At any rate after making one last heroic journey to the ends of the earth (Williamson, WV) I found a cache in Mingo County and from there pushed on to Wayne County, grabbing my last remaining pages for the DeLorme Challenge as well.

My reward for dragging my arse from one end of this Wild and Wonderful state to the other was the coordinates to the final for GC1QWJF.  And to be honest I was probably more than a little delighted when I received those coordinates from wvangler. Immediately I started scheduling with pbump to see about going after this cache. After all he had done an awful lot of planning last year that facilitated knocking off a good many of the counties.

With few open weekends we decided that July 10 was the day. I figured it wouldn’t take much to convince Aquacache to come along on a nice long walk. 89SC had already said he would love to come back to the final (yes, Mr. Overachiever had already completed the challenge).

Thanks ‘angler. I don’t necessarily take back all those nasty things I said about you…but it was sort of fun!

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I was a little anxious at first after hearing how NOT to get your jeep stuck in the sand. I really, really did not want to be that guy. The one buried in the sand up to the axle (and believe me…we saw plenty of those guys out there.) But after we crossed our first dune,  which was a lot smaller than I had anticipated, I felt pretty confident that I was not going to get stuck.

It took us a little while to find the ponies. They are wild and they do go wherever they darn well please. Plus it was hot, blazing hot. Which meant they were most likely seeking shade. I was delighted thrilled spastic with glee when we ran across our first band just hanging out and grazing. We saw one hugely pregnant mare. She didn’t move at all.

After hanging out and taking pictures for a bit (you have to stay 50 feet back from the horses) we headed out and continued our search. You might think finding something as large as a horse would not be difficult. You would be surprised. If they don’t want to be bothered, they can make themselves pretty well invisible (trust me, I speak from experience).

And speaking of Villain, I always say I’d love to have him in my back yard. Well, after running across these guys I may have changed my mind.

This band of horses also happened to have a burro in it. No one knows where that fellow came from or how long he’s been around. But there he is. Go figure.

Enough with the narrative. It was loads of fun. We had a grand time and I would totally go back again.

(also we did some other stuff on our way home and I just threw those galleries in here. Richmond, VA for a cache and then Bluestone & Pipestem state parks)

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As modeled by my lovely assistant sidekick Little Wooden Boy, I present….a selection of shirts. (no worries, they will be laundered before the event)

Everyone that attends the MEAT-n-Greet will have his or her fair chance to win one of these fabulous shirts. There are 9 in total, three each of Medium, Large & XL.

See ya Saturday!

That’s my Gramps (D.J. Romino) on the left listening to Sen. Byrd play the fiddle.

Well today, despite the evil heat and humidity, I managed to get it in gear and replace the window. Not that it was easy. And not that it ended entirely well.

First I had to scrape the window a bit because the 24″ x 24″ piece of glass would not fit in the slightly larger than 24″ x 24″ window.

Sure, I do all my home repair work in a sun dress, don’t you? Seriously though, I’d been out and about (and trying not to die from the heat – 90+ degrees) and in my typical form decided once I got home that  I’d work on some projects that needed finishing. Well why in the world would I change clothes? I was, after all, ONLY going to pop that glass in the window and secure it, right?  Oh and maybe paint an ammo can and perhaps paint the Wheel of Morality (the 5th Great MEAT-n-Greet at Coopers Rocks is coming up soon.)

Well after all that scraping, which turned into me sanding and scraping and then getting out my wood chisel. Which of course I could not find. But after digging it up I was not surprised to find that it needed sharpened. Which mean I had to find something with which to sharpen the chisel before I could make any progress. I was trying to not lose my patience since this was becoming quite a large pain. (The first window – predictably – went in without any drama, scraping or fuss.)

I think I must have put that piece of glass in the window about 20 times and it still did not fit. Of course it wasn’t me working non-stop. I had a few respites thanks to intermittent thunderstorms which were rolling through. But once they stopped coming and going and I no longer had to run for cover I finally (thought) I won! Yes the glass went in. The glass was secured. And then….the glass cracked. But you know what? By that stage I really did not care. And it was only a tiny crack. And the window is in the back of the garage.

Oh, did I mention I also had to tie on the weights for the bottom window? Well I did. And I had to free the windows from many years of paint. At the very least I know that the trim on the house used to be blue before the current mauve.

And so you are probably wondering why the heck anyone should care about me putting in a new window in the back of my garage. Well it’s a valid point to ponder. And so I’ll come clean. That particular piece of glass that I just installed is a particularly evil piece of glass.

Because yesterday while I was out geocaching with 89SC at The Jug WMA that evil piece of glass had a devious plan which it managed to bring to fruition. What was the evil plan you may ask? Well it just so happens that since glass is fragile I had placed this evil piece of glass on top of a small cart in the garage. And there it sat in wait, concocting a plan. Waiting…waiting for someone oblivious.

And since Chad lives here too, it didn’t have to wait very long. Sometime around 2:00 pm Saturday that evil piece of glass lured Chad in and sliced him up. Oh yes. It did.

