A laid back weekend

A laid back weekend

By Allan Olson

This weekend was largely a laid back weekend – one that was sorely needed. The girls and I started out Saturday at a baseball game. After an unfavorable outcome for the home team, we made our way back home.

After a quick lunch and a few minutes to rest, the whole family headed out for an afternoon of our new favorite activity – geocaching.

Since we’ve found nearly all of the caches within a ten-mile radius of our home, we have had to broaden our horizons. We headed to Bemidji in search of new geocaches.

Our first cache took us a little east and north of Bemidji. It was located in the woods off of a yet-to-be-developed park.

Alivia still showed some apprehension about heading into the woods after her last adventure ended with multiple bee stings, but she forged ahead like a little trooper and, as luck would have it, got the first find of the day.

The goal was to make sure everyone got to find at least one this time, instead of super cache sniffer Nikolai finding them all. After a review of the caches later (while writing this column) and consulting with Marcus, we realized that he never found his own cache.

Our next stop was gas for the geocache mobile (a.k.a. mini-van), and some snacks for the family to keep us from famishing on our quest.

The next stop was behind a local restaurant where there was a small patch of woods to traipse through. Alivia had forgotten her fear and headed into the woods on the mission. This time it was Abigail who found the cache (with a little help from dad). The others had already passed the spot when I started looking, and I spotted it almost immediately. While not pointing at it, I got Abigail’s attention enough so she could find it.

Nikolai was a little bummed that he had buzzed right by the cache and didn’t notice it.

The next cache was all his, and now he can lay claim to finding our smallest cache – a “nano” – as well as the largest cache we’ve found to date. Appropriately named “Rest Assured; Paul Bunyan’s Travel Lodge,” it was too large for Nikolai to hold up for a picture. So dad and all the kids were in the picture this time, instead of just the kids, which it is normally.

Our next challenge was our first multi-cache. Unfortunately, that was a bust, with no way to manually enter coordinates into our phone’s program, and no handheld GPS available, we were forced to abandon the mission.

Dodging rain showers, we ventured west of Bemidji toward Solway, where we found our final four caches of the day.

The first was a small ammo tree chained to a tree, in plain sight but out of sight of anyone driving by. Super cache sniffer Nikolai was quick to find it; neither Mom or I had even made it out of the vehicle yet!

A few thousand feet down the road, Marcus and I got out. My phone GPS had me heading into a marshy ditch, but since it was a microcache, I figured that had to be wrong and went with my first hunch. I was right; we signed the log and headed off again.

The next cache took us on a county road; we stopped near a sign post and a culvert. Because of the traffic on the road and the small area, just Nikolai and I jumped out. I told him to check both the culvert and the sign post, he looked and looked, to no avail. I decided that maybe his sniffer wasn’t working in the swamp grass, so I’d better help.

I carefully reached inside the culvert, felt around and found the micro cache stuck to the top of the culvert. I palmed it, and told Nikolai to keep looking. I brought the cache to mom, who signed the log and gave it back to me. I brought it back while Nikolai was still looking, and casually replaced it.

“Keep looking Nikolai,” I said. He continued his search. “In the culvert... feel around,” I said. He found it, and was going to show mom when I spilled the beans. “I found it, we signed it, and I put it back already,” I said.

“You little meanie,” he said. Of course I laughed, as did his mother.

The final cache of our trip was less than two miles down the road, in the woods behind a town hall. Once again super cache sniffer Nikolai was on the job. “Found it!” his voice rang out from the woods, just as mom and I were getting to the edge of the trees. “Already?” I said.

The kids examined the treasurer box, and we ventured home. The hour was approaching 8 p.m., and bedtime was fast approaching – for all of us.

We are up to a grand total of 54 caches found, with the hope of logging a few more this weekend in International Falls while visiting for a wedding.

On Sunday, I enjoyed the day immensely – doing nothing.

Please be safe on the lakes – wear your life jacket, keep the kids safe, and remember to take a picture to preserve a lifetime of memories.

Thanks for reading, and have a great week! For more of my columns visit: http://allan-crazykids.blogspot.com