Milestones and Travels

Jay and I spent Thursday afternoon and all day Friday on a cache run through part of the Delta, and up in the Grenada area. WOW! We learned several new things that we didn't already know, or had only heard about, and we got to see some great countryside, even though we were cold, wet, and very tired afterwards!

The coolest part of the trek was getting to sit on a very steep hillside near Grenada Lake with Jay and celebrate finding our 100th geocache. We'd not been "trying" to make a milestone, but as we got closer to it, we were looking forward to it. Now 100 may not sound like a whole lot, but it represents the effort of many weekend outings over a big portion of Mississippi. On those trips we've seen and learned a whole lot about our state. Our unofficial geocaching team motto is borrowed from the Blind Seer in the movie Oh Brother Where Art Thou (2000): "You seek a great fortune...You will find a fortune, though it will not be the one you seek...You shall see thangs, wonderful to tell."

Indeed we have seen many "thangs" and several are wonderful to tell. Zebras, aplacas, Vietnam-era warbirds, little-known Civil War battle areas, memorials to the men and women who have protected our country from the Civil War through today, the rich history and unique beauty of the Mississippi Delta, the urban landscape of downtown Jackson, genuine juke-joints, and the list goes on and on.

The best reward has been something that neither of us will ever be able to measure. We've shared all those experiences, and the incalculable time spent between each one. The laughter, the long drives, the frustration when we sometimes cannot find a cache, the heat, the rain, the cold...but they're all worth every minute! We're constantly planning to share more as our geocaching horizions expand to new places, and I look forward to all of them.

I updated our online geocaching photo album. That link will take you to the first picture from this weekend, but feel free to browse back and forth through the whole album. I've dated each picture and included a brief note on most of them.

There's a lot in the full quote from the Blind Seer:

You seek a great fortune, you three who are now in chains. You will find a fortune, though it will not be the one you seek. But first... first you must travel a long and difficult road, a road fraught with peril. Mm-hmm. You shall see thangs, wonderful to tell. You shall see a... a cow... on the roof of a cotton house, ha. And, oh, so many startlements. I cannot tell you how long this road shall be, but fear not the obstacles in your path, for fate has vouchsafed your reward. Though the road may wind, yea, your hearts grow weary, still shall ye follow them, even unto your salvation.

Kind of like what the blind man "sees" ahead for the trio of convicts in the movie, I don't know how long my road may be, but the obstacles in my path are not feared. Yea, my heart is growing weary, but my travel continues. I've found a fortune, though it wasn't the physical ones we sought. And along the way I have a great young man along for the ride with me. I look forward to many years of "travels" with James Alvin Whitfield, III. I love you, son.