And how did I find out? (Because remember I was out in The Jug where there was no cell service.) I found out via a short text message that Chad was at MedExpress. And that was IT. No more information. And why did this freak me out? Because Chad and Dad were at home with an industrial wet saw cutting flagstone.

Nicely played Mr. Evil Piece of Glass. Nicely Played.

WARNING! GRAPHIC PHOTO of Chad’s Injury coming up next. Not as gnarly as my summer destroying injury of June 2009, but still slightly unpleasant.

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So, Villian + Hose = Extremely Wet Villian & Extremely Wet Me.

You will notice in the photo below that Villain does look quite nice and shiny. And he smelled good too thanks to the awesomely expensive shampoo that I happen to have stashed in my tack trunk. Honestly, that horse has more product than I have had in my entire life.

His bath went like this….he protested by dancing about the wash stall, putting his head up as far as he possible could in order to avoid getting his face washed. He does not like having any tiny bit of water (or perceived water) getting near his ears. So when I start to get his neck wet he tosses his head WAY up in the air. What he has failed to factor in is that if he kept his gi-nor-mous noggin DOWN I wouldn’t have to spray to get the top of his neck wet.  And if he would do that….there would be no (perceived) water in his ears and I’d be a damn lot dryer.

And so after both of us getting a bath, and me ending up dirtier than when I started, I took him out and let him graze so he could dry off. And then he went back to his nicely cleaned stall to have a snack.

And so…Nice, shiny, happy Villain.

And in contrast….Tired, soaked, smelly (and on my 3rd set of clothes for the day) me.

It’s great to know that the day after I gave the mighty beast that scrubbing, it poured. He’s probably covered in mud already. Figures.

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And so first thing Friday morning I got online and booked us the last room at the General Lewis Inn for Saturday night. Our plan was to get up EARLY Saturday morning and head south, grabbing the GeoTrail caches, nicking down to Mullens to avenge a DNF, then head over to Lewisburg where we’d spend the night (oh yes, taking in the New River Gorge on the way). Then we’d get up on Sunday, have a leisurely breakfast and take a tour of the Smooth Ambler Spirits before heading northward to grab that pesky page 56A. And THEN stop off in Elkins to make The Wheel of Morality.

Yeah, we I had an awful lot of stuff planned

And then I was out caching Friday around 1:00 p.m. standing on the gawd-awful side of a hill at some lake on a ‘trail’ when I got an email that said my hotel reservation had been canceled per my request. What? WHAT? WHAT??? Since I had cell service I immediately called and said, “WHAT? WHAT THE HELL?” “I did not request my room to be cancelled. Please to be explaining yourself.”  Oh, said the folks at the General Lewis Inn, the room you booked wasn’t really available. The internet site had not updated. What? WHAT? WHAT???? So this later turned out to work out for the best since I made (after returning from the FTF hunt from hell) reservations in Beckley, which was as far as we got on Saturday before giving in to hunger and exhaustion.

Anyway, short recap of trip.  Knocked off a Hawk’s Nest State Park and did an awesome hike to do so.  Found necessary caches on Coal Heritage GeoTrail until we get to Fayette Station. Where we FAIL to find the cache there. Even though it is so simple a blind cacher could spot it from his/her car. That FAIL meant there was no reason to go to the bowels of WV Mullens to avenge that GeoTrail DNF since I would still be missing one cache. We did, however, have a lovely drive down to Fayette Station and took in the scenery.

Calling it a day we crashed for the night in Beckley.

The next morning my still elaborate day 2 plan was still in tact until I looked up Smooth Ambler Spirits and found they were closed on Sunday. STRIKE ONE.  Fine. We still had additional things to do, such as find a cache in Monroe County and then one in Summers County and grab a few state parks for both the WV State Park Challenge and our VIPP stamps. Which worked out pretty well until we got to Cass and I was so distracted by getting stuck in computer cords that I forgot my VIPP cards in the car and consequently totally forgot to get them stamped.

We then also realized that the Earthcache at Organ Caves would have to be passed on since Organ Caves weren’t open on Sundays. Come ON people. It’s Memorial Day Weekend. How about a little flexibility. But no, denied booze & earth caches. Geez.  We did manage to score page 56A which was a load off my mind.

And then we went to Elkins and had delicious Mexican food with Bob & Keith which is where THIS post picks up.

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It was a constant source of annoyance. And confusion.

And then we walked into the kitchen and saw Orlando standing IN the salad plate eating the cats’ food.

Well, it may not be the biggest mystery in our house, but now it’s solved. Which means we can now spend our extra time concentrating on Orlando’s little “problem”.

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Well that was a big ol’ fail, which wasn’t exactly a surprise. It isn’t as if you see exhaust manifolds for TR4As scattered on the ground like rice after a wedding.

The good news is I did find a side view mirror for the passenger side.(You know, the that managed to separate itself from my vehicle while it was sitting in the car  while I was recuperating from a broken arm last summer.)

Plus I did get to see an awful lot of very nice looking cars and some wicked strange ones to boot. Not to mention, it isn’t every day you get to hear a polka band play something by Dick Dale and the Deltones

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Every house needs a Wheel of Morality, how else are you supposed to make important decisions? 

