I visited with my north side friends until 11:00 PM or so and went home to get some sleep. I was tired and slept well, as I had most of the week. That in and of itself is odd since I normally only sleep well the first night of my trips. I usually toss and turn due to the fact that my wife is not by my side. This time, however, was different. Maybe sheer exhaustion was the key.
I ate a very light breakfast and got cleaned up before the Knightmare Duck and Holmes came by to pick me up for a long day of driving a multitude of miles in KD's open top Jeep and picture taking.
The guys came buy about 10:00 AM and we stopped to get a few munchies, drinks, and ice. As we were pulling out of the parking lot, Holmes asked the question, "What do we do first? Should we go visit Carp's grave?"
I chimed in immediately and stated that I thought it was a good idea and asked KD if he was okay with that. He looked a little hesitant but said that he thought it was a good idea. With that, we were off.
We arrived at the cemetery and realized none of us knew where he was buried. KD was a pall bearer at the funeral 16 years ago, but had forgotten the location. Not being shy, I walked into the office and asked the woman working there if she could get me the location. She obliged and we were on our way. After a few minutes of pacing back and forth around a dew wet grave yard, we found the marker and began to remenisce about days gone by. We relayed some stories about Carp, also known as "EZ" and when the time between stories grew to an awkward pause, we bid Carp/EZ peace, took some photos, and hit the road.
We started out on Rt 50 west heading towards North Bend State Park, which was about an hour away. KD had his hand held GPS with him and said in a semi-sarcastic tone, "You know we have to do at least one geocache before we go home." While I had heard of and understood the main points of geocaching, I had never participated in it before. Generally new things are not to uncomfortable to me and the thought of tromping around the woods with a GPS looking for hidden treasures was right in line with a fun time.
KD programmed his GPS to assist us in finding one that appeared right along the highway we were traveling on. We parked, hit a trail that ran parallel to the highway (a story unto itself.."the rail trail" as it is known) and followed the coordinates to the spot. As we got nearer, KD told Holmes and I that the spot was very close and pointed to a rocky ledge that looked like a likely spot. Sure enough within seconds, Holmes found a keybox hidden in the rocks. When it was opened, it had coordinates taped inside to another spot just about 1/4 of a mile away. Jokes bout KD having to actually walk for a change were pass back and forth in a non-insulting way as we progressed towards the second part of what was obviously a multipart geocache. KD told me to be on the look out and I shortly I saw concrete and steel bump in the weeds that looked like a spot to hide the cache. I found it a magnetized keybox stuck to the underside of the steel on the hump. Once it was opened, we found the coordinates to the next stop on the multipart cache. KD was getting very frustrated now because the coordinates took us back towards the spot we parked his Jeep.
Once back to the parking place, we saw that the cache was approximately 100 yards east so we continued on. The coordinates pointed to an overgrown area with an old concrete structured that had been stripped of all the wood and was now in an area of briars and brambles. I looked for a while and decided to climb the steps that led to the top of the structure. Once I got to the top, I realized that this was the final stage of the hunt. We found the near new conditioned ammo box with the geocache log and several train themed items inside. Lots of photos were taken and I decided to leave a momento (a couple of tracts from our church) to which KD told me that I could take a small item if I left something. I saw an "I love geocaching" band (the little rubber ones you wear as a bracelet) and decided to take that. We all signed the log and moved on in search of lunch.
After a lunch at DQ, we headed on towards North Bend to see what had changed in the 20 years since I had been there last. There were a lot of new things and I really had fun taking pictures...well most of the time. My 6+ year old camera was giving me fits and would not stay powered on dispite the fully charged batteries.
After taking several pictures, we drove towards the dam to survey the area. Holmes then announced that the pre-programmed GPS indicated two geocaches in the area. Since we had fun finding our last one, we decided to give at least one of them a try.
In the interest of time, space and batter life (I am on a laptop typing this in KWrite until it can be uploaded), I will give you the "Reader's Digest" version of this find.
All three of us started walking to the dam and all three of us made it to the top of the hill but once KD saw that the trek would be at least a mile into the woods behind the dam, he decided to stay back (KD is a big guy...walking any moderate distance is not easy on him). Holmes and I decided to move on and do our best to find the cache. We did well initially but failed to zoom the GPS down low enough to give us an accurate reading. Also the GPS needs to move in a straight line to bee accurate and Holmes and I moved back and forth a lot, confusing the device. None the less, about an hour after we entered the woods, we found the cache, signed the log, traded items (it had three geo coins in it that needed moved to another location in the future), and returned the cache back to its original location before we returned.
KD was getting worried and tried to call us but no cell signal reached us where we were. He called his wife and asked her to get online to see what difficulty this find was and was a bit worred when he heard it was a "four" (out of five) but was releaved when we exited the woods. We related the story to him (including the part about the cave that I was so sure contained the cache, but it did not) and he told us that there usually are clues on the web to aid finding the cache. Had we known the clues we would hav found the cache a lot sooner, but since we were flying mostly blind (and the fact that Holmes and I were not experienced) it took us longer.
As we exited the dam area, we decided to hit one more before we left the park for good. To make a long story short, we found three more but we ran into a bit of trouble that made me glad that we had the jeep. We ended up on a goat path (a WV term for a narrow unpaved road that has streams and such crossing it) and could not back out. After wasting 30-45 minutes on the goat path, we got back on course and found the three we were looking for.
We took the scenic route back home (much to the chagrin of KD and Holmes' hungry wives) and eventually dropped me off at my mom's house. I took a "bird bath" (wash the upper body in the bathroom sink when a bath/shower would not be appropriate), changed clothes and met the gang at "The Texas Roadhouse" for dinner. After a great meal, we retired back to Holmes' and his wife's house to chat a bit more. At 11:00 PM, I decided I needed to get home. On the way home however, the check engine light came on and I was a tad concerned. I decided to have it checked out the following morning. I called my wife, got her caught up on the day's events and then read until I could not read any more.
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