By Allan Olson
It’s been a busy week of running for the Olsons,
and this week doesn’t look any different – but we did have a lot of fun. The
excitement started early on Wednesday morning when a prickly friend visited our
neighborhood. Since he decided he didn’t want to stay in the trees, I decided
that he wasn’t a friend anymore, especially after my dog spotted him. I went to
get my rifle while the kids corralled the dog before the two could get together
for a meet and greet. They got our pet in the house while, unfortunately, the
porcupine got the business end of my rifle. All that fun (the scent of
gunpowder?) gave me the itch to go hunting again.
Thursday and Friday were relatively quiet, but
the excitement returned on Saturday. I attended the Pike Bay Cleanup event and
then went back to the office, where the family was waiting to begin our
geocaching adventure for the weekend. Abigail had opened the blind on the back
office window, and when I walked in to tell her it was time to go, I noticed the
window was broken.
Walking around the back of the building, I found
the culprit – a nice heavy brick had been chucked at the window. How nice of
someone to leave their calling card. Instead of heading off in search of
treasure, we waited for law enforcement to arrive and file a report, then
borrowed tools from the business next door and got materials from the lumber
yard to temporarily fix the window. By the time that task was completed, cool
and rainy weather was rolling in, so our geocaching plans were abandoned for the
day.
Instead, we bought some movie snacks and headed
for home. We started watching a movie that afternoon – I should say my wife and
kids did. I never got tuned in to the show; instead I worked on figuring out a
geocaching program for the GPS. OK, I’m a little obsessed. While I was on the
computer, I noticed that my cousin was logging some caches in the Bemidji area,
and so messaged him to ask why he was in town and did not let me know. He
accused me of geo-stalking him, and I confessed that I was. He kept on logging
more caches, and I kept on bugging him from the comfort of my couch. In the
end, he and his son came over for dinner, and then Marcus and I headed out with
them to show them some quick caches in our area to help reach his goal of 600
before they headed for home.
The real fun began for us on Sunday morning. We
left home around 9 a.m. with a goal of reaching 699 or 700 (15-16 geocaches),
whichever we decided. Our destination area was Laporte, Lake George and Itasca
State Park, and our goal was to find the caches needed without going on a power
trail. That proved to be a daunting task. We found one cache at Kabekona and two
in Laporte before heading to Lake George.
We didn’t find the first one we attempted there,
and that set a pattern for the rest of the day – we attempted to find six caches
in Lake George and only found three. After the kids played at a park in town, we
ventured on to Itasca. Again, we only managed to find two of four we sought in
the park. At that point, even the kids were ready to relent and hit a power
trail just to reach our magic number before going home.
We held off, and instead turned south to Park
Rapids. Our success rate there improved dramatically when we managed to find
five of six, which put us at 699! We decided that we wanted to find our 700th
geocache that day – one full day prior to our two-year geocaching anniversary.
With that point agreed upon, we set a course north toward home, thinking we
wanted to find a cache close to home, placed by a local cacher – one who also
happens to be the owner of the first cache we found two years ago.
Despite being crammed in the van all day with
four kids and a big dog and driving over 200 miles, we zoomed right past our
house, on course for what we knew would be cache #700 about three miles from our home.
We arrived on site, and the kids took off in a
mad dash to find the cache. Nikolai, Alivia and Marcus all ended up in a tussle
scouring a spot where they were sure it was hidden. Meanwhile, my wife and I
found the source for the name of the cache and headed to that spot. I beat her
there, but it didn’t do either of us any good. Nikolai saw what we were up to
and came to join the search. Sure enough, he made the find. Go figure – the
adults are bested by the kids again.
In all, it was a really fun weekend. Marcus is
already talking about hitting the trail again this weekend, without any
prompting from dad!
Please be safe while enjoying your favorite
outdoor recreation, and remember to take pictures to preserve a lifetime of
memories. Also, please watch out for the buses that are transporting our
children, and remember to drive safely. Thanks for reading, and have a great
week! For more of my columns visit: http://allan-crazykids.blogspot.com.
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