A New Record

A New Record

By Allan Olson

As we approach the final days of summer, the weekend fun continues. We started our fun on Thursday evening by seeking out some elusive geocaches which we were previously unable to locate.

The first two took us to the Moose Lake area, just a few miles from home (not the town by Duluth). The cell reception was poor, but still enough so we could zoom in on the area of the cache. We stopped, and my wife got out and decided we needed to backtrack a little; we had gone too far. That move took us to a clearing that was full of logging debris. I was on the right track, heading toward the cache with Alivia close behind me when the screaming started. This time it was Abigail swatting the bees away from her. Mom quickly rescued her from peril, and headed back toward the van with the boys trailing. I wasn’t ready to give up the search, and convinced Alivia to stick with dad. We searched and searched, but came up dry. I could get to within a few feet of it, but with only two sets of eyes we couldn’t locate it, so we headed back to the van. We chose an alternate path, and found much nicer walking.

We headed to the second cache just a few hundred yards down the road, and everyone piled out of the van. After reading the hint, “Used an extra foot when hiding it,” Nikolai solved the mystery before the adults did and headed in the direction a large, broken-off tree with no limbs. While he was trying to scale it, Marcus looked up at the correct angle, spotted it and said, “I see it!” I stretched to reach it for him, and we had scored our first geocache of the night.

I convinced the others to go back and try to find the previous one with me since we were still in the area – this time we took the better trail. After another five to ten minutes of searching, Marcus scored again. It was an ammo box wedged tightly in a clump of trees. I was able to remove it and the kids examined the treasures it stored. We went on to find two more that evening, bringing us to within 12 of our goal of 100.

On Friday evening we set out to reach that goal, and we did it! All the kids found at least one geocache that evening, and with another niece back for a visit, we split into two teams to quicken the search. Our last one of the evening was found at a town hall in Bemidji.

On Saturday we continued our “treasure hunting” and hit the bike trail by Nary. We parked, ate a quick lunch, and headed out. The teams were different this time, however, since my brother, my wife, Nikolai and three cousins were all away on a bus trip. My niece, a sister-in-law and my girls formed one a team, while Marcus and I were together.

Our first cache was easy to find, and only few hundred feet from where we parked. The next one for the boys was about 500 feet down the Heartland Trail. My GPS had me going in circles around a tree but it turned out I was literally “barking up the wrong tree.” Marcus decided to check out a different tree and found it quickly. I reached for my pen to sign the cache log, but it was missing. Marcus had already found it once on a tree branch, hung up, at the first geocache, and I gave the girls my back-up pen. He suggested looking on the ground again. We did briefly, to no avail, before venturing back to the van. This time I loaded up with at least two pens and a pencil, and Marcus took a couple pens as well. We walked back to the cache and, as I was signing it, Marcus found the lost pen. Of course.

The last cache on the trail for the boys was found a mile from where we started. I was leaning on a metal fence post, looking at my phone, trying to see how far we were from the cache, when Marcus reaches under my arm and says “Found it!” I felt a little ridiculous and had a good laugh at myself. In the end, our team had nine caches logged – Marcus with five and Dad with four. Naturally, he was proud of that tally.

The girls found seven on their stretch of trail, and Abigail even outhunted others who looked for one of the caches but weren’t able to find it. Finally her older cousin said, “It’s got to be in that culvert; go look, but don’t get wet.” Of course, Abigail didn’t hear the “don’t get wet” part, but did come up with the find.

We took a break from our expedition and let the kids enjoy a swim at Grace Lake Beach. Less than an hour later, we were headed to Bemidji in search of a few more caches before calling it a day.

We went to one location that my niece and I had searched unsuccessfully earlier this summer. We wanted to try it again, and we were looking in the same area that we searched last time. My sister-in-law said, “Well, how about over here?” I thought, “Why not?” and so I started looking over there with her, when suddenly she said, “What’s this blue thing?” After hanging out all day with us, she had found her first geocache, hanging on a tree branch.

All total, we made 27 finds, which is a new record for us – for now. It took several miles of driving and at least three miles of walking – including two miles on the bike trail.

Late Sunday afternoon we visited the beach again, and this time even I enjoyed the water. We returned home for a tasty meal of burgers and hot dogs on the grill before my brother, his children and wife headed off on their two-hour late evening drive for home.

The weekend was a blast.

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. School is starting soon – so please watch out for those buses that are transporting our precious cargo.

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