The things you find because of...

"I never would have found this if not for geocaching..."

How many times have you heard that or said it yourself. It could be a pretty view, something weird, or just flat out awesome. And yes, our hobby takes us places we would have never gone had it not been for the thrill of the hunt. I have been to some very interesting places...

I wander a bit as I have written before and I always have a location in mind, a destination that I want to get to. Sometimes things happen and I get sidetracked. Could be something of interest, could be that when I get there I don't want to spend the money to see something that should be free.

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Blaze132, Geoholic28 and I were on a road trip to Geowoodstock in Warren, PA last year. On the way we passed through Virginia and saw the sign:

That's something I always wanted to see and the guys, while anxious to get on the way, were gracious enough to stop so I could check it out. Something else about me, I am always on this side of the camera. I don't know how it is for y'all but I feel very awkward and uneasy on the lens side of the camera. I usually have a least one with me. My Nikon and have a bond that I have never had with any other piece of equipment. If that sound like love, it's probably because it is. She's my window to your world. I am merely a tourist.

When we arrived at the Natural Bridge we explored the gift shop and found out that it was going to cost $20 a head to get in. Twenty dollars?!?!? For something that was just sitting there and you put a gate in front of and a fence around?!? I found that shameful. We of course didn't go in but we did take full advantage of goofing around in the gift shop.

Blaze132 and Big Bear

Freekacher and Big Bear

Geoholic28 and Big Bear

We had a great time as you can see. There is a local artist who works in plastics I guess and he made some of what is coming up...

We left there and the guys wanted to go left and get back on the highway. I don't know if it was my sense of the weird or what, but I convinced them that we could get back on up the road a piece, we were not disappointed.

We came around the next corner and all of us screamed at the same time...

"As soon as I saw them I immediately thought of the idea: 'Foamhenge.' It took a while for the opportunity to present itself, of course."

 

 

 

Mark Cline

And we passed right by the road to it...

But there was a reason for this. God, the greater power, whatever drives this universe wanted us to see something that just blew our minds that day.

We decided to go up to the next road and turn around to check out Foamhenge. I mean how could you not? And there not two hundred yards further on we saw a gentleman walking with a cane...

AND A FULL GROWN AFRICAN ELEPHANT.

The things you see on the road puzzle you sometimes. We stopped and tried to get pictures. No shot. Did we imagine it? No. We can't prove it. And we don't have to. We know it happened. And that's almost all I got to say about that.

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Foamhenge is a full-size replica of Stonehenge made entirely out of styrofoam in Natural Bridge, Virginia. The structure was created by Mark Cline of Enchanted Castle Studio. Cline has described Foamhenge as his greatest achievement. 

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This was one of the greatest things on our trip. So weird, so well done, so out there. You have to enjoy it as a cacher. And for us there was a hidden surprise at the top of the hill. An virt that we had no idea was there until Geoholic28 decided to check his phone on an off chance.

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So we continued on down the road and found that just past where we turned to come back to Foamhenge say a little zoo. Complete with African elephant, monkeys and such. Mystery solved! But still a great story for the caching table.

But wait, there's more!

Just up the road about another half mile was a truck sitting on the side of the road with a large wooden box on the back. Outside a fence. A nice eight foot fence.

After a year I think we found part of Mark Clines studios. At first we thought it was a putt putt graveyard, you know all those goofy structures and statues on those.

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Had we not left the highway that day we would have never seen any of this. And yes I attribute this all to caching and a yearning for the weird. One last picture and one last thought though.

One for the -Hitman_.

Stuff like this happens to me a lot. But it seems to ramp up whenever I run with these two guys. I really believe that there is some formula or something here that only comes together when we are together. And I am glad of it.

"Get of the highway!"

Freekacher