Thanks to Sam I finally had a soft top to put on Edmund, the little black jeep. (Sam’s disclaimer was that it was in rough shape. I’m just thrilled to have a soft top.)
With much thanks to my dear brother and Aquacache the hard top was easily removed and sitting on the stand I made. (Found those instructions online. Cheap and easy.)
Now sure, I’ve seen plenty of jeeps without tops, but that didn’t stop me from finding Edmund’s appearance a little strange.
The soft top went on super easy since the brackets were already on the jeep. So while I was all ready for some back breaking labor and lots of cursing, it was a smooth install.
Now, time for some celebratory food.
chris on May 30th 2011 in Vehicles
We were back in Gettysburg to do some organized battlefield touring. We were equipped with a very nice, very new hardback book detailing the battle and the monuments. I had the trusty Garmin 60CSX (with the proper topo maps loaded), the phones and plenty of water. We were ready to roll.
And so Chad said he would really very much like to see some certain monuments located on Big Round Top. We picked a nice spot (we assumed) to leave the car and headed toward the area indicated by the sign.
However what we discovered was that…just because a sign points to some monuments, one should not really presume there is a trail.
As you can see, even an experienced geocacher would have trouble locating something here to follow. And trust me, I can find a pixie deer trail like a champ.
We did find this awesome tree. But it wasn’t much in the way of a trail.
As you can see, Chad did all of his bushwhacking all the while carrying his hardback book of the battlefield.
(As a side note: It was a little distressing to find a bunch of what we assumed to be blazed blue trees cut down. Being as how in our experience blue blazed trees tend to indicate a trail.)
We got as far as we could and finally decided to turn back. Originally we thought maybe we’d bushwhack straight down the hill to our car. But when we were confronted with a wall of thorns we gave up and more or less followed our tracks back.
Eventually we stumbled on what appeared to be an actual trail and managed to find the monuments for which Chad was seeking.
As you can see from our track log…when we get our minds set on a destination, we’re going to find it!
We did actually do some other things besides bushwhacking and getting thoroughly confused. You can make up your own story for the rest!
chris on May 30th 2011 in Geocaching, Travel
After our leisurely stroll CITO’ing in Fairmont we figured what we needed to do to wrap the weekend up was a jeep trip down to Beaverhole. I’d been down to the low clearance parking before in my poor old Saturn Vue, but that was a lifetime ago.
So sidekick & I saddled up in Edmund the Jeep & Knight Who Says Ni hitched a ride with Aquacache (a much better vantage point than the backseat of the little black jeep).
Our first stop was Big Run Cascade which was running like mad today.I managed to creek cross with no falling, much to the amazement of everyone involved. Compared to the previous time I was there – in which I was able to stand at the top of the falls and not even have to worry about the rocks being slippery, today was a little more treacherous. Thankfully I managed to find a tiny branch to steady myself.
From there we went to Beaverhole Cache which was awfully darn difficult to find, considering that both Aquacache & I had already found the darn thing. But before we could get there…we had some hazards to overcome. Including a new slip.
And from there I had to deal with removing some unwanted debris that had become wedged through the frame. Of course in order to do this, I had to get under the jeep. And to do that I was obligated to lay in the middle of the road through which the stream was running. NICE.
That having been achieved we then had to face “the slip” which while it looks daunting, upon review of the video there was a fair bit of wiggle room.
Once arrived at the bottom, Aquacache & I tried to convince KWSN & LWB to go get Project No. 2459. We even promised we’d just wait at the jeeps. But sadly they declined.
After taking in the views, we decided we were hungry & tired and ready to head home. Since I’d have the pleasure of taking Edmund the little black jeep through the gauntlet on the way down, sidekick slide behind the wheel for the return trip home.
chris on May 30th 2011 in Geocaching, Vehicles
Because one day of picking up trash is NOT enough wvhunter organized a CITO event of his own, just one day after CITO in the Cong V. And so we weary cachers arrived at the trailhead at Pricket’s Fort. It was drizzling. We were not awake. There was no coffee and some of us were having dirty tire water flashbacks.
We did have some excitment when pbump arrived and handed out trash grabbers. He’d originally promised us pointy sticks, but had reconsidered after he realized that someone was eventually going to end up getting jabbed by said pointy trash pick up sticks.
Being not very coherent, we listened attentively as wvhunter gave us our marching orders (more like marching suggestions) that indicated some of us go to the other end of the trail and that we all pick up trash as far as the gazebo – supposedly the mid point – and then walk back to our vehicles and head to the pic nic at Wave Tec Park. Since driving seemed like an awful lot of effort, I was among those that declared I’d start from the trailhead of least resistance. And so off we marched.
It wasn’t long before we realized that this was one clean rail trail. Which meant we knew we weren’t going to be slinging tires and toilets. A nice change of pace from the previous day’s work. Especially since we had quite a few repeat participants that were still aching from CITO in the Cong V. So we walked and talked and searched desperately for trash. We even cleaned up some nice hobo’s under the bridge home for him (or her) we were so desperate to put something in our trashbags.
After a long while – which was when we started thinking that perhaps this gazebo was NOT quite in the middle, wvcoalcat & half of yougart found the motherlode of trash!
This was soon followed by wvcoalcat striking gold a second time with a TIRE!
Because it’s just not a CITO event if you can’t drag out a tire.
Having exhausted ourselves for the day, and with the drizzle picking up a bit, half the group headed back to the vehicles (and the pic nic) while the other half went in search of some nearby caches (so glad I’d already found them).
Do you really want to eat anything this man has cooked? Think hard on it.
And so it was a nice easy CITO. Although we did suggest to wvhunter that perhaps when discussing places to CITO next year he provide photographic evidence from Dolphy’s event that this group can do some serious clean up. After all, when you have a large group of people willing to spend a few hours picking up an awful lot of trash for free…you really need to take advantage of them! Large groups of stupid people don’t come along every day!
chris on May 18th 2011 in Geocaching
