Springtime in the East

I have gotten bad at writing here. Hopefully I can do better. Last month I was asked for work to travel to update South Carolina to work for five weeks. I don’t often travel for work, so this was a surprise, and helped me avoid a two week furlough. I found that part out later.

Well upon ariving in Seneca South Carolina I found that there were not many caches in the area. There were caches, it just was not as cache rich as back home. However every day or two I would pick a direction and travel for 45 minutes then turn 10 minutes to the right and come back home. Grabbing the caches on the way.

At the same time I saw some of the adventure labs that were in the area and took the time to go see them. I thought I would take the time to share a few stories and photos.

My flight

I did take the time to load my trusty GPS and load up my phone, then grab a battery pack for the trip. I have learned that those three things can save you a ton of heartache. Then as an afterthought I created a notification for the area. Just in case a new cache was published.

Well it did not take long. I think I arrived on a Sunday and by Monday that a cache was published around noon. Well I did not think much of it. You know, back home the race would be on, and there would be no chance. but not there In Honor of Manny H. Manteca Calif I would come to realize later that one of the people that goes for the new caches was out of town. So I had free reighn for a few days.

I parked on the edge of some ball diamonds and headed over, and was wondering of the person had not logged it or if I would be FTF. Well yep, it was a surprise that I was first. I think that may be the first FTF in a number of years.

Walhalla and Adventure labs

Well the next few days of that week had me traveling back to Whitehall park a few times to grab a few other FTF’s and later second and third to finds. It was a good time. However I eventually picked a new direction. I decided one day to head north to Walhalla and work on some adventure labs. It was a nice trip and I saw a few cool lcoations as I walked around town. .

The Jail

In one of the stops I found this jail wagon. This was the town/area jail for a number of years. In the winter a burn barrell would be added and the sides covered. They could be taken to different locations for work details. Coming from Utah where winters are months of snow and sub freezing temps I was appalled. Then checking the weather for the area it averages a low of 35 degrees. So it will get freezing during cold snaps but nothing terrible, unless it was a bad bad year. It was a nice advanture lab.

Northward

I headed north from here. And it was a really nice ride. The forest gets heavier and heavier and the underbrush just begins to cover everything. My real goal was to try and grab a few of the earth caches and virtuals that were on the way. A few of them were off the beaten path but I figured I would at least see before I made the decision. So I headed northward.

I stopped at one of the state parks to get the geocache what kind of house is it. Yet, further north when I got to a pull out and a well beaten dirt road that headed down to the Cheohee road falls Earth cache. It's one of those locations that's out of the way, a waterfall that's beautiful and most people never see. This is one of the reasons why I've really come to love geocaching. It's that location that is not a tourist spot, not a highlight, not something that everybody goes to. Those beautiful locations off the beaten trail that you get to take people to. I did look for the regular geocache that was there with absolutely no luck. But that's how it goes sometimes.

I then traveled a little further northward there's still another Earthcache I need to take the time to log on that road. I did stop and grab the Moody springs earthcache. But to be completely honest most spring Earthcaches are not that great. There's a reason why they've been limited because they're not very good. There was one that I should have taken a road off to but I didn't and I look now and believe I should have gone after the King Creek falls Earthcache but what happened happened.

New Earthcache

I did cut a road Eastward to come down a different trail. And while I was there I noticed arock out cropping. I would take a number of photos and eventually go home and do research for the area. So when I took a few minutes I created an earthcache of my own and submitted it for the local reviewer. And a few days later had it published. It's been a month now and only one person is found it but it is a really beautiful location and hopefully highlight something a little interesting to people I ended up call it calling it Leader of the Band. And unlike many Earth caches it is very simple it just makes people think about the location a little bit without a lot of studying.

That reminds me I'm sitting here looking at the map and realized I have at least one other Earth cache to take the time and log from the date. So I should get to it.

I will leave you with a final photo a few yards from my Earthcache.