CAM season in Maryland again

It is that time of year when Maryland hosts our Cache Across Maryland. They outdid themselves this year. Usually CAM consists of 10 locations scattered around Maryland. This year is a visit to all 26 Maryland counties! I have been hip deep in traveling everywhere, including zigzagging every nook and cranny of Maryland lately. I am almost done CAM, and still have a couple good road trips and hikes to look forward to. It goes without saying we had some of the best days of our lives recently. I put up a bunch of pictures, mostly the dogs, from recent CAM travels throughout Maryland HERE.

Table Rock South Carolina Wedding

I was so fortunate to have been invited to a friends wedding in South Carolina. It was at Table Rock State Park. It was in October, perfect leaf peeping season. The weather was perfect. The couple is beyond adorable. This is a place I never would have ended up on my own. Here are some of my favorite pictures I took.

Most road trips comes to an end

Day 89:
20,590 miles, and I will stop counting after today.
I woke up at Burke Lake in Arlington, only 2 hours from home, but still not home. And I won’t be home until 5pm. I have a 5pm arrival appointment at home with some very important people. I will see my wife and dogs for the first time in 3 months. I can’t wait to embrace her and roll on the floor with the dogs. What a long strange trip it’s been. I don’t understand why, and stopped worrying about why I am so lucky. I will just ride this wave until the rug gets ripped out from under me. That could be tomorrow. As I was pulling out of a pre-sunrise Burke Lake, the first thing I saw was frisbee baskets. I think that is a sign that my normal life is already returning. I had originally planned to play frisbees in every state I visited. Turns out I only played 1 time. It was very weird how I spent 3 months, nonstop moving and doing, and it somehow feels like I just spun my wheels in place.
My plan for the morning was to head into an empty, Sunday morning DC. I was going to ride my bike around and gather up all the fun there. I got into town, and everything was perfect, the streets were empty, and the weather was amazing. Out of nowhere, and for no reason, I decided I did not want to do that anymore. Instead, I head straight for home base. I had plenty of things I wanted to do before 5pm. Today is the first day in 3 months that I was driving without the assistance of navigation. I saw “95”, knew I could not get lost, and got a bit depressed that the interstate numbers were so high.
On the drive home I stopped by the national park at the harbor. I finished up a couple pieces of geocaching business there, that I had both started, and been unable to complete in past visits. After that it was back to my home area where I dropped off my bike for service, picked up a bunch of crap from work, visited my mother, took a few phone calls from friends welcoming me home and wishing me a happy birthday, and then finally home for a family reunion.
I guess today is the last day I will write a manifesto each day about my activities, photography options, and geocaching adventures. I hope it is not the last time ever, but even if it is, I have lived a much better life than anyone (especially me) deserves.
Thanks for the memories.

I literally just got done adding photos to the photo album HERE.

Selfies Can Be Dangerous, So I Hear

When I take these type of pictures of myself, I have always been able to say I was completely safe. My wife would see these pictures and get anxious, even though it was long since over. I have had people call me “brave”, because I was willing to make pictures like this. I was not trying to be brave, I have no friends. I WISH someone would get up in the dark and walk uphill with a headlamp alongside me. But alas, people don’t get along with me, and I am usually flying solo. I have always been able to claim safety, and play down how dumb I am, because I was acting very safe. I always use a shutter release. It is a button I can hold in my hand, and make my camera take a picture whenever I want. Possibly the most innovative piece of technology we have seen since the Supersonic Concorde. This evening I forgot my remote in the van. The van was a mile away, straight downhill. For these pics I used the built in, 10-second camera timer. I had to sprint into this position. I almost tumbled to my death each and every time. I said each and every time was the last time, but then the light kept getting better. I can not turn down the opportunity to get a better shot. Thankfully I did not die this time, but I will have to die sometime soon. Hopefully while failing at doing something awesome like this.

Playing in Western Maryland to end an epic Roadtrip

Day 88:
20,370 miles and counting.
I woke up this morning in western Maryland, at the high rocks trailhead, the bottom of the hill from the 2001 geocaching hide. I took sunset pics until late, so made camp there.
I never would have dreamed in a million years that I would finish a 90-day road trip by doing one of my favorite things. Playing in the autumn-colored woods of western Maryland, looking for ammunition boxes. I don’t know that life gets a whole lot better than this. I temporarily moved from my country-wide checklist to my Maryland checklist. For some reason I made it my purpose to find every active CAM cache. It’s something I’ve been chipping away at for a couple years. Now that I am done caching across America, it is time to cache across Maryland. I will get back to America tomorrow.
This morning I went straight to Dans state park where I didn’t see another human being at all, on a beautiful fall Saturday. Today’s weather was perfect. Blue skies, lots of clouds passing, 50° maybe 55 in the sun. After a quick stop first thing this morning at Dan‘s mountain I then went to Rocky Gap State Park, where I spent most of my day. I didn’t plan to be there as long as I did, but either this bridge being out is fairly new, or I did some of the poorest route planning of my life. In the end it just resulted in me walking a bunch more miles through the autumn-colored forest in western Maryland. I ended up being there about 4 hours and covered 7-8 miles. Rocky Gap was a two-fer. There was 2 in there I wanted. Then I went to Green Ridge Forest and then Orleans. Those 3 stops were very aggressive, and I thought I might run out of daylight. I made out fine, and still had time to drive to Burke Lake in VA. It was a very long day, and possibly one of my most productive.
There is one more piece of Geocaching business left, if I complete it then I will have had the most successful circle of the country I could imagine.
Wow, I created a very aggressive geocaching wish list map when I left. I never imagined getting so much fun stuff done. I made Burke parking lot my home for the night. Tomorrow at 5pm is when I will see my wife and dogs for the first time in 3 months! I am very excited. I am not sure how I will fill tomorrow. I might spend the morning around DC. Maybe Sunday morning is empty, and I can get some fun stuff done?

