A Sunday Ramble...

We just purchased a new GPSr (Garmin Colorado), and went to try it out over at Croft State Park. There are several geocaches in the park and we wanted to knock a couple off of our to do list. The first, was Trampled under foot / GCBC49 which is a nice little walk along the Croft Passage of the Palmetto Trail. There is a new bridge over the creek by the trail that Lisa's sister Darlene had told us about. The company she works for paid for the construction of it. Nice work! We found the cache easily, the GPS sats and tracking was dead on. On the way out from this cache, I looked down and there, as pretty as you please, was a thin arrowhead. Too cool, needless to say, it accompanied me on the hike out. Next was geocache GCC7C8/John and Jane were here . The cache location on this one is near a granite marker that is over 100 years old, placed out in the middle of the forest with no markers, or anything indicating it is there. The Daughters of the American Revolution had this marker placed here in 1904 to honor Col. John Thomas and his wife Jane. John and Jane Thomas first lived at this site in 1763. Col. Thomas formed the Spartan Regiment for which the city and county of Spartanburg are named and Col. Thomas also fought in the battle of Cowpens.
We found the cache easily and left a signature pathtag for the next cacher. The hike out was a bit hasty with the threat of rain looming, but the closer we got to the trail head, the clearer the skies became.
We came upon a pleasant surprise at 34.53.278 / 081.49.239, a old home site/ building with one cornerstone of the structure standing. Closer inspection showed that in fact the original structure was pretty old, however by the masonry work, you could tell the structure had been "added on to". One of the neat things I remember from my childhood was rambling in the woods with my father. He would take me with him tracking for the upcoming deer season, or just walking around looking at wildlife and nature. Several times we have come upon old, OLD abandoned home sites. We would always look around inside and out. Dad loved to collect old bottles, he found a many at such locations. That I am sure is where my love of old bottles came from. He said in the old days, families did not have trash collection services, and more often than not, a ditch near the home would become the family landfill. Many a good bottle may be found in such a place. Back on point, this structure had one such place. Although not very old, we found some pretty old medicine bottles and bottles that contained various cooking oils at one time. I like old bottles, Lisa likes old everything. Just recently she saw an episode of Antiques Road Show, and one of the features on it spoke of old beer cans. It was said that brewers did not start putting pull tabs on beer cans until after World War 2. Almost all of the cans we found today were opened by can openers. We brought the best specimen home, the "Black Label". Also, we brought back a little newer can of "Busch Bavarian". I can only assume that this is what many years later evolved into the Bush which through the web, I found out did not start until 1955. So this could also be WW2 era.
The brown bottle in the photo is also Carling Black Label, circa. unknown. I am sure most of you who read this will remember the Pepsi bottle of the late 70s.

Pretty interesting day.....