The CacheRegister A GeoTour Challenge Site Columbus, Georgia

It's day 8 of the Big Trip. Twenty-nine geocaches have been found. Each getting a travel bug about our home town.

In the middle of a long stretch of road, Cibachrome (Lee) says we have to turn around; that he saw a sign on a building we had just passed that he wanted to photograph. The building is weather worn, advertising homemade ice cream and the best burgers. It is at the top of a slight incline along a road so deserted it redefines the term lonely...or isolated...or desolate...or oasis (got it?).

Out we hopped. We both needed something to drink, so in we went, made our purchases when the lady behind the counter asked, what brought us to her place. We were the only people in this small one room mercantile (her words, not ours). Her husband was busy carrying what could have been groceries back and forth into the store or perhaps he was restocking. He never said a word. She did all the talking.

We explained what we were doing and was surprised she knew about geocaching and was impressed how far we had come in such a short time, scolding us for not visiting their "other" store back in town. She complained that there wasn't a cache by her store. Remember, we're in the middle of "no where!" Butte, Population 0. When we checked, we told her there was an earth cache along the roadside by the drive leading to the store. She seemed pleased. But in trying to explain what that meant she lost interest.

I noticed a sign in the store leaning up again the ice cream cooler - one of those solid old-fashioned white rectangular boxes with two stainless steel hatch-like lids on the top. The sign read, "For Sale. 9 1/2 acres. $240,000. We're ready to retire."

I have to admit, I stood there and thought about that. Then I heard to road calling. Or maybe it was Cibachrome snapping pictures. We said our goodbyes and pushed through the screen door leaving behind a new friend, a new place. A place that is for sale. A place that could mean new adventures. And perhaps a population boom.

The building to the right in the picture above has a sign above it that read "City Hall." Stay out of trouble in Butte.