The Great Georgia Earthcache Quest – Update No. 4 – Out With the Old…

…the old year that is.  Goodbye 2018 and begone!  While 2018 wasn’t all that bad for me personally, I have too many friends and family members that have experienced losses, challenges and hardships and are ready to put 2018 in their rearview mirrors.

I spent New Year’s Eve afternoon caching with my oldest daughter, Ashley, who was home for one of the few breaks that she gets during her last year in vet school at UGA.  The weather was dry and somewhat sunny for a change so we took it as an opportunity to get out of the house for a little while, log a couple of caches, and learn a bit of Georgia history in the process.  There were a couple of virtual caches down in West Point and LaGrange, Georgia that I needed for my Quest so we decided to tackle those.

Normally I’d drive but sometimes it’s nice to just navigate instead…

Our first cache of the day would be ‘The Last General to Die’ (GC5F72) in West Point.  The multi-stage virtual cache first took us to a cemetery where 76 Confederate and Union soldiers, including two generals, who fought and died in the battle at Fort Tyler located nearby on the other side of the Chattahoochee River above the town of West Point, were buried.

Eventually we ended up at Fort Tyler itself where, ironically, the battle at Fort Tyler was fought on April 16, 1865…seven days after Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia.

The second virtual cache of the day took us back up to LaGrange for ‘A Master of the Trade’ (GC774E), another multi-stage cache.  Our first stop was at the Callaway Memorial Tower.  There was some repair work being done on the tower so we were unable to get the information we needed to get to the next stage from the markers at the tower but Google helped us take care of that little problem.

We visited the Lafayette Fountain in the heart of LaGrange where we found another bit of information to help us make our way to the final stage.

Finally, we ended up at yet another Civil War cemetery…but a soldier’s grave was not our goal.

Instead we were taken to the grave of Horace King, a former slave who became an architect and engineer and eventually one of the most respected bridge designers and builders in the Deep South.  King gained his freedom in 1846, continued to build bridges and went on to serve as a legislator in the Alabama House of Representatives.

We wrapped the afternoon up with a stop for a Coca-Cola and Moon Pie…yes, I know one is supposed to drink RC Cola with a Moon Pie but I like Coca-Cola better, don’t hate.

So how’s The Great Georgia Earthcache Quest coming along?  Well, little by little the cache symbols are being replaced by yellow smilies.

Want to know about other Quest caches that don’t make the blog?  Follow me at @mrbream in Instagram.