Road trip weekend

Road trip weekend
By Allan Olson
It was a fun but abbreviated weekend last weekend as we enjoyed a road trip that was supposed to encompass two days of fun – but dad created a kink in those plans and not intentionally.
Our plans for the weekend were to attend a confirmation for a nephew in International Falls, on Saturday morning we were lazing around as we only had planned to go up and back on Sunday. I however decided that we should geocache on the way up to I. Falls and go one day early. “If we do that we have to leave by noon,” my wife said. “I know,” I said as I had already planned it out in my head. We looked at an alternate route we could take to I. Falls from Blackduck. I checked out the miles online and the alternate route would only add about ten miles to the trip – not bad for a different drive.
After scrambling to find clothes for the weekend, packing the cooler, the kids and everything  else in the van we headed on our journey. Our first stop was at a former Elk Farm about 10 miles out of Blackduck, Marcus was the one who spotted the cache first  - a big ammo can sticking out of a pile of brush. After taking a pic, we headed on the road towards Northome were there were several caches for us to locate.
Our first stop in town, yielded a successful find, after walking around the woods we went with our gut instinct and Alivia located the very cleverly hidden cache. Our next stop was at the big bear statue in town. We searched and searched high and low, in the bushes under the benches, we checked everywhere and couldn’t find it. The wife and I decided we had spent enough time on this and sent the kids back to the van. Since she was still looking, I headed back to look again also – but to no avail, we left this cache unfound. Since the cache owner had recently checked on it we were certain it was there but where, we had no clue. Later I checked with a geocaching friend and I’m armed with a clue for the next time we head that direction.
While still in Northome we had two more caches to locate, Abigail made the next find, “ha, ha,” she said spotting the cache while the rest of us were still looking.” The next stop, only the girls and dad got out of the van and I made the only find of the weekend. A few miles down the road at the Koochiching County Fairgrounds was the final geocache in the Northome area that we wanted to find. The girls and Marcus and myself headed out to this as Nikolai had crashed out in the van. We stumbled around the small clearing of woods, and then Alivia says, “found it.” “No, you didn’t,” I said, thinking she was mistaking the rusting barrel for the cache. In the end she was right and I was wrong. We headed on our way to Mizpah for some more caching.
Our first and ultimately only stop in Mizpah ended up in another did not find. We pulled up and I was the only one going to get out. “There’s water in the ditch,” I said. “You should be able to get across the ditch there,” my wife said pointing to higher ground. “I took one step on that ‘higher ground’ and SQUISH. I turned to look at my wife and she gave me the look that said, “oops, I guess I was wrong.”
I walked back to the van took off my shoes and grabbed my water boots and then walked across the ditch. I searched and searched and couldn’t find it. Nikolai put his water boots on and we still couldn’t find it. The last few days I had been dealing with allergies and by this time, my ears were starting to feel blocked up and then my ear starting throbbing. I was feeling like I was done and the day was getting late and we had kids to get fed. So we continued on our journey north. The pain had sort of subsided by evening but after a discussion both the wife and I decided it would be best to just go home. The kids were upset as they wanted to play with the cousins some more. Abigail, told me she could deal with her ear pain when she had it, so I should be able to as well.
We finally arrived home at just after midnight on Sunday morning and I slept away the morning and most of the afternoon hours on Sunday. The ear pain finally went away, so hopefully the blocked ear feeling will soon also.
For this weekend, the long weekend, we have nothing planned but hopefully we will be able to go out geocaching a couple of times as long as the weather holds.
Thanks for reading, and remember to watch out for school buses on the roads; they are carrying a precious cargo – our children. Also please exercise caution when venturing out on the lakes. Thanks for reading, and have a great and safe weekend. For more of my columns visit: http://allan-crazykids.blogspot.com



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