Civil War Tour

After receiving confirmation that I would attend the Advanced Leadership Course at Fort Eustis, Virginia, I began plans to look for Civil War related caches in Virginia. I had a very long trip the first full day on the road covering over 600 miles from Middle Tennessee to Winchester, VA.

Along the way I found where General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson is buried in Lexington, VA and also visited the grave of General Robert E. Lee and his horse Traveller. I also visited Robert E. Lee Travel Bug Hotel which is located inside the Visitor's Center. I was disappointed that there was not a geocache at Lee's Chapel, I understand that a traditional cache could be a problem, but a virtual at the location would be awesome. Resumed my trip and picked up three more Civil War caches. Visited Chestnut Ridge where Confederate General Turner Ashby was killed. A monument to the exact location where he was fatally shot is the starting point of a waypoint projection.

Later, I found Old Valley Pike: Bloody Ceders the site of the New Market battle. I would end the day in Winchester and the next morning I would find the Winchester's Third. This was a great cache in a city park with lots of walking trails. In 1864, a Union camp was located near the cache location, the pits were still visible.

In the late morning, I found myself in northern Virginia and picked up a virtual called small park for a big battle. It was part of the Battle of 2nd Bull Run. Moving further south, I finally managed to get to I-95 and heading towards Richmond. Traffic was terrible in this part of the country despite being a Sunday morning. I was also hampered only using a Nuvi instead of nRoute. A week before my trip, the laptop that contained all my Garmin software died, leaving me with tunnel vision of the Nuvi.

As I made my way towards Fredericksburg, VA and decided to go after a virtual that I really wanted, Stonewall Jackson's Arm. The plot where the amputated arm is located is near the Union Headquarters for the Battle of the Wilderness. The Battle of the Wilderness fought in 1864 was very near the battle of a year before at Chancellorsville. I went by the Visitors Center at this location also and learned more about the battles. I also wanted to see the Wilderness since my ancestor was in this battle. After the battlefield tour, I got back onto I-95 and later visited Guinea Station where Gen. Jackson died about a week after being accidentally shot by his own troops.

Leaving Guinea Station I headed back towards I-95 and saw another cache pop up on my Nuvi, I decided to go after it and this turned out to be my favorite of the trip, The Curse of the FTF #2, Ghosts of Battles Past. Auto routing my my Nuvi took me to a cemetery where there were hundreds of Confederate graves. This men died in the Battle of Spotsylanvia Courthouse. It was a humbling moment for me as I found graves of men from the 2nd South Carolina Infantry Regiment, that was the same regiment, my great-great grandfather, PVT John Hudson Goodwyn served. I pondered to think that some of the men buried there knew my ancestor. I found the cache and paid my respects. My last find of the day was on the battlefield where Major General John Sedgwick, the highest ranking Union officer killed in action, was shot by a Confederate sniper at a range of over 800 yards with a Whitworth rifle. I made a quick tour of the battlefield and after returning to a internet connection and reading the Confederate Order of Battle, I walked around the trenches where my ancestor fought.

Middle Tennessee Trip

This past weekend, I had a trip to make up June drill and attend a Suicide Intervention class at the National Guard Base in Smyrna, Tennessee. During that 4-day span I had 25 finds. Some caches of interest:

GPS Adventures Maze Exhibit at the Adventures Science Museum in Nashville. I have been reading about the Mazes from Groundspeak and was delighted to attend the Maze in Nashville. For my muggle Facebook followers of this blog, this exhibit may explain the sport to you.

Bunny Box TB Hotel in Murfreesboro. Was nice to see a regular sized cache located in a parking lot. It was physically challenging since there were steep grades of terrain to cover. It gave my ankle a good test after my injury in April.

"The Hang Out", I had driven by this one back in January and passed it up, was a fun find and good to see a regular sized container in such an urban area.

Towards the end of the weekend, -boatman- gave me a call to come by and visit him near Bell Buckle. I arrived and he said lets go for a ride. We attempted a difficult cache in Shelbyville to no avail. Later, he took me back to downtown Bell Buckle, the former side of the Geo-Woodstock that I attended. The town looked much different since it was minus 5,000 cachers roaming about. I picked up, The Treasure of GeoWoodstock Mountain coordinates for that cache are located in the Geo-Woodstock coin that was given out at the event. I also picked up Mission 13: Crawfish Bottom (Project Monkey Cache) by finding the geo-trail. Was really cool to find such large caches in a city park. Later we retired back to the -boatman- residence and spent some time firing a AR-15 rifle.

On the last day, I set out for what I really wanted, jeffbouldin's D/T Bingo Challenge Cache (Tennessee). The biggest challenge I had for that cache was finding the correct trail head. I had to follow the arrow to the end to find the trail head due to the heavy growth. It was nice to grab a challenge cache, something I don't get too many opportunities.

Passing through Nashville, I picked up Going Gibson. This cache caught my attention due to the many favorites it has received. Took a bit to get to the cache location since auto-routing took me to where I could see the cache, but couldn't reach it. The guitar store was closed but I had heard of it from a Visa commercial from years back and one of my favorite band's Motley Crue have visited the store.