Reaching a Goal

Reaching a goal

By Allan Olson

I don’t want to be one of those people who complain about the weather all the time, but this heat – ick! That’s all I’m going to say on that.

Saturday was warm, so we started the morning off by getting even warmer, doing some cleaning. I got us caught up on dishes while the wife worked on floors and other fun chores. The kids were assigned to cleaning duties as well. CLEAN YOUR BEDROOMS – QUICKLY! That was their instruction, and they were only given a 30 minute window to complete the task. Surprisingly, they managed to finish it in the allotted time, or less. They were also assigned tasks such as cleaning the landing and the living room in the basement and upstairs. While those jobs weren’t completed perfectly, they did a pretty good job, and it was getting warm in the house – so we all took a break.

Items on our agenda included getting groceries and a possible trip to the local state park. We made it town to get a few grocery items for this week’s menu at the Olson family restaurant – where our motto is, “Eat what’s prepared, or go without.” I really don’t like shopping, and shopping with kids I like even less, and when they want to touch, argue and fight – even less. 

Finally we were done with shopping, and I wanted to go find just one geocache for the “Geocaching get outdoors day,” and we would get a souvenir as long as we logged at least one “found it” that day. A few miles out of town we decided to attempt a geocache; with groceries in the vehicle we knew it would have to be quickie, and after ten minutes we gave up and left. The kids continued their argumentative ways, and so lost out on a chance to go swimming for the afternoon.

Later that afternoon, I headed toward the State Park to check out what the Leech Lake Diabetes Camp was learning about, enjoyed a nice meal and headed home. I had a hard time talking anyone else into going back out with me to find that one geocache we needed, but finally Alivia decided she would go since she didn’t want me to go alone. We went and made the find, and as a reward she got to splash in the water at a nearby lake. Upon learning this, her older sister was not happy with her, nor dad. I just said, “You should’ve came with us.” That didn’t make her any happier, but she got over it.

On Sunday, we slept in. Later that afternoon/evening we headed out on a mission to find seven more geocaches we needed to reach 400. We picked up a nephew who was coming through town for the evening. Prior to meeting up with him, we found a geocache that was rather unique, not like one we’ve ever seen before, although it was still an easy find. We caught up with nephew Mike and he spent the evening with us geocaching while his mom went about some other business. 

We found the next cache in a park near the BSU campus; it was another unusual one and very difficult to spot if you weren’t looking for it. Next we headed to the lake side of the campus and split up to look for two different caches. The girls went in search of one and quickly located the cache; the boys were still looking for theirs when the girls walked up. Eventually, after extensive searching, Marcus found the boys’ cache. With only two left to find for 400, our search continued – and we hit a wall. We searched and searched for the next three geocaches, and just couldn’t locate them, even though at least one had been found earlier that day. Frustrated that we couldn’t make the finds, we took a break and went in search of something we knew would be easy to locate – donuts! Okay, in all honestly we really went in search of some bread for sandwiches, but I was asked to get some donuts as well – and they looked too good to pass up! Back in the van, we handed one for each of the five kids and one (or perhaps more) for the parents.

We headed back on our quest for two more geocaches. It didn’t take long to find the location of the next cache, and it was quickly logged. We got back in the van, thinking we’ve got finally 399, so maybe we will get to 400 yet today. A few miles down the road and it was show time! If we struck out on this, it was unlikely we were going to reach our goal.

We arrived at our destination; we weren’t too far into the woods before Nikolai said, “I found it!” Thank goodness, I thought. We finally headed for home, almost four hours after we started. We ate our sandwiches at home.

Once again, our plans are wide open for this weekend – nothing is certain. It depends on the weather – rain or heat. Thankfully, snow isn’t in the forecast – yet!

Thanks for reading, and remember to be safe on the lakes while enjoying the summer. Be sure to spend some time with kids! Thanks for reading, and have a great and safe weekend. For more of my columns visit: http://allan-crazykids.blogspot.com.