Hotspur.us

I know, you are confused by the title of this post. After all, who am I do to something nice? Especially something nice without a reward. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do have a nicer side, just don’t let the word get out. Plus, it was another excuse to boss my friends around. So at the suggestion of the kind folks over at ExploreWV I organized nagged together a motley crew to do some Cache In Trash Out near GC2F3FR (middle of nowhere Rt. 219 for the non-cachers among us).

And so wvhunter, wvcoalcat, Aquacache and yours truly showed up to gather some garbage left behind by….well left behind by people who clearly have no concept of common decency, that’s who.

We arrived at this perfectly nice little roadside park,  complete with grills and pic nic shelters…

To find a nicely manicured lawn and one hell of a mess behind a steel door that had clearly been busted open.

And trust me when I say while the photo shows a certain degree of nastiness, it does not touch the mess that was to the left of the doorway. Nor can it in any way shape or form communicate the stench emanating from the area once things were stirred up. Thankfully CL Combat had stopped at this park on Monday in order to find the geocache (fear not, located away from this nasty pit of disgustingness) and so had alerted us that we should bring a shovel.

And so shovel in hand,  boxes of gloves and garbage bags provided by WV REAP our trusty crew set about doing some Trash Out (we did the Cache In portion of CITO afterwards) as swiftly as possible. After all, one may only hold one’s breath so long before passing out.

We tag teamed the shoveling gross substances into the garbage bags, thus virtually eliminating the possibility that anyone would actually end up touching – or (which is possibly worse all things considered) getting touched by – something. Because honestly, if any of my clothes touched this mess of HAZMAT, they were being burnt on the spot. There’s a reason I keep a change of clothes in the jeep.

We were very, very happy to have the shovel in hand and almost equally as thrilled to find an abandoned push broom made out of, what we finally decided, was elk tail. (Yes, it too went into the giant red garbage dumpster when all things were said and done.)

Although stirring up (and then breathing) all the dust and particles that had accumulated in that area probably took quite a few years off Aquacache’s life. I know as soon as the air started wafting over the stuff in there, the rest of us started backing up, ready to take off at a full run if the moment required it. I wish we had a HAZMAT sticker to adhere to the door, and the dumpster for that matter.

Unfortunately not only was the area a trash dump, it was a storage area for some signs which had to be removed so we could clean around them. EEEEEEEEW. Just when we were pondering how this could get any more disgusting, the guys realized that the signs were stuck together and had stuff stuck on them.  Anyway need a Handicap Parking Sign?

I really had to work hard to hold the bag and yet stay as far away as possible from the stuff wvcoalcat was cleaning up. It’s harder than you might imagine considering I have really short little arms. I was hoping that by making a horrible face and stopping all air intake that it would make the situation slightly less gross. It did not.

We double bagged, just in case.

wvcoalcat even improvised a litter stick…because some things you don’t want to touch, even through rubberized blue man group gloves.

And so being the overachievers that we are, we  CITO’d that building but good. And then wished we had some plywood and screws in order to secure the door shut so there would not have to be a repeat performance.

From there…

it’s just best not to ask what wvhuter, Aquacache & wvcoalcat were up to.

Because I’m pretty sure it was illegal, immoral or fattening. Maybe all three at once.

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It’s that time again. Time to trek to Charleston (which for me involved a side trip to see pony and a stop in Weston to meet up with CL Combat) to throw – yes I was the hostess with the mostest this time around – sMAGPI’s Fourth Annual Meat & Greet.

I bring the awesome, you guys bring the rest. Fun guaranteed. Pony’s Promise! (Sometimes I think of it as more of a threat than a promise.)

And so things got underway. Thanks to soldofsolitude (and his Dad) for bringing the most awesome grill ever. Seriously, a grill of that nature adds some level of sophistication to what was (and trust me here) a rather haphazardly thrown together event.

We did have a moment of trepidation when I had to draft grill masters. Although to be honest, it was more like assign or harangue. It just so happened to be the two guys loitering near the grill. I figured they must have been admiring the grill and thus showed some interest in using the darn thing.

After feeding the mass of humanity that had gathered we moved on to some games. OK. So the only activity really was the ammo can toss. And the tragedy of it all was I Spotty Spotty Pony Girl only had one ammo can laying in my basement that was ammo can toss worthy. Yep. ONE. And it was a .30 Cal at that. Oh the shame.

For those of you unsure why this would be shameful, please allow me to elaborate. 1. I’m a geocacher. I should have several toss worthy ammo cans stashed safely in my basement. 2. The men’s ammo can toss has traditionally been a fully laden .50 cal ammo can while the ladies’ ammo can toss has been a fully laden .30 cal ammo can. 3. The winner gets the can. UH OH.

But I’m wily and adaptive. So both ladies and men threw the same can. The men’s winner – wvhunter74 – got the can and the ladies’ winner – Allysmom got a finely crafted t-shirt. Problem solved kids.

While the ammo can toss was being played out (and yours truly was taking photos and trying to keep one eye on the can) who should drop anchor but local legend CaptJackSparrow! Avast mateys…’tis a pirates life fer we scallywags. Alas the Cap’n escaped portraiture.

