Diggin' in Virginia Blog: Day 0

Hey everyone!  Today Josh and I made the trip up to Culpeper, Virginia for the spring Diggin' in Virginina group hunts.  We'll be here for the next 7 days, detecting a total of three Civil War sites and at least two separate battlefields.  The drive itself was uneventful, except for seeing a truck (quite unintentionally) while driving on the highway belonging to several of our friends from the Triangle Relic Recovery club from Raleigh.

After checking into the hotel, we went over to the pre-hunt meeting and show.  Several vendors were present, including Minelab with a reprise of their popular GPX detector seminar.  We were given maps of the hunt site for the first three days, the Beauregard Farm at the Battle of Brandy Station.  I'll have more to say about the battle itself later, but I simply don't have energy at the moment.

The highlight of the pre-hunt meeting, though, came shortly after I walked through the door.  We often hear DIV referred to as a "family", more than a disparate group of relic hunters, but friends who take care of their own.  This was proven to me once again when I was approached by one the DIV committee members, Earl K.  He introduced himself, and told me that he had been hunting the same hill at Hansborough Ridge (DIV XIX) where I had found my Virginia state seal tongue buckle.  The buckle had come from an officer's sword belt, and Earl had recovered two pieces of sword belt hardware from the same location.  He presented them to me, with no expectation of anything in return, to be reunited with the buckle upon returning home to North Carolina.  Earl is a stand-up guy, and an excellent example of what relic hunting and Diggin' in Virginia stands for.  Thank you so much, Earl!!

Now it's time to my gear packed up for tomorrow and try and get some sleep.  I know Josh and I are both geared up for a long day of Civil War relic hunting!!  I'll update the blog again tomorrow and let you know how we did!