listen... is that banjo music?

The directions were to Cashes Valley, deep in the mountains, once a community years ago, but now nothing left but an old cemetery. There was even a poem written to direct us to the spot:

On Boardtown to Bushy Head, Cashes Ln, Cashes Rd, Left, Left, Left.
Is a forest dense, lush and green, through which the Fightingtown dashes,
Among the rocks, the reels, the logs, the gorgeous water flows.
by flower, fern, doe and fawn, ridges high among the morning fog.
A one lane road, narrow and winding, into the natural beauty it goes.
On to your destination, a cache, hidden near a Garden of Stone.
Placed in a home of man made comfort, for birds of radiant blue.
The cache is marked upon a lift up door, an emblem familiar to you.

Yes, we were off geocaching again, this time on a beautiful Sunday, taking along Carrie and Kyle.

We followed these directions, off the main highway, onto the paved secondary roads. The paved road changed to gravel. The road got more and more narrow. We were anticipating fording Fightingtown Creek 4 times according to the directions. With each ford the road on the other side got smaller. The water was clear as only it is way out in the mountains where no people are there to pollute it. The rhododendrons covered the steep creek banks. At the prescribed place according to the GPS, there it was, an old cemetery. We got out and Kyle promptly found the cache, hidden in a wooden 'birdhouse' put there by the cache owner. From here, we walked up the road a little farther to find the next cache. We could see the end of the road up ahead, with a gate across.

We searched the bank on one side of the road, but Buddy called out 'found it' on the other side of the road, by the creek. Just as he was pulling it out and opening up the box, a truck drives up behind us. We often meet people while out caching, nice folks who share our love of nature, or they wouldn't be out in the woods like us.

This was NOT the case today. Yes, we were 4-1/2 miles down a one lane narrow dirt DEAD END road out in the middle of nowhere, after fording the creek 4 times, and we ended up face-to-face with a one-toothed local feller who was NOT happy at all with us. Even though we were on the road, according to him, we were trespassing and he was just looking for the right opportunity to make an example of us cussed trespassers.

If you have ever seen the movie, Deliverance, it might help you picture the pickle we found ourselves in. It was filmed here in north Georgia, you know.

My husband has a great Southern accent, and blends in pretty well with the locals. Today, he turned the twang up a notch and diplomatically talked us outta getting shot. We promised to take the offensive box out with us and return it to the rightful owner and post a message on the website to warn folks not to come out this way again.

Needless to say, we high-tailed it outta there. On the way out that narrow road, my thoughts were, 'Can't this Jeep GO any faster?' After many turns later, we finally reached the main highway. We turned left to go farther north for more caching, and Kyle said 'Good, you didn't turn toward home, so he won't know where we live in case he is following us!"

All turned out okay in the end, but that was way too much excitement for a Sunday drive in the mountains. I can still hear the banjo music...


Y'all Come Geocaching