above). What a blessing! A tree decked out for Christmas right here in the middle of the field but well out of the sight of the public. No one should find this one unless they are geocaching. Right below the tree was a a Lock n Lock box with a bow! Neat twist and much appreciated! Now to our friends. chanak80 and chickenlvr413 wished me a Merry Christmas early. Recently I opened up the geocaching.com website and discovered that I had been upgraded to premium membership! Soon a note came from my friends telling me that this was an early Christmas present for me to enjoy and for the purpose of helping me on my quest for 1000 caches before we return to the mission field. What a thoughtful thing to do. I'm enjoying the caches and the features that go with the premium membership. Thanks to Danny and Robin for this wonderful gift!

North Carolina Geocacher's Organization Fall Fling 2009

What a day! My wife, daughter and two grandchildren got up early on Saturday morning to battle the misty weather and headed south from Greensboro, NC to the Murrow Mountain State Park, a distance of about 70 miles south. We picked up a few caches on the way and arrived for registration about 9 a.m. I really enjoyed meeting some people with whom I've corresponded in the past but had never met. Since the kids games weren't going to start for another hour my grandson and I headed out to find the closest earthcache, Three Beautiful Old-Timers (GC1KKKM), located atop Hattaway Mountain in the park. I never dreamed that there were volcanoes in this part of the state. You learn a lot with earthcaches. This was some climb but not nearly as difficult as the high elevation climbs in Ecuador. The trip down the mountain was more difficult due to the wet leaves. We made it back and Brandon participated in the children's games. He was in the scavenger hunt, the bean bag toss, a rocket launching game, ammo can painting and helped bust the pinata. His sister got involved in some of these activities too. HeadHardHat was there with his Geosnippets promotion. He has a tutorial that teaches about geocaching on-line. He was interviewing geocachers for his program. I had the chance to share about Ecuador caching. Rain set in so our family took to the car and headed out to find some geocaches that the NCGO had set out just for the participants. We had our first North American FTF today with NCGO Road Overlook (Fall Fling GeoJig3) (GC1ZXGQ) and found a lot of other caches to boot. We came back to the Fall Fling in time for the kids to get their prizes for the scavenger hunt and for a great meal prepared by the leaders of the NCGO. There must have been about 180 people present. We had great food and fun. Just as we sat down to eat the sun came out to stay. On our way home we stopped for a few more geocaches. One had eluded me once before. After reviewing the cache logs I deduced where the cache was. Check out Can't Be a Cache, #2 (GC1NEN7). We made it back to High Point where we about had to hose down our grandson to clean him up after he played a game of tag in the mud. He had a blast! Geocaching events are great!

I am Geo-Leafer

OK, so we have a new twist on geocaching. What is geo-leafing? It is when you combine my favorite outdoor activity with "leafing", the craze for running up and down the Blue Ridge Parkway looking at the colorful fall leaves in mid to late October. They really go well together. During a recent trip to the NC Mountains we had one out of three days when it didn't rain and get cold and soggy on us. That day was gorgeous. My wife and I headed out to Asheville and from there went north on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We visited the regular sized traditional caches between there and just above Linville Falls. What a great day! The sun was out, it was cool, the leaves were beautiful and the car was running well. We hiked, climbed, traded items, picked up and dropped of Travel Bugs, visited a waterfall and found an earthcache all in one day. While the regular leafers stick to the parkway and the overlooks, geo-leafers admire the changing colors up close and personal. We hit the trail and bushwhack through the stuff! Today some of our favorites were Folk Rock (GCJ7TM) because it required a climb up over the overlook to a large flat rock affording a beautiful view of the valley beyond. Those down below only got to see the half of it. Another is The Dragon's Trail (GCH0ZJ) a virtual cache on top of Craggy Pinnacle. Although that part of the Parkway was fogged in due to the high elevation, we had a great hike up. Another was Hazlenut Gap (GC1NFHC) up on a ridge high above the parkway. We hiked from the trail head about .7 miles to find this cache among the colorful red maples and cedars. Finally, Blue Ridge (GC3E03) was a great hike deep into the woods on a sunny afternoon. In several spots the ground was carpeted with the falling large leaves from the Fraser Magnolias. What a patchwork of color! This cache was located along a mountain stream far from any other humans. We also made the one mile hike back into a valley to see the Crab Tree Falls. The hike was exhilarating. I guess I still have some Andean red blood cells working in my favor due to living so long above 10,000 feet above sea level. I was able to hike the one mile uphill return quickly. What a day! There's nothing like a long list of regular sized lock n locks and ammo cans to make one's day!

