Dillard to Atlanta

Wednesday morning we headed out of Dillard towards Atlanta with a quick stop off in Athens. We got up at 7:30 am and started to get our stuff together and loaded in the car. We spent a little bit of time finding some cache stops along our route today. Taylor wrote down some codes, we turned in the key, Taylor said her goodbyes to the animals at the petting zoo area and we headed out of Dillard sometime between 8:30 am and 9:00 am.

Our first stop was a cache in Demorest, GA. This cache all about a baseball Hall of Famer by the name of  Johnny Mize, aka The Big Cat. This was our first multi-cache and we had no idea what to expect so we made our way to the first location. The first location was his house in Demorest and this is where we got some information to work out the coordinates for the second location. The second location was a nearby building that was dedicated to him and also the location with the information we needed to get to the third and final stage of the cache. We had so much fun working out the puzzle and finding our way to the final cache, which we located and signed, posted to the web. It was also the very first geocache added to our list of favorites. We had an absolute blast doing this well put together multi-cache. All of the stops were well thought out and close together. Thank you EBBJr for a fantastic cache run and a great introduction to multi-caches.

Our next stop was in Cornelia, GA and it too was a multi-cache. The first stop had the most amazing view! We got a picture and I will have to post it later. The view was magnificent, the history was interesting! Definitely one of those places that I would never have found. Thank you Ent of Spades for a fantastic cache. So we made our way from the first spot to the 2nd, working out all of the coordinates. Then we made our way to the final destination and we searched and searched and came up empty handed. We were so disappointed that we could not find the final cache to sign. We have war battles from the search too! Scrapes on legs and knees; we spent a good amount of time there. It was worth the trip for the great scenery and the puzzle work to find the different spots. So even though we failed to locate the cache at the end, we had a really good time hunting.

Next we stopped at a little place called MaddWackers. It is a little barber shop in Commerce. It was a great find in a little out of the way spot. We wanted to stop in and say hello to Jeff, but he was not in at the time. So we signed the log and headed on our way. We really loved the name of the shop too!

Our next stop was also in Commerce I believe, or right outside of Commerce. We made our way into a really nice local park. We parked the car and started off trekking in the woods. We were in the woods a bit with cows on the other side of a fence right where we were searching. It took a little bit of work, but we found our cache, signed the log and replaced it in its location. Really nice hide a bit off of the beaten path. It was good to have another find to add to our list for the day! I told Taylor that I find myself putting my hands in places that I would NEVER have put my hands before to find caches. Kind of funny when you think about it. I bet all you geocachers do the same thing... hands in places that you would have never put them before!

We decided after this stop that we really needed to get to our Athens, GA destination so we drove for a while. Our trip to Athens should have been 2 hours, but ended up 5 1/2 hours long because of the many detours we took. We sure did have a lot of fun along the way though. We made one quick stop right outside of Athens. It was at the Girl Scouts of Historic Georgia. This was a quick park and grab and we were back on our way to the University of Georgia (UGA).

As we got closer to UGA, Taylor got us lost once again. Most of the time she is an excellent navigator, but when she gets us lost she REALLY gets us lost! So we eventually made it back to the correct area and found our way to the UGA campus. Wow! That place is absolutely beautiful and highly intimidating! It it a  really large spread out campus. The buildings were amazing and there were tons of students out and about! We found our way to the School of Veterinary Medicine and drove around that building. It was really big and really beautiful. I would love to go back and let Taylor get into a tour of some sort to really be able to see the campus.

We left the campus, heading right down Greek lane and decided we would just keep driving until we got to our destination, my sister's place in Atlanta. When we arrived we unloaded the car and tried to decide on what we would have for dinner. My sister told us that there was a barbeque place just down the street that was really good so that is where we decided to go.

First we would stop at a cache, En el lado del Cafe or "on the side of coffee". We had to run the title through the google translator to see what it said. We were at the location, but until we knew what the title said, we had no clue where to look. Then with the translation complete there was only one place to look and that was the Starbucks right there. We searched and searched. I had a good idea where the cache was, but didn't find it the few passes that I made. My sister and I were sitting down having a nice chat when Taylor found the cache and got so excited that she yelled out. So much for inconspicuous-ness for the muggles in the area! This was my sister's first time geocaching. So we signed the log, returned it to its well hidden location and moved on.

We made one more stop in the Virginia Highlands area. It was a quick park and grab and now it was time to go eat. So we made our way to D.B.A. Barbeque and had an amazing meal! I would highly recommend stopping by there if you are in the Virginia Highlands area.I know Kevin would love that place. There is a lot of Blues history, with pictures and autographes. He would absolutely love it. After dinner we headed for some frozen yogurt at Yogli Mogli. Lora took us here a few weeks ago when we came down for a visit and couldn't wait to get back. Its a self serve frozen yogurt shop. It has so many flavors and toppings. I had a little bit of Heath Bar flavored and a little bit of Peach. The yogurt is amazing. If you are in the area you should definitely stop by.

We thought we would make one more cache stop in the dark. It is in a small park nearby. Well, that didn't work out so well. This small park didn't have any lighting and although we had the flashlight with us the cache is around some fallen down logs. When Taylor spotted what could have been a lizard or snake tail in one of the logs we decided we would come back in the daylight to pick up that cache. So we will head back there today and see if we can locate the cache in the daylight.

We came back to Lora's to get cleaned up, do a load of laundry and we were absolutely exhausted from the driving all day and geocaching. I can't even remember my head hitting the pillow. I must hae slept pretty well, because I don't remember anything before my wake up call from Kevin. And now I am up and we will take our time getting going this morning.