A Geocaching Sunday

A Geocaching Sunday

The kids and I standing with our third geocache of the morning at the Three Birches Boat Landing in the Chippewa National Forest on Lake Winnie.

By Allan Olson
Another weekend has come and gone in the blink of an eye. So has another chance to sleep until noon – not that there’s much chance of that happening with four kids in the house.
My wife and daughters headed to International Falls on Saturday for a baby shower. The girls had been talking about this event all week, and they were excited to go. Their mom, on the other hand, wasn’t quite as excited to be traveling with them.
The boys hung out with me at the Fall Festival in Cass Lake for several hours on Saturday, and once we were done with that we headed out in search of a geocache north of Bena along Lake Winnie that had been recently published. We got to the location and we were working against the clock of diminishing daylight, and it was winning. This was supposed to be a three-stage multi-cache. It took a few minutes, but we were finally able to find stage one. The next stage was only about a thousand feet away, so we were going to walk to it, until we realized that it wasn’t on the trail – it was further down the road. So back in the vehicle we went. 
When we got to it, we couldn’t find stage two where we expected it to be – the coordinates said we were still 400 feet away! I was beginning to wonder what kind of adventure the boys and I were in for. We hiked through some brush and trees, and were approaching the expected location when Nikolai spotted the cache. That’s when we realized the person who developed this cache had put the stage two coordinates in the first stage. The boys were excited that we got to claim the first-to-find rights, and the cache owner even included a first-to-find dollar. Nikolai was quick to claim that.
On Sunday morning, four more new caches were listed in the same area, and I wanted to go after them. My wife decided that we should all go as a family. We packed the cooler with some sandwich-making materials and headed on down the road in search of two regular caches and two multi-caches. All four were brand new, and all of them had a FTF dollar up for grabs! I informed Nikolai that he already one dollar and wasn’t getting the rest, even if he found the caches. He accepted that, but would have been happier to get the money.
We got to the area of first one, and were looking and looking, but with the poor cell phone service there our GPS signal was bouncing around some, but I spotted the cache and walked away. I went and whispered to Abigail where to look, and she started laughing and ran to the location. The others quickly converged on the spot, and I had to rescue the cache before it got stomped. I let Abigail claim the FTF dollar, and we headed out to find the other caches. Each of the kids each got to claim a FTF dollar, so they were happy about that. 
We stopped for lunch after our third cache. The kids had decided that since there was a picnic table and shelter there, we needed to eat. Nikolai went right from the cache straight to the van and dragged the cooler back to the picnic shelter. The only problem was that the cold wind blowing off Lake Winnie made for a pretty chilly meal. The rest of us headed to the van to eat out of the wind, but Nikolai braved it out and stayed in the picnic shelter. He brought the cooler back with him when he was done, and we headed off in search of more. We had hopes of finding our 600th geocache that day, but with every cache a mile or two off the highway and a couple of them being multi-caches, the ones we did find ate up a lot of time.
We started back for home at about 4 p.m. On the way, we stopped at a farmers market along Itasca County Highway 46, near the Cut Foot Sioux Visitor Center, run by a couple at their home, where picked up some raspberries. The friendly and generous owner spotted the kids in the vehicle and sent a pumpkin along for each of them.
We got home at about 5 p.m., and within ten minutes of our arrival I received an email notification of a new cache placed in the same area we had just departed. We were definitely not going after another cache at 5 p.m. when it would take at least 30 minutes to get to the location. I guess someone else might just get the first-to-find bragging rights on that one. In the end, we found seven caches on Sunday, leaving us with seven more to find to reach the 600 milestone. We were gone for about seven hours that day and drove about 110 miles round trip – but we sure had a lot of fun!
Please be safe on the lakes and in the woods – wear your life jacket and your blaze orange, keep the kids safe, and remember to take a picture to preserve a lifetime of memories. Also 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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Hunting Season to Remember

Image
A Hunting Season to Remember By Allan Olson The orange clad army headed into the woods this past weekend in search of the mighty white tail to attempt to fill the freezer with some tasty venison and I was no exception to this party. I too was clad in orange and out on the mighty hunt. Every year there are new stories to tell, old ones to bring up and memories made, some deer seasons for me, after over 20 years of hunting have faded into the background, one year blurring with another, not remembering which year I shot what deer or if I shot a deer. Of course there are a few years  stand out more than others and some are just a blur altogether. However, I find it hard to believe that anything will top this year’s remarkable deer season. This year, I had the honor of bringing Nikolai with me. Not just to sit in the stand, but to actually hunt, he was going to have the ability of harvesting a deer also. Recently he completed his gun safety certification and he wa...
Read more
Image
Thank you for being our friend Frey Olson May 19, 2018 - April 26, 2024 By Allan Olson 4.26.24 Thank you for being our friend, thank you for making us your forever home, if we could’ve saved you, we would’ve. Losing our four legged friends is never easy, in our house they aren’t “just a pet” they are our family. Frey, our nearly six year old English Mastiff came into our lives in August of 2018 and crossed over the rainbow bridge to be with others before him on April 26, 2024. Frey was our gentle giant, he was our protector, our laughter and most importantly I think it’s more than safe to say, he was Alivia’s best friend. Have you ever seen a teenager and a Mastiff sharing a twin size bed - or perhaps more aptly put the teenager getting what’s left of the bed when he’s in it. Or perhaps a giant of a dog, staring at her from the doorway of the bedroom saying, “it’s bedtime,” while she’s playing a game or watching something.  He was taught to react to “who’s here” or the alert of the...
Read more

Thankful for Family

Thankful For Family By Allan Olson published 11-24-10 Cass Lake Times Eat until I can’t eat anymore is the plan for me this Thursday. This is likely the case for many others as well. The food that will be prepared is just one of many things to be thankful for this week. I can honestly say I’m thankful for a lot of things in my life. I’m especially thankful for my beautiful little family. Do I always feel overwhelmed with joy while dealing with the everyday tasks of working and raising four children? I would be lying if I said yes. My children are great kids. They are great at making me smile with their questions and antics. However, they are also great at driving me up a wall. Asking them to help clean a room sometimes and it’s like you put them in a torture chamber by daring to ask for a little help cleaning up the mess they made. Other times they are willing, eager partners ready to help with whatever task you need them to. Of course, there are also those times when ...
Read more