A Walk down Memory Lane - Lake Lure, NC

My wife and I were blessed by Lifeway Christian Bookstores. They offer furloughing missionaries from our organization a four-day stay at their conference center in Ridgecrest, NC. Long before coming on furlough we arranged to come up to Ridgecrest in the North Carolina mountains to see the bright, colorful autumn leaves. We arrived late on Sunday night and checked into the new Mountain Laurel Building. It is beautiful! After a good night’s rest we headed out the next morning to explore the Blue Ridge Parkway, visit some waterfalls and some geocaches along the way. But first we decided to visit Camp Lurecrest, located along beautiful Lake Lure, 25 miles south of Ridgecrest. This is a special place for my wife. On 9 July 1969 she was a pre-teen here when she heard, understood and responded to the gospel of Jesus. Who knew what the Lord had in mind for her? Well, He did! Yesterday we celebrated our 21^st anniversary as missionaries with our mission agency! Today we left Ridgecrest and the rain started. The forecast was for a cold, rainy day. The forecast was correct. I had a few caches programmed in for this trip. As we approached Chimney Rock, NC we pulled off to pick up Welcome to Chimney Rock Village (GCKEDG) and Rocky Broad River Tree (GCN2RM). They were quick and easy finds along the highway and beside the Broad River. This is beautiful country! I remember coming to Chimney Rock to rappel in the 70’s. This was the last time I was in this area. We found Lake Lure but had a little trouble finding Camp Lurecrest. We knew it was active because we’d looked it up on line the night before. When all else fails stop and ask directions. We stopped at the local fire department. They put us on the right course and in no time we arrived. As we drove in my wife began to recognize the cafeteria, the cabins and most important to her, the open-air chapel where she made that all-important decision 40 years ago. We stopped in at the administrative office and asked permission to visit. When we told the staff why we wanted to look around they were most eager to allow us to visit. What a blessing! It was really special for me to visit for the first time an important piece of my wife’s journey, one that served as a stepping stone on the path that eventually brought us together and led us to the overseas mission field. God is good!

Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA caching!

Recently we made a trip to Lynchburg, Virginia to see our daughter who attends Liberty University. We arrived on a rainy Saturday and thought that our weekend would be cold and wet. Saturday was that way. Our daughter is not much for football so we weren't among those who got drenched in the stadium in the evening. Sunday broke clear and beautiful. The sun came up and the day was beautiful. After attending the Hispanic Church service at the Thomas Road Baptist Church we ate lunch and headed up on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Our first stop was Peaks of Otter (see lake picture with peaks). The leaves are just starting to change. We saw deer, our daughter for the first time. Yes, she has lived in Latin America almost all her life and hadn't seen a live deer. We stopped and hiked a section of the Appalachian Trail near the Apple Orchard. It was beautiful. We worked our way north to the James river and then drove back. It was a beautiful day. We stopped at the Peaks of Otter lodge to look for Peaks Master of Disguise (GC1VW37). This is a beautiful location but it appears that this one has been muggled. From the Parkway we headed down to the historic town of Bedford, Virginia. It is distinguished as the town that lost the largest number of young men during the D-Day invasion. The national D-Day Memorial is in Bedford and we are told worth the visit. We didn't have time to make the visit and hope to go back. We picked up several caches in that town. One of my favorites was a virtual cache at the courthouse. It is D-Day (GC3019). We headed back to campus and an evening of fun being with our daughter. On Monday morning I had the chance to head up on Candler's Mountain. It overlooks Liberty University and is a part of the campus. There are some great caches on the wooded mountain trails there. I enjoyed the solitude of the mountain. I could see the whole valley across to the blue ridge from there. Liberty University has a monogram on the mountain side with a big "LU". I passed that and the new snow flex facility where you can do year-round ski and snowboarding on a special turf. It was all interesting to visit. I didn't have time to visit all the caches on the mountain. I'll have to come back again to finish these up. We said good-bye to our daughter and headed off for meetings near Richmond, Virginia. We took the most direct route across country instead of taking the Interstate. That allowed us to pick up a few caches. This brought us through the geographic center of Virginia. We stopped and grabbed Geographical Center of VA (GCWJQY). If you get a chance to visit Central Virginia make sure and check out these caches. Virginia has some great trails with caches!