Milestone Reached

Milestone reached

By Allan Olson

It seems that there never is enough time in a day or week to complete the projects that need to be done, and last weekend was no exception. On Friday afternoon, we had one goal in mind – we wanted to reach 300 geocaches by the end of May. To accomplish that, we had to find 14 caches, and since it was the last day of May we didn’t have much time – but by 6 p.m. we managed to reach our goal! To celebrate, we didn’t cook; we bought frozen pizza and had a simple meal (with little cleaning up afterward).

On this geocaching segment, we made it a contest to see who could be the first to #300 where we would meet up. It was boys versus girls, and this time the boys won.

On Saturday, I was hoping we could hit the trail again early to raise our cache total up a little higher, but the weather turned out to be not favorable for us to be out in it. The rainy weather, combined with the cool June 1 temperatures, made it a stay-at-home day. We almost went out about 2 p.m. when it looked to be clearing, but ultimately we made the right decision because it started raining again a short time later. The majority of the day was spent at home. I stared out the window more than once, frustrated that if I couldn’t go geocaching, I should be at least able to work on mowing the yard. I suppose I could have cleaned the garage and kept dry, but I didn’t feel that ambitious.

Oh, glorious sunny Sunday! Finally the weather turned in our favor, with the sun shining brightly in the eastern morning sky. My plans for sleeping in were dashed when the dog started barking. It caused a moment of confusion – I couldn’t figure out why he was outside so early – apparently dad forgot to let him the previous night. After the kids let the dog in, I decided to stay in bed and catch up on Pawn Stars on DVR. 

Finally, at about 8 a.m., my wife and I started talking about our geocaching plans for the day. The chosen destination – Heartland Bike Trail between Cass Lake and Walker. We got moving around 9 a.m., thinking we could get ready in an hour, but we didn’t succeed. It took us about 90 minutes to get rolling, and we got to the end of the road, I realized that had I forgotten to grab my camera. Shocking, right? We went back, and one of the girls asked, “Why are we back at home?” “Because your dad forgot an appendage,” my wife said. With the camera onboard, we were finally ready to go. We stopped for a few grocery items and a potty break in Cass Lake, and then we hit the trail – literally.

We started at the Pike Bay Loop Road. I dropped my wife, Marcus and Abigail off, and the rest of us headed toward another spot. When they reached the van, she would leapfrog it to the end of the trail we were working on and meet us before venturing to another drop off point.

While many of the caches were fairly routine – we found some rather quickly and others took some extensive searching – there’s a couple in particular that stand out for my team, which consisted of Nikolai, Alivia and myself.

It was our first cache on our second segment of trail. I parked the van and we walked less than 100 feet to the cache location. I looked around and spotted it across the wide ditch, hanging on a tree. No problem, right? One problem: the ditch was full of water. There were two big trees laying across it, and I should be able to walk across. I took off my sweatshirt, emptied all my pockets – pens, keys, wallet, sunglasses, etc. Nikolai was insistent that I let him do it, but I said no, because if we get wet then we were done, and at least if I got wet it was my fault we were done. I grabbed a walking stick from Nikolai, stuck it in the water and started to walk towards the cache, one step, two step, three steps – oh, no – on the third step the water got deeper and my stick didn’t reach bottom! That threw me off balance, and I started flailing backwards. I took one wobbly step back before I fell. Amazingly, I managed to land on shore without falling in the water or getting hurt. After making sure I was okay, my two partners were quite amused. Nikolai wished he had recorded it for You Tube. I started searching for another (longer) stick – then a light bulb clicked on. I started heading to the van, walked past it and to a point where I could cross the much narrower, dry ditch on my way to the cache. Nikolai and Alivia followed me, but I sent Nikolai back to take a picture after getting a pen from him.

The second most entertaining moment of the day was a chance to laugh at Nikolai. Alivia and I were searching extensively for a cache when we realized we didn’t have to cross the ditch after seeing it from the opposite side. The cache was tied to the root ball of a large tree that had blown down. I recovered the cache, signed the log and put it back in place. The hint on the cache was, “Don’t fall off the cliff.” Nikolai had been leaning over the tree, looking down at the cache when suddenly he yelled, “Dad, help me!” There he was, arms in the water and feet barely sticking over the edge of the root, after a clump of dirt had given away. Laughing at him this time, I pulled him up to safety. “It said to not fall off the cliff, Nikolai,” I told him. He wasn’t amused at the turn of events. He removed his partially wet, muddy t-shirt and put his jacket back on.

Another memorable cache was another team effort: Dad found the cache, Nikolai was able to get the lid off it after we were about to give up, and Mom figured out we needed the water to get the cache out of its location. I scooped the water out of the lake, handed the bucket to mom, who dumped it and handed it back. Since the bucket had a hole in it, (intentionally, by the cache owner) and the cache holder leaked out the water, I had to scoop fast – but we did it!

We ended our geocaching adventure with one on the shores of Leech Lake near Kabekona Bay. We also took a break for lunch at Walker City Park. In the end, we logged 31 caches – a new record. I wanted to keep going, but the kids were done – everyone was tired. Back at home, Nikolai started a fire in the fire pit, and I got ice cream cones ready for the kids.

It was an awesome way to end the day. Aside from the covering the 18^th Annual Chippewa Triathlon, our plans for the coming weekend are uncertain – I wouldn’t doubt that some more geocaching is involved.

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.