By Allan Olson
This weather, while not ideal for the upcoming
deer season, is certainly nice on the fall heating bill! Heck, if I had known it
was going to be this nice, I would’ve waited a little longer to put on propane
to keep the house warm this winter.
I’d had plans made for last Saturday for several
weeks; they just factored on a couple of things – no rain, and what family
members were going to come along. On Friday night I asked the kids individually
if they wanted go geocaching on Saturday with a group of people. Three of the
four said yes, so that meant it was unanimous – with that many kids wanting to
go, mom decided to go, too, and once again it was a family outing!
I was awake before 6 a.m. on Saturday morning,
and soon started waking everyone else up. We needed to be on the road by 7, and
we met that goal with five minutes to spare. We stopped at Teal’s Market for a
couple additional food supplies for the cooler and got right back on the road.
Our first stop was to look for a cache I’ve tried for a couple times since it
was published in August. This time I had received a helpful hint from someone
who had just found it a few days prior, and there was no way I was leaving
without a find. As we parked, another geocacher from our neck of the woods
pulled in right behind us on the same mission. The kids took off, trying to find
it before we got there, but they didn’t succeed in that effort. Nikolai did have
it in his hands shortly after we arrived on scene – success, finally.
We made a few more stops enroute to Backus to
meet up some other cachers for breakfast, and from there we headed west to the
Foothills State Forest for a group caching effort. Once again we were in search
of some caches we knew would be challenging, as the coordinates were likely off,
but with a group searching we did succeed in finding the majority of them. Even
Alivia, the youngest of entire group, was able to make her own find of a cache
before anyone else in the party spotted it. The day was spent working the Bull
Moose Trail heading south, with a pretty decent success rate considering we had
over a dozen people searching. After we finished that trail, my kids all were
tired and ready to be done, so mom headed for home with them. Three other
caching party members had had enough by this time, too, so the group was reduced
by at least half. The rest of us forged ahead, work the trail to the north. We
had a great run of finds until the last two caches, which we gave up on after a
pretty exhaustive search. The party split up at that time, heading their
separate ways. My geocaching neighbor and I caught a ride back to her vehicle at
Backus, and then headed toward home. Of course, since we just could not end the
day with a DNF (did not find), we went off in search of a few more. We finally
quit caching just before 7 p.m. as it was getting too dark to find anymore (at
least easily) and arrived home about an hour later.
Sunday was spent resting and letting the kids
have some electronics time. The rest of this month is looking to be very busy,
and will probably include more time spent closer to home (and less time out
geocaching). Next month is deer season and then it will really get nuts with the
holidays. Hopefully we will find time for a few more caching adventures before
the weather really gets bad – time will tell.
We have no plans for this weekend. If the
weather is nice, I might take a couple of kids for a walk in the Hobson Forest,
but aside from that, it will probably be pretty laid back. I hope everyone took
some time to get outside last weekend and enjoy the awesome weather in whatever
form of outdoor activity you enjoy. Thanks for reading!
Please be safe while enjoying your favorite
outdoor recreational activity and on the lakes, and remember to take pictures to
preserve a lifetime of memories. Remember to drive safely, and watch out for
those buses carrying our children. Thanks for reading, and have a great week!
For more of my columns visit: http://allan-crazykids.blogspot.com.
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