Our merry group got in the back of diezelsmommy’s truck and headed down to the pond. When the pond came into view I wasn’t entirely surprised to see a familiar sight – the same pond I’ve ridden by on the horse (or tried, he did not like water). Well now I know who owns the adjacent property!

After a successful cleanup we headed up for some grub and were treated to a meet & greet three of the WVRRC’s residents.

Annie a 28 year old red tail hawk. Very dignified and stately.

Alice, the cutest little squeeeeee owl in the world. Oh how badly did I was to schnarfle that ball of fluff! At least I was smart enough to know that would end poorly.

And then…after stuffing ourselves quite heartily we got to see Thunder. Who is every bit as impressive as his name implies.

Another great clean up. And a great learning experience. Check out the rest of the photos for more pics of the raptors and of us standing around staring at them!

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While the rest of us were hard at work unearthing trashbags of fabulous clothes (swimsuits, fairy wings – 3 pair) others stumbled upon what could only be the garments belonging to “a lady of ill repute” and just hoped that the rest of her was not there as well.

We also hit the mother lode of bumpers from a vast array of vehicles and some seriously freaky toys. I’m pretty sure the one doll that was run over by the front loader is alive.

(This penguin, by the way, is not going home to be friends with Ping.)

And speaking of dolls…..thebuddhaman somehow managed to get the cushiest job of the day – driving one of the front loaders. For real.

And just as we finished up and got into our vehicles…the rain started. Too late Mother Nature! Another fun day of picking up trash that should have been disposed of in a proper manner. I think we should now lay in wait with paintball guns for the next person to dump here.  SURPRISE LITTER BUG!!!!

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I also knew that there was a wood floor under the carpet. I knew this because 1. I had seen the beautiful hart pine in the 2nd floor bathroom when we ripped the old tub up and 2. I had seen (what I would later find to be an inaccurate viewing) wood parquet under the horrible rose carpet. You may wonder why #1 and #2 did not add up to 3. I myself, I did not.

One overly zealous day while Chad was elsewhere I ripped the carpet up. He came home to find the 2nd floor landing filled with carpet and me foaming at the mouth sobbing  cursing. That was not wood parquet under the carpet. No. It was not. It was sticky linoleum tiles made to look like wood parquet. What. The. Heck? Who puts individual sticky nasty linoleum tiles over perfectly good hart pine? WHO?

I came to grips with this horrible realization because at some point, the nasty sticky linoleum tiles were at least cleaner than the carpet.

And then one fine day (again with Chad being elsewhere) I started ripping those things up. I thought it would be easy. I am such a moron hopeful soul.  Apparently the sticky tiles being self adhering was not enough. The enterprising moron who installed them used extra glue. A LOT of extra glue.

I had some help from my friend Kris in working on the removal. And I also discovered that using an old iron really sped things up. She discovered that spilling water on the floor also accelerated the glue removal process.

Eventually it came time to sand and hope for the best. So I rented a big ol’ sander and had at it. I did the dirty work

After two days of sanding and being bored to death by it (not to mention having every muscle in my entire upper body ache) Chad came in to do the finish sanding (I was so over it by then it was ridiculous).

The floor ended up looking better than either of us could ever have hoped. It was protected pretty well by the rose carpet and nasty linoleum squares I suppose.

As if the project had not hung in there long enough, I decided that since the closet had been ripped out, I may as well cedar line it and install a fancy new organizational system.

The room is not quite done,  but it is a heck of a lot better. And I have learned many an important lesson which will serve me well should I ever decide to tackle another of the rooms. After all, there are 2 bedroms and a landing left on the 2nd floor.

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And for the record I can say that (because I am a huge slacker & so far behind in my posts) that Sunday, MARCH 14, the snow finally disappeared from our yard. yeah…that’s over one month.

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(and if January 1 is any kind of indicator, it’s also full of cheese.)

Happy New Year!!!!!

After my early morning attempt to avenge a DNF out at the Botanic Gardens (let’s call this Epic Fail Part 2) which left sidekick shaking his head at my mania dedication to caching [it was below freezing] we headed up to Pittsburgh.

Without further ado, because in this instance the photos can do all the talking, allow me to let you see how the “beautiful people” (as Darrin said) watch football these days…

Chad and Darrin sweet talk the beer lady before nearly passing out when enlightened about the amount of the tab.

Darrin and Jay are pleased to be warm. So this is a football stadium, right?

I like football! Especially when there are clean, bright warm restrooms with no lines. Rocks out!

Do these guys look like they would send photos taunting their friend?

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Today my friends, Vengeance is Mine.

I spent a good bit of the early spring and summer nursing my wounded pride from the epic failed assault on  Wanna Go to the Can on Bear Run? It rankled and picked at me, like a nasty rough wool blanket. So it came as no surprise to anyone that I eagerly answered Country_Rat’s call for volunteers to tackle this cache for his 200^th Find. No one ever said I was very smart.

The day dawned early, very early. And after a wretched late night of watching WVU play what passes for football these days, I wasn’t really what you’d call in prime hiking shape. None-the-less I stood glassy-eyed in the foyer, grasping my travel coffee mug amid gear and superfluous gear when Aquacache rang our wicked-loud doorbell that morning.

After making sure I had all my gear (and superfluous gear) sidekick patted me on the head and shoved me out the door, happy to let someone else be subjected to me all day – I suspect sidekick was eager for some peace and quiet to nurse his WVU football related anger before heading out to watch the Steelers play in Pittsburgh.

