The Latest Activity - geocaching

I've been geocaching quite a bit lately and while I've encouraged my family, friends and loved ones to come with me, they usually decline and I am tromping through the woods looking for caches alone. It is simultaneously peaceful and sad. It's sad that no one wants to come with me. I don't want to miss out on life just because no one will join me, so I go alone. I see people out at the parks and occasionally I've seen another geocacher, but they are usually accompanied.

But this post isn't about being alone. It's about two things I've recently seen while caching. The first is that I saw an otter at Virginia Point. Virginia Point is a park at the confluence of the Big Sandy and Ohio Rivers. It's a very very strange place because it is in a flood plain and thus influenced by local weather and water levels and because the debris and refuse is odd. There is debris everywhere, mostly from flooding, I think. Additionally in the woods there is lots of debris which has been discarded for a long long time, strange ceramics, plastics, and hundreds and hundreds of oil containers. Underneath all the trash, there are large holes which seem to have been dug from the inside out and have coal down inside them.

Trying to figure out this phenomenon, I surmised that the coal came from the neighbors and/or barge traffic on the two rivers. Who are the neighbors you ask? Well, they are Marathon Oil, the railroad, Ferrell gas, and other heavy industry. Most importantly is the Marathon Oil complex which takes up hundreds of acres all the way from Kenova to Catlettsburg. Recently Jerry spent days cutting trees near the same location so that Marathon could install security cameras.

While at Virginia Point, I found two geocaches. Even though I felt very lonely and a little creeped out by the place and the loud occasional roar of dirt bikes, I mostly enjoyed the hunts. I found two caches and as I was looking for a third in a very very muddy section of the park, I saw an otter swim by on the Big Sandy River. Excited, I forgot about the cache and retrieved my camera from my backpack. I raced along the extrememly muddy shore as my boots got bigger and bigger with attached suck mud. I didn't care. I had never seen an otter in the wild before. Everytime I got close to him, he dove under the water and then I had lots of trouble spotting him again. One time I got really close and was about to take his photo when I stupidly decided to whistle for the thing like he was a dog. What did I think the otter was going to do? Swim over to me and wag his tail? The whistling caused him to dive again. I never got his picture but I got very muddy boots.

Today Camille and I drove to Jesse Stuart Preserve in W Hollow for a cache. We found it easily. I didn't know there was a preserve at W Hollow and all my life I have wondered about W Hollow, thinking I should go look at it someday. Today I found it and I was struck by the modesty of his home, although the place is serene and beautiful. I could live there.

The preserve is 725 acres with three miles of very nice hiking/nature trails. I plan to go back and check them out later. It has a very inviting feel and I wanted badly to wander the trails but we had to get back to Tammy Jo's, which is only about 10 miles away.

About Jesse Stuart:

Come Back to the Farmby Jesse Stuart
Jesse Stuart was a versatile and prolific writer, producing nearly 500 short stories, a dozen novels and memoirs, and several collections of poetry. Child of a farm family from the Eastern Kentucky hills, he depicted his Appalachian neighbors in all their complexity, celebrating old-fashioned virtues, the farmer’s connection to the land, and the region’s native humor and rich storytelling tradition while keeping a wary eye on the social and economic changes coming to the mountains in the mid-20th century. Though he won both popular and critical acclaim and was in demand as a lecturer and teacher, he always returned to his beloved W-Hollow in Greenup County. In fact, his success as a writer let him realize a childhood dream: The tenant farmer’s son ended up owning almost all the land in the hollow. It is now a state nature preserve.
Come Back to the Farm was the 11th of 16 collections of short stories published during Stuart’s lifetime.

Just some photos

Some photos of our recent activities.