I have added a lot lately to the photo album HERE.

Western Maryland Welcomes Me Home

Day 87:
19,850 miles and counting
This morning I left cabin 9 at Table Rock State Park after an amazing couple of days. I’ve been on the road for over 80 days, living alone, eating alone, and mostly being alone, doing everything alone. It’s been the most amazing adventure of my life and I couldn’t be more grateful for it. The last two days have been spent with some of my closest friends at a celebration of a wedding for two beautiful people. I could not be happier for them. I also could not be more thrilled to have been included in their beautiful day. They brought me somewhere I may have never come on my own, Table Rock State Park and the Pretty Place. I got on the road just before sunrise, and I believe I’m just heading to Western Maryland for the day. I should be able to get there before sunset and find somewhere to take some pictures and camp out for the night. But the day is early and my plans typically change 100 times before I get where I’m going.
I turned over the 20,000th mile of this road trip just after crossing into Virginia on I-81, heading towards home over the next couple days. I spent most of the day speeding north, back to my home turf of Maryland. In a surprising plot twist, my wife asked me not to get home until Sunday, a full 48 hours from now. Either there’s a live-in boyfriend situation that needs to be cleaned out before I get home, or she has something to surprise me with when I get home, and wants to be there because it’s my birthday as well. Truth be told, I want her to be there when I get home too. The best way to ensure that is schedule my arrival around her busy life. I did not stop forward momentum today too much. Mainly for feeding Pervvie her delicious liquids, and a few pictures and tinkle stops. I made it to the firetower trailhead in western Maryland that leads to High Rocks. I was a bit later than anticipated, and I had to jog most of the way up. I made it in plenty of time to see an amazing sunset, get some great pics, and find the really old geocache from 2001. This trailhead is the perfect spot to call home for the night. After a headlamp hike back down the mountain in the pitch black, I made some dinner and settled in for the night with some music and junk food. Tomorrow I will kill a day hiking around western Maryland, and then hopefully head toward Arlington for 1 piece of unfinished business. After that, I will have successfully completed the most unrealistic, impossible, satisfying checklist of my life.
When I take these type of pictures of myself, I have always been able to say I was completely safe. I always use a shutter release. I forgot my remote in the van. The van was a mile away, straight downhill. For these pics I used the built in, 10-second camera timer. I had to sprint into this position. I almost tumbled to my death each and every time. I said each and every time was the last time, but then the light kept getting better. Thankfully I did not die this time, but I will have to die sometime soon. Hopefully while failing at doing something awesome like this.

I have added a lot lately to the photo album HERE.

Road Trip Show Ending Wedding

Just like every good TV show, this road trip has come to an end with a wedding. A lovely union of 2 very fun people.

Day 85:
I woke up in my van at Sassafras Mountain, South Carolina’s highest point. Unfortunately, it was cloudy and rainy and there was no sunrise to be seen. This is probably only the second or third time I have seen rain in three months. I actually enjoyed it. I opened up all the windows, let the fresh rain air in, let it get freezing cold, and climbed under a blanket. I just did nothing for a little while and enjoyed the mountain rain song. Now it was time to go see friends for the first time in 3 months! I drove down the mountain to Table Rock. A whole bunch of us are renting the cabins for a wedding. I spent today with 2 of my bestest friends from home. It was the first time in 3 months that I have been a passenger in anyway. I have driven 20k miles in a row, over 3 months, since the last time I was a passenger. We visited a couple waterfalls and a dead end tunnel. We had a great time, caught up, and enjoyed being in nature. That evening there was a rehearsal dinner. I was invited and uninvited to that dinner twice, that has to be a societal record. I was on my own for the evening, where I did nothing. After the rehearsal dinner a bunch of us got together, around the campfire, to make fun of the rest of us that did not show up at that campfire. Then it was off to a very uncomfortable bed. I thought about sleeping in the van, but I did pay for this uncomfortable bed.

Day 86:
I woke up in cabin 9 in Table Rock State Park. I really might sleep in the van tonight. Billy and Jen called first thing to go back out exploring again. The wedding was at 2, so we had the morning. We caught breakfast, and then over to the mill and petroglyphs. Here I ran into a very interesting couple, and family. Visually they stood out, and they knew it. I knew I had seen this man before. He was too unique and colorful to mix up with some other bum. So I asked him, where I might have seen him. Just then it clicked, sunset at Sassafras Mountain the other night. We get to chatting about travel and picture things, and then parted to both explore the mill with our respective families. About 30 minutes later I look and see there is an actual geocache at this mill. I tell my friends I am with, and it was only 100 feet away. I look, and wouldn’t you know it, that same family was rummaging through an ammo box, and signing their fake internet name on litter. How fun is that?! That sparked up another 10 minute conversation that would bore any non-geocacher to tears. Billy is a good sport, he hung in there and feigned interest. What an unexpected fun addition right at the end of my roadtrip.
Today is the wedding, it is at the Pretty Place, which I hear is spectacular. I also hear that the internet ruined it for the locals. Thanks internet.
The wedding ceremony at the Pretty Place and reception back at Table Rock were a highlight of my trip. The weather was perfect, the wedding was a ton of fun, and seeing loved ones for the first time in 3 months was great. Tomorrow I will start a slow drive back home, arriving and ending my roadtrip later this weekend.

I have added a lot lately to the photo album HERE.