Wet in the woods

Out in the woods on a rainy day, just to find a geocache. We got wet – not soaked – but we had a fun time.

By Allan Olson

There really wasn’t much going on last week at our household. The four children all started school – hurray! the grocery bill will go down for a few months – and then it was the weekend, all in a blink of an eye.

Saturday was a pretty boring day (at least I don’t remember anything exciting). I was exhausted after being out late Friday watching the Cass Lake-Bena Panther football team trounce their opponent in double overtime, and I think the thrill of that event wore me out.

We went to a couple stores in Bemidji in the afternoon to do some “window shopping” and wound up picking up a few miscellaneous items before heading home again. If memory serves me correctly I even got in a nap after we returned home. Ah, a relaxing day.

On Sunday I decided I wanted to go out and find a geocache, and there was about 10 miles away that was labeled “Man’s Best Friend.” We attempted this one last year with Bob (the dog), but he was a pup and we were new to geocaching at the time and just couldn’t seem to locate that one. So I set out on Sunday afternoon with three kids and the dog in search of it again. We walked around in circles, through the little patches of woods, and finally found the nicely hidden ammo can with doggy treats in it. 

As long as we were in the area, I wanted to start on a six-part multi-cache that was also in the area; the kids wanted to do the whole thing, but I said no. I easily found the first stage of the coordinates and entered the numbers to get to stage two. Nikolai made the find, so we had the numbers to get to stage three. Again he makes the find, and we advance to stage four. We got stuck on stage four and I (erroneously) thought I could get to stage five without finding four. Once we got to where the fifth stage was supposed to be, I realized the error of my ways. We trekked back some 900 feet to stage four, and this time I came up with the coordinates to help us find the fifth stage, but by that time it was nearing supper time and we were all hungry, so we gave up for the day.

Sunday evening was spent relaxing and soon it was bed time – the best part of the day.

On Monday evening Nikolai, Marcus, Alvia and I wanted to go back out to finish the final two stages of that multi-cache to make the find. Abigail chose to stay behind and helped mom with supper instead. We reached the starting point and briskly hiked right to stage five. I looked all around, but once again it was Nikolai who came to the rescue, finding the container that held the coordinates. We took off again, going about 900 feet to find stage six, which was a large ammo can. We arrived in the area and my gps wasn’t moving. It was drizzling rain, and the heavy foliage didn’t help, but finally the satellite signal found us and we quickly zeroed in on the spot. I was looking in an area where I was pretty certain I would find it when Alivia, who was nearby, spotted it peeking out from its hiding spot and said, “I found it!” Even though I was at the spot first, she was the first one to see it, so she gets credit for the find. From start to finish, it took us about 90 minutes, with the majority of that time spent walking.

This weekend we are going to do some more geocache adventures with my cousin and his family in the big city on a hill. It should be a mountain of fun, as long as my cousin and I don’t drive everyone else nuts by insisting on geocaching from dawn till dusk!

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 has started, so please watch out for the buses that are transporting our children.

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