Old Technology

                The air was filled with a light sprinkling of snow, drifting down only to evaporate as soon as it hit the ground. I pulled into “my spot” alongside Chartiers Creek and turned off the engine. It was peaceful and quiet, a perfect time for reading.

                Picking up my Kindle, I switched it on. I had been reading a story about dreams written by H.P. Lovecraft. I’d be able to finish it before I had to be at work. The opening screen told me that I needed to be connected to the internet to set-up my Kindle. I didn’t want to do that, it had already been set-up and I didn’t need any other changes. I had been reading on it just a couple hours previously and it was working just fine!

                I tried to eliminate the screen; I tried swiping it to the side a couple times with no luck. When all else failed, I went to the old familiar solution…turn it off and on again. Even if I wanted to, there was no internet available down near the stream. The device did show all the various wi-fi accounts available in the apartment building across the creek, but I couldn’t get into any of them even if I wanted to. I didn’t want to change anything, I only wanted to finish reading my story!

                When it fired up again I got the same message. I played around with it for another minute or two trying to get around the prompt. I just couldn’t do it. One more time…off and on again.

                Same thing! In disgust I turned it off and tossed it onto the seat beside me. Luckily, I had just left the local library where I had picked up a book I had ordered. It was a slim volume of Billie Collin’s poems called Whale Day. It had just been released last year. With no problems, I picked up the book and turned to the first page and started reading.

                Now you might think that it bothered me that there weren’t 6 or 7 games in it or for that matter, another 30 or 40 books attached to it. No, I had a book to read and at the time, I had no other needs.  It was paper, it didn’t need plugged in, charged or updated. All that needed to be done was to turn the pages and read.

                I think that only one other person had read this book, it was like new! The pages were still straight, crisp and true. There were no bent or folded corners. No notes or highlights were penciled in to distract me. It was a nice, new, clean book! Good old fashioned technology!

                I started reading the first poem and all my problems with technology were forgotten. The snow continued to fall as I stepped into the world inside of Billie Collins head. What could be better? I love old technology!

 

Searching for Something in the Morning

 

                I woke up this morning and looking out the window, saw a small amount of fresh snow on the ground. The sun was attempting to brighten up the brownish looking landscape.  I felt as if I needed to get some fresh air and stretch my legs. After tossing some laundry in the washing machine, I took a drive to a spot I had been eyeing for a few weeks.

                The place I was going to was a park located near Rt.910 and the reason I was going there was to find another geocache. This one was located in a tunnel? Actually I knew that wasn’t true, it was only its name.

                “Tunnel Vision”, It was listed as a 2.5 out of 5 in difficulty and 3 out of 5 in terrain.  The description of the cache had a picture from the 1960’s TV show “The Time Tunnel”!  Cool! It was just what I needed to get me some exercise and to wake my brain up.

                OK, the cup of coffee I took along helped with waking me up, but the trip helped also!

                I parked outside of the park and headed into the woods alongside of the road. I found what used to be a road maybe 10-20 years ago. It was flat and every once in awhile I’d see an old wooden guard rail post. Watching my GPS, I knew I was heading in the correct direction. There were lots of fallen logs and jagger bushes on it.

                I was a little bit afraid that I might come to a cliff overlooking where I wanted to go but I lucked out and found the spot without any difficulty. I won’t mention the weeds and brambles I went through…

                In front of me was a collection of various sized sewer pipes. Some where large enough to walk through and some were only a foot or two high. Most of them were about 5’ high. They had been sitting here for quite awhile. I could tell that I wasn’t the first to find them. Other than the fact that a geocache was hidden here and others had found it, there were some slight paths around the pipes. No one had been here recently, the little bit of snow still on the ground was unbroken. I saw a bit of graffiti that had a date on it from last May. There was no litter and other than the writing I saw, nothing was defaced.  It was just a bunch of pipes out in the woods.

                It was rather tough finding where the cache was hidden. I figured it was somewhere in the pipes. But I couldn’t get satellite reception inside the concrete. I walked around them a couple times and tried to triangulate where the spot would be. Finally I just started going through them and checking between the cracks. I wasn’t sure what size the cache would be. It could be a pill bottle or it could be an ammo can. Luckily for me, it was an ammo can.

                Going through my third set of pipes I saw the bark of a tree lying across something. Moving it I found the hide!  I pulled off my gloves and opened it up and signed the log.  I took a picture or two then put my gloves back on and headed back to the car. I took a different path this time and was soon back at the car. My washing was waiting for me…I headed back home. Happy, exercised and full of fresh air. I was ready for the rest of my day!

                Happy Caching!