And so armed with only a rather large wooden disc (destined to become the WoM) and banking on the wood working expertise (and loads of power tools) of  the Brothers W, we set to work.

Step one: Come up with a plan.  That was all Bob & Keith, since my plan was this: leave the wood shop with a WoM. I mostly just kept my mouth shut because at a certain point I had no idea what they were talking about.

Step two: Make the Wheel of Morality

Sounds easy, right? Uh-huh. Sure.

So first things first – Make some smaller discs to hold the bearings. I’d say this was easy (and for me it was because mostly I just followed Bob around and held stuff if necessary) but in reality it took a darn long time to make these two little discs, then fit the bearnings in them. First there was drawing them, then using the band saw, then making sure they were round. Then routing them. Then sanding them. Then drilling a hole in them into which to sink the bearing.

It was sometime around using the 25th different giant powertool to get these things round, that I began to wonder if it was going to take an entire week to make just these little hubs. It had not ocurred to me that making two little discs would take so long (I also didn’t factor in that some people are perfectionists). But hey, who am I to complain, this WoM is going to last through generations to come. Years and years from now someone way down the geneological line will be making important decisions using this very Wheel of Morality…all thanks to Bob’s hard work and patience.

And so eventually (thanks to Bob’s patience and a kickin’ assortment of tools) the bearings were nicely sunk into the two very round, very smooth, very pretty hubs and it was time to start gluing stuff together!

So what you see above is the wheel face down with an I-beam and some assorted weights on it to make sure it was going to glue nice and tight. And trust me. It did. There will be no taking this thing apart. Ever. (And in case you might be wondering, I had originally painted the checkerboard on the disc years ago for Chad. But I don’t particularly like to play chess, so it didn’t get much use and had most recently been reglegated to living the basement with the rest of the scrap lumber.)

So while the glue did it’s thing,  I got a lesson on how to use a wood lathe. Oh yes, yes I did. Me and big power tools. But relax, I counted my fingers and I still have 10. And I have to say it was lots of fun. You might not thing it would be, what with the standing in one place and making slow progress, but oh boy! oh boy! oh boy!

The most important part of my lesson seemed to be, hold my left hand on TOP of the handle. You know, to prevent the  tool from flying across the room, through the window, through the hedges, over the neighbor’s car and eventually landing 300 feet down the street, should the tip somehow get snagged in the wood I was turning. The one thing I came to realize was that I am way too short. Yep, short. that’s me. These things are set up for tall people. I needed some serious platform tennis shoes  or maybe some cinder blocks to stand on. Or maybe build myself little stilts that I could fasten to my shoes. (Being a short person in a tall person’s workshop makes things awkward.)

Anyway, after letting me play a bit, Bob got down to business and turned a very nice spindle which fit the bearings perfectly (as if that’s a shock).

After confirming that yes, the bearings did fit perfectly, it was time to line up the hubs and glue the second one down. And today’s moral is….make sure your spindle is done before gluing the second hub on, so you can line up the bearings properly (and also, Do not back up. Severe tire damage.)

Next up: the stand.

Bob went off to the far reaches of the wood shop in search of the perfect piece of wood to turn into the WoM’s stand. When he had not emerged in a reasonable period of time, and after hearing some suspicious sounds of thumping and clunking, I was beginning to grow concerned that perhaps he had encountered the giant ground hog that lives under the wood shop and had somehow ticked it off. Not concerned enough to venture back to the far reaches myself, because it was HOT back there. But concerned none-the-less. Around about the time I began to consider sending Chad back to check on the situation, Bob emerged with some rough hewn, not quite square pieces of wood.

Ok then. And I thought making the hubs was an undertaking. In order to turn that rough looking stuff into suitable pieces from which to craft the WoM’s stand we had work to do. Work that involved planing, cutting, planing, sanding, planing, measuring, planing, cutting….

All of that meant I got to try out some other power tools. The first of which gave me a bit of a start, not because I’d never used one before, but becuase I’d never used one that had more power than my car! Holy cow. When I pulled the trigger the darn thing nearly drug me out the door, down the driveway and across the street. Which, as you may imagine, amused the guys.

From a rough, uneven piece of wood scrounged from the back, came this beauty of a stand!

And so just in the nick of time, before we all died of heat stroke, the Wheel of Morality was done!

Well not really because even thought Bob re-cut it to make it round it doesn’t spin quite right. Which means I need to add weights to balance it. And then divide it. And then paint it. And then create a ticker at the top so it doesn’t spin for 300 years. But mostly, it’s done!

Wheel of morality, turn, turn, turn. Tell us the lesson we should learn. And today’s moral is…..Never ask what hot dogs are made of.

While Bob & I (mostly Bob) were slaving away to make the WoM, Keith and Chad were working on another project. This lovely shelf set for the touchscreen computer in our kitchen. Chad brought his mock up (which he’d cobbled together in our basement out of random scraps that we had flung about) which is on the right in both pictures below. And from that Keith helped him create the New Hotness which is on the left in both pictures. Stain grade gorgeousness baby.

So much heartfelt thanks to the Brothers W for letting us invade the wood shop (and the house) and spending their entire Memorial Day working on our projects. You guys are the bestest.