Resistance is futile! Earthcaching on a beautiful fall day

Greensboro skyline by wwritter

My pastoral duties include visiting our members when they are hospitalized. While there are several regional hospitals that I frequent, one takes me into the downtown area of Greensboro, NC. I love the parks that surround the hospital area. On this day I had the pleasure of sitting with an elderly husband as we waited on his wife to come out of hip replacement surgery. We talked about everything we could think of during the course of the waiting room wait. I even told him about geocaching. He'd never heard of such. I told him when we finished up I was going to take advantage of a few caches close by the hospital. I had actually arrived at the hospital early and had already found several caches. These were interspersed between medical buildings just off

Resistance is Futile

the hospital campus where all the specialty doctors have their offices. I was able to park at the hospital and walk my route. It was a nice, crisp, clear winter day. The leaves were almost gone from the trees. I picked up several fairly easy caches before heading into the hospital to wait for my friends. After the hospital visit I headed out the north end of the hospital to find earthcache Agents of Change:Resistance is Futile (GC385GX). I wondered what people thought of this guy with a hospital clergy badge wearing jeans headed out with a strange looking swag bag and a device in his hand. I tracked from the exit down the hill and across a small bridge leading to a long stretch of

Ground/water zero

Lindley Park. It parallels a major road, sitting between it and a creek that winds through a small meadow. There's a nice bike path through this open area and lots of green grass. I began to trek through the grass along the bank. To get to ground zero took me into the woods and down to the stream. There it was! Sure enough, there were some rock outcroppings and some tiny waterfalls. I set about gathering the answer to the required questions. I learned about the two principle agents of change. One is weathering caused by the mechanics of water flowing over rock or freezing causing the rock to expand or contract, thus cracking. The other is chemical,

sumajman

where erosion of some parts of the rock leave pools, holes and channels. The cache write-up taught me all this. In order to get credit for the find I had to determine which of these agents of change were at work and how in the rocks I was standing on. I snapped some pictures and was soon on my way. What a nice place. To think that water has been wearing down and smoothing away these outcroppings for thousands of years. The cache owner is a local high school science teacher. He has several earthcaches in our area. Each teaches an insightful lesson

in geology. Thanks go out to MarkCase for his geocaches. I look forward to finding more of his earthcaches in the area. As for this earthcache, I guess resistance is futile, the rocks will wear away and the course of the stream will change over time.