And so with bellies full and prizes distributed….and after a bit o’ excitement that nearly remodeled the place….we went jeepin’

Yeah, we did. Two three Jeeps and one pick up truck hauling: pbump, mrs. pbump, SSPG, CL Combat, Knight Who Says Ni, wvhunter, Rock_Rat, Gentleman-Carpenter, AllysMom, Ally, Nuggie99 and wvmikiepar. And thank goodness for those last four folks since they were our leaders. Thus ensuring we actually arrived at Rt. 60 Connector Ridge #1 – Briarwood.

It was a mighty fine day.

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Everyone now and then we get a crazy wild idea to go after an old school cache.

Mt. Nebo Excursion here we come!

It sounded like a fine idea. Fine enough that not only did sidekick sign on, but Gentleman-Carpenter & Aquacache threw in with us as well. Silly fools.

Things were going pretty well. We found stage one and stage two. Heck Gentleman-Carpenter even found a rather large birdhouse.

It was all going well until…we got to the stage that was missing. Which was bad enough. Until loyal sidekick got stung by a bee while trying to (literally) beat the bush. I sent out an SOS to a previous finder who….was unable to help us at all.

And so then we had a really, really good idea.  Why don’t we NOT go back the way we came. Why don’t we find a better path. Yeah. Typical MAGPI.

We took a long walk and made some really bad decisions. When we finally staggered back to the parking area…

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It’s that time of the year again…time for the Great MEAT-n-Greet.

The day dawned bright and hot and early….which is always the case for those of us on set-up duty. For a change I had not been up well past midnight working on t-shirts and other random prizes. I guess after this many years I may well be learning that slowly preparing beats last minute freak-out. (Although honestly sometimes last minute freak-out can be fun.)

As usual the set up team turned out in such vast number that not only did we get up super fast, we had time to just wander around aimlessly talking to ourselves (ok, that was me. People kept asking what I needed them to do, but I couldn’t come up with much.)

BREAK

Around 10:30 our first attendees started showing up…early as usual. And by 11, which was the official start we had a good number of cachers bearing delicious food items.

BREAK

This year we broke in two new grill-masters: SnowXracer & Gentleman-Carpenter. They kept a steady flow of MEAT coming at a rapid pace which was great since we had a rather ravenous and LARGE crowd. At one point I looked back at the line, snaking out of the pavilion and back towards the furthest pic-nic table and actually had a horrible feeling we were going to run out of MEAT before everyone was fed. Talk about a catastrophe in the making! How could The 6th Great MEAT-n-Greet run out of MEAT? Before I was able to launch into full on panic mode, more MEAT appeared and the grill continued to smoke….WHEW.

To mix things up a bit we introduced the frozen t-shirt competition. We’d had a successful trial run down at sMAGPI a few years ago. And this year since our forecast was for HOT and because I had actually remembered to freeze the t-shirts earlier in the week we were ready to roll.

We had a clear winner who managed not only to get the t-shirt on…but keep it mostly together in the process. Way to go babynubbins (or as I believe he was called hubbynubbins).

Little Wooden Boy once again ran Let’s Make A Deal which started off with a bang when the Wheel itself had a blow-out! Ooops.

After handing out many fabulous prizes it was time for the ever popular Ammo Can Toss and so I mustered the troops and we marched (ammo cans in tow) across the way only to find…We’d been invaded! Yep. We had squatters over in the Ammo Can Tossing area. Judging by the looks on their faces, they were more startled than we were. So what to do? What to do?

Well what we did is follow wvcoalcat past his Find the X field into a lovely swampy area of green goodness. Which meant quite a few things:

1. For people who have a hobby that involves hiking, there was an awful lot of complaining about having to walk to the field.

2. Swampy muck smells bad (yes I stepped it in over and over)

3. Swampy grassy goodness means the can does not roll.

4. Swampy grassy goodness means the can does not explode.

5. Nothing matters anyway because 89SC won AGAIN.

We did have a new winner in the ladies division…actually I think we have a different winner each year for the ladies division. A hearty congratulations to wvcopperhead and here’s hoping she doesn’t use the can to some nefarious purpose like 89SC will.

Having subjected so many people to strenuous ammo can throwing and forced marches, wvcoalcat then them back out to Find the X and found that….you have got to be kidding me…89SC was the winner in the field of flags. Fortunately the prize for that was NOT another ammo can. I mean really, we can only take so much.

We’d moved the event up a week this year in the hopes that we’d get to show off the Mountain State to some folks who were taking a long and winding tour on their way home Geowoodstock IX. Judging by the number of GW9 shirts that showed up we got a few takers! queenofscots and bobstaf joined us from the Richmond area.  And sent us the nicest email afterwards.

Since Greenie333 and SnowXracer are expecting a new little cacher of their own, they graciously let us include them in our games and merriment. For $1 anyone could suggest a geo-name for their wee-one. (Yes, they were smart enough not to offer to let us actually name their bundle of joy. Could you imagine? No. Let’s not.) There were quite a few hilarious entries…some of which of course were anti-Pitt (their alma mater) and the winner turned out to be Little Wooden Boy’s entry “SCREAMING KID”.  Watch for logs from Screaming Kid coming this November!

Many thanks to everyone who came together to once again, pull this event off. With well over 100 attendees this year, The 6th Great MEAT-n-Greet was hoppin’.

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