Running behind as always (my fault) the mighty AquaJeep sped ahead to the familiar meeting triangle of Rt. 50 / 92. And although Captain OCD was not to be joining us this fine, overcast, chilly morning I called ahead to let Rock_Rat, Country_Rat  and Gentleman-Carpenter know we were en route.

Since Aquacache had already been to the high clearance parking twice, he was elected to lead the small convoy (do 2 Jeeps count as a convoy? I’m kinda hazy on the number of vehicles required) to our destination.  We arrived at the low clearance parking to find the creek shockingly low. So low it barely even splashed as we drove across. Since Rock_Rat’s Jeep is the four-door variety, there was some discussion and scouting before a decision was reached to trudge onward and hopefully cut off some more distance (in hindsight this proved to be our best decision all day!). After finding a nice large, flat parking spot we tumbled out of the vehicles and set about putting on our gear.

And so here I have a happy little off topic paragraph about how in love I am with all the new fancy outdoor gear that is thin and lightweight but yet amazingly warm. I had on layers and layers (like a good little hiker) and by most outward appearances I seemed to still be a normal sized person in normal clothes, not some abdominal snowblob waddling up the trail. Yay for science!

Back to our story. This began much like the typical wvcoalcat cache does, walking on a trail / tram road / fire road and watching the distance between you and the cache go up while the arrow swings wildly around taunting you. At one point I (despite my experience) opened my mouth and the following words emerged, “Are we going the right way?” I just couldn’t help it. There is always something unsettling about getting further and further away from a ‘coalcat cache while walking down hill. Inevitable we were going to have to go up, up, up and then after finding the oxygen tanks stashed for any cachers brave enough to come this way, continue up, up and more up before reaching our goal.

And so we did. We climbed over downed trees, slid on loose leaf litter, stumbled blindly into holes (that would be me, mostly) and took lots of breaks. At one point we lost the trail. Finding it again was not so exciting since it went straight up the side of a smaller hill. Oh boy! My favorite, UP! Eventually we hit that point where we could continue on the trail as it (hopefully) wound slowly up to the top of the hill or just go for it.

Much like he did at Tater Knob, Country_Rat led the pack with a pace that seemed to indicate that he was on a pleasant stroll in the woods. I suspect he is insane. At any rate, the final ascent was not something that was enjoyable or pleasant which is why I forged ahead, looking down at my feet and thinking “well at least it isn’t icy”. Gasping for breath and wondering about my propensity to do stupid things, I crested the hill as Country_Rat said nonchalantly, “You see it?” to which I replied “Why yes I do – it’s over there.” (it was probably more like, ‘uh-huh’…gasp….point with hiking stick in general direction of cache…flop down on fallen tree).

A little while later, after my heart had returned to a normal beat and my legs had regained some feeling, Gentleman-Carpenter, Rock_Rat  and Aquacache arrived, stumbled toward us and the relief of a nice comfy tree to sit upon. Bless ‘coalcat for his consideration of such things when placing his cache

We signed the log book, took photos, enjoyed delicious food (yum, Twizzlers!), some “Vitamin I” and tried not to think about the descent, which was definitely going to include sliding, slipping, stumbling and possibly rolling if we were desperate. After enough time passed that our muscles were now good and cold and quite unhappy, our merry crew (delirious most likely) donned our packs and faced the inevitable walk / stumble / roll back to the Jeeps. Suffice to say, the trip down was much faster and before we knew it (delirium I’m telling you) there we were back at the parking. After debating different things such as the wonders of ice cubs that are not cubes but cylinders, different types of personal protection devices and the wonders of Twizzlers and banana flavored food bars, we unanimously agreed it was time to head to Cools Springs for proper post-wvcoalcat-cache-food.

In sum – awesome hike which we probably could not have accomplished in the ice and snow of February 2008. Great company as always. And hearty CONGRATULATIONS to Country_Rat for not only choosing a wvcoalcat cache as his 200th, but beating the rest of us to the top of the hill! That is one insane Rat!

Follow the link below more photographic evidence that we survived.

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Somehow we thought we’d manage to go on a horseback ride in the mountains, play golf and skeet shoot during this sort little jaunt. But in the grand tradition of me being unable to focus once actually on vacation, we accomplished none of the above.  Sometimes it’s just as much fun to wander around aimlessly – even when not in search of an ammo can.

Not to say that there wasn’t geocaching, because honestly, do I ever go anywhere that doesn’t inolve geocaching? Exactly. Since Knight Who Says Ni was in town as well, we decided it would be a great opportunity to knock off four pages of the DeLorme Challenge. It’s a good thing I keep dramamine in the glove compartment because all the tiny windy roads aren’t always agreeable to my stomach and that could have ended quite poorly for my new car.

We got all four pages (yay for us!) ,  had two DNFs, and managed to out wait a van full of guys in orange jumpsuits. Three people giving a grove of pine trees the shake down for 15 minutes must have looked completely normal to those guys! We continued to circle, look and poke even after the van had gone on to other areas that needed grounds keeping help to no avail. Oh the sadness of a DNF.

To bouy our spirits we headed back and indulged in tea. Chad honed in on a nice warm, suncovered spot where we settled in and tried not to fall asleep. It was a struggle, Kris battled back by sitting up prim and proper which makes it rather difficult to nod off. I relied on her to not let me slump forward and slide to the floor as I was getting pretty darn comfortable as I filled myself with lovely petite fours….mmmmm…..delicious tea cakes.  At any rate, we had urgent things to do after tea – such as find a place to eat and then get all dressed up. But more about the latter in a different post.

Ah, sometimes it is good to be me! Or Ping….it’s always good to be Ping.

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