8 October 2016 Jonesboro and North

We spent the night in Jonesboro and made our first stop at Craighead Forest Park. The park was a perfect way to start the morning. The attractive park surrounds a lake and was first developed in 1937 as the Young Men's Civic Club. The City of Jonesboro has done well in keeping this park. We arrived while a race was in progress, but it seemed like an odd race. It turned out to be an event called the Gearhead Endurance Challenge. Basically, the event ran for twelve hours and participants were sent out every 30 minutes to run the 2.5 mile loop around the lake in the 30 minutes. If you weren't back in 30 minutes, you had to wait until the next 30 minute run while if you finished your 30 minutes early you could rest for the next start. It actually sounded interesting for everything but the part about doing this for twelve hours. We were happy to enjoy the trails, find a few caches, and even see a late butterfly.

The exercise stations at this park rock. These and the ones at Foundry Park in Monterrey are the best I have seen. They are much more involved than the typical par course units common in so many parks.

We walked about halfway around the park before it was time for us to turn and move on to our next destination. If I were in the area again, I would be happy to return to Craighead Forest.

We were off to Tennessee and the oldest active cache in the state from January 2001. This location was a big step up from Arkansas' oldest hide. We enjoyed a boardwalk journey and a quick trip to the oldest cache.

The real interesting area of this park was a walk into the cypress swamp for a cache hide. This area offered a few herons and nice views of the swamp. We were able to reach the water's edge and find the cache along with a few crayfish chimneys, a lot of cypress knees, and an old turtle shell.

I've enjoyed caching in Tennessee parks. Today's adventure was another positive visit. We hoped to stop at a state park with a mound near Jackson and a now closed company plant location, but travel made us too late for a visit. Maybe the plant will reopen some time in the future for a return to the area.

12 July 2016 Priest Reservoir

I was in Tennessee for business and waiting in Nashville for a staff member to join me from Spokane. My Nashville visit did not start out great as I arrived at the National counter to find a nearly empty parking area...

and a number of customers waiting for rental cars.

The staff seemed to understand that waiting in a garage on an 88 degree could become uncomfortable. They brought us bottles of water. I would have thought technology could be used to help National match the number of cars need to the number of reservations. ;-)

The cars eventually showed up, and I was off with my rental. With a couple hours wait, my plan was to visit Priest Reservoir for a few caches in the Army Corps Cook Recreation area.

It seems like most of the country is dotted with these recreation areas built by the Army Corps then allowed to fall into ruin. This one with an old abandoned campground was no exception.

The shoreline at Priest Reservoir was an attractive place to spend some time.

I was also happy to spot a heron in a tree across the water. I was also able to see him fly directly in front of me as he made his way to a more distant spot to fish on shore.

This was a peaceful place to find a few caches and get some exercise while waiting. Unfortunately, it was also a perfect place for my first chiggers of the year. :-O

29 February 2016 Leaping Into Nashville

I needed to travel to Tennessee for a week of business, I arrived in Nashville early and was waiting for a staff member to arrive on a red-eye from Spokane. I decided to spend the time wisely ;) and hunt for a few caches.

These whimsical airplane and cloud mosaics are on the way to the car rental area.

I found a number of caches while waiting including a few virtuals. The Nashville area seems to have virtuals everywhere. Caching was a mixed bag with some bad containers or missing caches offset by some gems. One of the earliest may have been the strangest cache location I have visited. There is no doubt Santa's Pub is proud of and has earned its title as the Best Nashville Dive Bar for three years running.

Harley Santa and the beer-drinking elf kept giving me visions of John Belushi playing a drunken santa shouting ho-ho-ho while the tv pitch was made for buying the Santi-Wrap to protect children from germs on mall santas.

The back of Santa's Pub was no less scarier than the front.

Finding Honest Abe at a Civil War Virtual was also a bit weird.

He was friendly and quite presidential. He also gave me more information about the history of the virtual location I was visiting than I could ever get from reading a plaque.

I found one of the best lock-n-lock hides by a sewer grate. The picture below gives no vision of the container.

I looked a long time at the location before I finally decided to put my hand in there and hope there were no rats. The cache below is held in place by the strongest magnets I have seen (match the small flower with the one on the right-hand side above to see where the container is).

I reached the bridge below and started looking for the hide. After a few minutes of looking, I stopped to read the page (bright idea). Once I noticed the 3 1/2 terrain, I guessed I was at the wrong level.

Once I reached the correct elevation ;), it took a few minutes of looking to find the nicely hidden container.

Being at the lower elevation gave a good view of a berthed paddle wheel on the river.

It was time to head back to the airport and on to our driving destination. It was a fun Leap morning.

24 April 2014 Mockingbird

23 April 2014 Natchez Trace State Park

I took advantage of a meeting in Nashville to make a trip to our Trenton facility. On the way I had a little bit of time so I made a visit to Natchez Trace State Park. One of the benefits of my work is I get to see new places. One of the drawbacks is I often to get to stay very long. Natchez Trace State Park was one of the places where I wished I could just stop for the rest of the day and do nothing but relax. It was a peaceful, quiet few hours.

Everywhere I looked this afternoon, there were blooming dogwoods.

Pinoak Lake was quiet this afternoon. I had no idea why the Lake was named Pinoak until I saw the map image of the lake.

22 April 2014 Nashville

5 October 2011 Rock Town

We had two missions today, find the October 2000 Rock Town cache and get to Gainesville where we would begin meeting friends. The day for me mirrored a good part of this trip, I felt lousy. Still, there's nothing to be gained by hanging around and waiting for the meds to stop making me nauseous and vacation time was wasting.

We started our journey by heading for a virtual at a Civil War Veterans cemetery near Chattanooga. As usual I missed the turn and went by where we were supposed to go. Two turns later, I pulled into a drive and headed to the back hoping it would link back to the cemetery. Not exactly. Instead, we were in the parking lot for a place called McKay's. This was the most interesting retail find since friends showed us Powell's in Oregon. We stopped in and were in awe of two stories of books and music. After checking for some reading material and looking to see if by any chance there were American Guide Series to be spotted, I took off for the upper floor which was a loft area that ringed the lower floor. The entire second floor was filled with music. Try to remember the things you want to look for when faced with a few thousand titles. I managed to located a Cherish The Ladies cd which joined the music selections.

We did finally leave the store and find the virtual as well as locating a couple of new waymarks to post for a new state.

Nice view on the way to Rock Town

The area where Rock Town is located is super. We enjoyed the hike out and back besides our visit to the rocks. At the very start of our hike out, one of us spotted a new (for us) soapwort gentian. It was a nice find and a elegent wildflower. We also spotted a couple of lobelias which are not like varieties we are used to seeing. I expected we would be about the only people in the area. I was wrong. The woods were packed with visitors. It was a super cache and a month cache hide which we had not found before October 2000.

We were both surprised when we checked into our room in Gainesville. The room had an edgy color scheme (actually a lot like my office), but it was the best room I have stayed in a long while. The hotel did everything right. I was very happy to have multiple days here to relax and sad to leave and move on when the time came.