Tall Tales & Falsehoods

What a great weekend. I have been planning a little outing for my father, my and I for about two months now. The whole time I wanted to keep it a secret. To kick start everything I sent an cryptic email to both my brother and father to meet me at exit 447 off of I40 in Tenn. I didn’t give them any other directions other than that and the time. Noticing that them may require some special gear for the trip I sent them other email stating to bring a bunch of random stuff to try and throw them off of the what we were actually going to be doing. So when my brother and I arrived at Exit 447 at the allotted time to meet my father they were pleasantly surprised to find out that we were going on a whitewater trip.

None of us have ever been on a white water adventure before so It was a great family experience. I booked everything online at . It turned out perfect. They were a smaller outfitter and it ended up being just us three plus the guide on on own raft. We tackled 3 class four rapids and a few class three as well along the Pigeon River. It really was a great time for the Pope boys to get together and have a little fun.

After returning home on Sunday , I decided to call up Mikey and see if he wanted to take the canoe out for a little bit. After a short stop at the inlet where we experienced our first low tide canoe trip (we were stupid) we headed over to the Intercoastal/Waccamaw. I have always heard of Sandy Island but never knew exactly where/what it was. To sun it up, it is a an island located in the Waccamaw River system that has a little community on it. There is a public school boat that takes kids back and froth from the island to the bus stop as well as waterway taxis that do the same for the islanders. It was a fun trip and we even got to see Brookgreen Gardens back door.

Last weekended was great. It all started off with dinner over with our friends, Talwin, Karla and Kari. We haven’t hung out since before the holidays so it was a good time to catch up. They have a 6 month old and Heidi and I were trying to get a few pointers for the little bun in our oven! (Thats right folks we are pregnant and due at the end of July!)

On Saturday, the first one that Heidi and I both had off in a long time, we got up a five in the mourning and took off to Orangeburg, SC for the first BBQ cook-off of the year. It rained all the way there and back but that didn’t dampen our spirits. The BBQ was great. I judged 6 out of 28 in pull pork, chicken and ribs categories. I think the quality of BBQ cookers has steadily risen over the past year since I have became a judge. Heidi even got to help out being a runner as well as getting to par take in the grazing of all the meats.

On the return trip Heidi and I geocached in the rain. It was extreamly fun. The coolest one we found was a virtual cache in Bowman, SC of a UFO Spaceship house. It was ran down with duct tape on the roof. I do believe that someone actually lives in there! The fence plainly stated, “Official UFO Welcome Center.”

Upon making our way back to Myrtle Beach it was straight to the Grand Strand Geocachers meeting. It was a fun time at the bowling alley meeting new friends and hanging out with old ones. I unveiled the logo proposal and it was a hit. We will make a final decision next month. By that time I would like to have have the Grand Stand Geocachers website up and running.

It was good that Heidi and I could spend some time together. We had a blast and look forward to the next time that we can hang out for a few days.