Flew in into Atlanta on Saturday morning, and my ol' buddy Ried was there waiting. He had been waiting a little more than expected because the plane was a bit late. You see, up north, in the frigid temperatures of -10 F, they had to de-ice the plane. When I told Ried, a seasoned Atlantan, of the de-icing, he laughed, as, apparently, they don't do that in Atlanta.
It was good seeing Ried. It had been 14 years. Last time I saw him we were both working in a small company in NYC. He then returned south, but we kept in touch. And a few years later, when the movie My Cousin Vinnie came out, starring Joe Pesci, we would exchange emails and phone calls on south vs north kind'a bantering.
I looked forward for this trip down South, and possibly tasting for the first time ever, Grits, not that instant grits that could have gotten Joe Pesci's client in trouble.
Pine Mountain and the FDR state park lies south of Atlanta, in an area that is home to several touristy stores and restaurants, and a couple of resorts for weekend vacation-goers from Atlanta. The Georgia Orienteering Club organized a three-day event, with the first two days being ufficial A-meet competitions, and the third day as an Extreme-O event with rope bridges, culvert crawls, canoeing.
While Ried got his first taste of orienteering by signing on to the "map hike" Yellow Course, which costed him $8 for the purchase of the map, I got ready for my run on the 7.5 km Red course, to start at a pre-scheduled precise start time. On the start line I recognized a few familiar faces and chatted a bit, while warming up. This was the first run after a long lethargic xmas holiday season, full of beer, turkeys, and greasy gravies, so I was not hopeful for a illustrius performance, and was taking it easy. On my first leg, my first mistake: I mistook the curve of the paved road for another curve, and I aimed off the paved road 300 meters from where I was supposed to. The biggest mistake was while searching for control 4. While the map showed a trail along the RR tracks, there was no trail. But that was not the issue that caused my 30 minute leg time ! The control was next to a gully but on the map, that gully is shown as NOT intersecting the stream to the East. While coasting the side of the creek going North, I found a stream intersection with banks of height 1.5 meters, and it really looked like the stream intersection that now I now is NE of control 4. So, I thought I was on that stream intersection, and went south along the bank of the creek, and then aimed West, looking or the control. Never found it (of course). I must have spent 20+ minutes canvassing that entire semi-thick vegetation. Stunned, I eventually retraced the entire creekside, found the gully-creek intersection (not on the map), went along the rully in direction NW, and then, finally found the control. With tail between my legs, finished the course. Wow... not a good way to start the new year...
After the orienteering event, we went in the woods looking for interesting mapping features, inclding a + mark, indicating a grave (which turned out to be just a bunch of stones layed flat). We found an interesting tree, a tree that I also remembered seeing half-way point between controls 3 and 4 on Red (day 1). The general consensus is that it is a Magnolia tripetala.
Wearing a blue coat, we got sighted several times by searchers looking for a teenage boy lost in the woods that was also wearing blue. At dusk, we went for dinner by first having Mayfield peach ice cream in the town of Pine Mountain, then some dinner food at a New Orleans style restaurant (fair... Jymbalayaa was dry...)
The next day we went for breakfast at a place that Ried knew well. Got my first taste of grits. Real grits. And the ham: it wasn't just a slab of rectangularly-shaped out-of-the-steel-can slice. No: it was a real steak with the bone-in.
Filled the gastric sac with high-calorie and colesterol-rich artery-busting material, we dragged ourselves back to the park, getting ready for another day of competition. The rain that clobbered the runners all morning was now tapering off, and was going to benefit of the only sunshine to hit the trail. Good omen. Get to the start, get the 10 second warning, beep the start, flip the map, go to reach my compass that is normally tied around my neck, and, not feeling it, realized that I FORGOT THE COMPASS IN MY CAR. I turn around and quickly tell the start volunteer "I forgot my compass. What should we do?". He quickly reacts, and says "Here, take mine !" and opens his velcro cargo pocket and reaches for the lifesaver. Awesome. I run happily. This is good. Run goes well. A mistake or two here and there, with a bigger one that costed me 4 minutes while looking for control 11. But overall I was in much better shape than the day before.
We stay for a bit looking at other participants finishing, take some pictures for memories, and then drive back to Atlanta to do some sightseeing before dusk. Walk around Georgia Tech campus, a bit of downtown, and then head to the Swallow in the Hollow, a BBQ restaurant in Roswell. Superb meat, great atmosphere.
At Ried's home, we watch the Steelers win over the Ravens.
The next day, it's indoor orienteering, using the house floor plan as base, and hike-and-seek activities. We then go for a geocache in a park nearby. It's a ammo box. Great little hide. Then it's the Carter Presidential Library (no "Just Ask Amy" button here...) and the MLK Historic Site, and we are visiting on MLK Day. Lots of crowds.
my first mistake: aimed off from the wrong curve of the road
my second mistake: found what looked like a stream intersection, but was in reality the gully where the control was.
