Poe little me

These days I don't do much caving. I'm not really too old to do it, but it is harder than it used to be. I'm glad I have a new interest to augment it - not replace it just yet - and it's good that it takes me to such interesting places.

Geocaching doesn't cost much after the initial investment, buying a GPS unit. And if you have an iPhone, you can even get an app that will do what your GPS would have done, only better. Well, better in the sense that you don't have to have a computer with you to find nearby caches.

As a direct result of geocaching, I have seen an oak tree on the gulf coast that is over a thousand years old. I never knew such a thing existed in Texas - and even if I had, I likely wouldn't have traveled all that way just to see it.



Most recently, I had turned down a chance to travel to Baltimore MD with GA, until I began preparing her a list of caches near where she would be staying on her business trip. When I realized that there was a cache just outside the cemetery where Edgar Allen Poe was buried, I changed my mind.


I timed it in such a way that this cache would be my 200th, a milestone cache, so it appears that way on my profile. GA and I visited the site, scored the cache, and then I recited (well, I read) Eldorado while seated next to his grave.

Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

But he grew old-
This knight so bold-
And o'er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow-
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be-
This land of Eldorado?"

"Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied-
"If you seek for Eldorado!"

Or something like that.

There is a church built over many of the graves in this cemetery, because somebody passed a silly law requiring that cemeteries must have some sort of church on the premises. No, I didn't crawl under the church to see the tombstones better.



Life is good.

Washington state

I just had the most wonderful week visiting the state of Washington.
We made a point of finding a few caches on the way. This one was a virtual, at a historic gas station made to look like a teapot:



But the most fun was in Seattle, where I spent a lot of time at the Seattle Center, site of the World's Fair in 1962. Here is the Peace Garden:


This is situated almost directly under the Space Needle, and I suppose if it weren't for the glass windows preventing it, people could have spit on me down below. They might have hit me, or they might have hit the numerous homeless people. These homeless people are, as the name of the park implies, very peaceful. They peacefully ask for money because they just got their duffel bag stolen, or they need money for their father's spleen operation, or for a bus ticket home so they can escape their life of drugs/prostitution/whatnot.

Something you have to do in Seattle is go to the Pike street market, where they throw fish around and yell at each other. It was a little crowded the day we went - not because of the homeless people, which are actually entertaining at the market, but because we managed to coincide our visit with that of a cruise ship, but we still enjoyed the time we spent. We ate at a nice little Greek restaurant several levels below and off the obvious trails to avoid the crowds - very good lamb, plus some things I can't pronounce much less spell. Here are the fish being thrown:




Then, back to the Science center to pay admission to the Experimental Music Project and Science Fiction Museum, which is also under the shadow of the Space Needle. Paying admission is a good thing because it gets you clear of the homeless people plying their trade. Here's the Space Needle, in all its glory:



...and once inside, you can see things like the original costumes worn in Blade Runner, and the original Captain's station in the Starship Enterprise - not the Captain Picard one, but the one that William Shatner parked his butt in. I saw a First Edition of Have Space Suit Will Travel, which is the first Science Fiction novel I ever read. Use the provided link to see a picture of the cover of that first edition.

One fun thing to do is the Seattle Underground Tour. It takes about 90 minutes and 15 bucks, and the first half hour is a very cheesy history lesson given by (in our case) a relatively attractive young lady, before they turn you over to a somewhat less skilled and personable tour guide. It's worthwhile mostly because you finally understand why Seattle is built so funny. Apparently, it has to do with the fact that the sewage system was unworkable with the way the hills dumped the crap on the low lying areas next to the ocean, where the brothels and opium dens were.

But probably the biggest thrill was seeing the very guitar that Jimi Hendrix played at Woodstock - the white Fender Stratocaster used to produce the gentle, melodious sounds of the Star Spangled Banner on Yasger's farm, where only 30,000 or so of the former half million concert goers were left to see it, the rest having gone home to their jobs after taxing "the system" with their emergency disaster needs (while reveling in the idea that their lifestyle was sustainable in the real world because they had done it for three days). Here is that guitar, a bit blurry because the lights were reverently dim and I was using my cell phone:


By the way, they don't ask for "spare change" anymore. Now it's 14 bucks for something they need. Inflation has taken its toll.