Wasp Wars! (Part 1)

No, this is not going to be about my draft for a new Syfy Channel Saturday night feature, starring Corin Nemec, John Rhys-Davies, and Tiffany (although that would be awesome).

Instead, I shall share a tale of adventure that was had during my most recent trip back to Alabama, to visit my folks. It costars my dad, who is a fantastic father in many ways, not least of which is his total enthusiasm for joining me in my zany adventures. If this story were to be filmed for a feature, it would need extra money in the budget to hire Robin Williams to play my dad. Those of you who know my dad know that this is totally perfect, eerily accurate casting. Also I would get to meet Robin Williams.

Anyway, here is the story of Wasp Wars! (insert adventure-type music here)

(Side note: in the future I’ll share more about one of my favorite ways to waste time offline–Geocaching. For now I’ll simply say it is sort of a world-wide scavenger hunt in which players use their GPS devices to find “geocaches.” You can read more about it here.)

Since I got a GPS for Christmas a couple of years ago, I’ve been geocaching when I have the time. For most of those geocaching trips, my dad has been my accomplice. Since moving to Miami I haven’t been able to geocache much, mainly because  it’s hard to find a place to park in Miami–and harder still to look casual wandering around a random corner by yourself when your goal is to spend 5 to 30 minutes hunting for a small container the size of a pill bottle, and all you have are coordinates and a ROT13-encoded hint that says “look down.” So my best and most successful geocaching adventures happen in North Alabama, where the parking is plentiful and the people are less so. My dad is a good hunter and a good lookout for when I’m doing the hunting. He will also do brave and often crazy things in the name of getting a geocache: he ran across a highway once.

A week or so ago I was back visiting my family, which almost always includes at least one geocaching trip. So one day my dad says “you know where I want to go? High Falls.” High Falls is a really beautiful, somewhat remote location in DeKalb County that features a 35-foot high waterfall and a natural bridge/arch. I’d been there before but my dad hadn’t. I agreed that we should go and decided to see if there were any geocaches in the area. To my delight, there were two. So I plugged the coordinates into my GPS and off we went.

One of the geocaches was near the front gate at High Falls Park. I suggested we wait to get that one until we were leaving the park, and my dad agreed. The other looked to be in the woods just across a wooden footbridge that spans the creek above the falls. It was here that we ran into the first “adventurous” part of the adventure. First of all, to get to the top of the waterfall entails a semi-lengthy walk down a gravel access road. Then, you have to walk further through the woods to get to the creek and the footbridge. And it is mid-July and quite humid. And I am allergic to–and also quite tasty to–mosquitos. And I forgot the bug spray. So my absolutely wonderful, fabulous dad walks back up the road to the car and brings me bug spray, while I take pictures of the woods.

Once we got down to the footbridge, we walked around a bit and took pictures before we ventured into the woods across the creek. These woods featured a “trail” that more closely resembled a dried-out riverbed, complete with rocks and debris that made for a fantastic agility course. There were also these amazing, tiny little frogs everywhere. It’s a really cool spot. Except for this day, when it was a really warm, humid spot. It was also very shady, which probably helped with the heat but not so much with my GPS, which responds to trees as most people do to flash mobs–confusion, hostility, and a refusal to cooperate. It started hovering near the geocache coordinates, but kept bouncing around, even while I was standing still. Since this particular geocache was listed without any hints, all we had to go on was that we were looking for an ammo box, hidden somewhere in the woods. (If you are planning to geocache in the High Falls area, don’t let yourself be spoiled. Go read something else. Bye!)

Now, one benefit of my getting a GPS is that my understanding of the coordinate system has grown at a geometric rate, from “wasn’t that 5-note tune in Close Encounters code for coordinates to Devils Tower?” to “the numbers get bigger if you go more north or more west.” Also, I do remember that the sun rises in the east and sits in the west. These skills were sufficient for me to point in one direction and say “we need to go more that way.”

Unfortunately, “more that way” was a 30-foot rock. For my dad, who did run across that highway once, this was no obstacle. When I said, “I think it’s up there on that rock,” he said, “okay, I’ll go look,” and he started climbing.

At this point I should note that my dad is 72. (He rocks! No pun intended.)

Dad got about halfway up the rock, where there was a ledge, and started looking around. My job was to stand there and make sure the coordinates were on track. The coordinates were dancing around like groupies at a Justin Bieber concert, and I was standing there wondering if I should start climbing as well. Finally Dad said that there was no ammo box on the ledge, and kept climbing. Eventually, he called out that he’d found something.

Now, my dad firmly believes that he is my assistant in this whole geocaching thing. While on occasion he will navigate the odd highway to retrieve a container for me, so that I can sign the log stored within, for the most part he is content to help me and to let me do the actual finding/retrieving. So, even though he found the box, he was happy to let me open it. This is a system I really like. Except when I have to climb a 30-foot rock. Still, my dad helped me find a good foothold and we managed to get me up to the top of the rock. The ammo box was right there, under a little ledge and just out of the way of any casual observers (though how casual would an observer be if he or she had just climbed a freaking rock?). It was also the home to two lovely Daddy-Long-Legs spiders. After having a good case of the heebie-jeebies (yes, I don’t like spiders, go on, laugh), I pulled out the box, got out the logbook, and signed it.

The hard part was over, right? Not quite. (To be continued…)

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~ by Amy on July 26, 2011.