A Thankful Weekend and 18,000 steps


A Thankful Weekend and 18,000 steps
By Allan Olson
Food, oh glorio
us food, that pretty much was Thanksgiving day, the only thing missing was my fault – mostly due to lack of time, I didn’t get my caramel rolls made and I didn’t get it done during the weekend – fail. The day was as predicted laid back and quiet – with most of us enjoying the Thanksgiving meal in our pajamas. The morning was spent cooking and the afternoon, cleaning up and napping, the evening we enjoyed some pie and played games – a nice small party of nine.
On Friday morning my wife and were woke up by Alivia who informed us the flu bug had struck – starting with her – oh joy. Since my wife had to work I was stuck with the sicko – so my full afternoon of road trip geocaching was postponed – however I had plans to be in Menahga by 6 p.m. to meet another geocacher to tackle the two night caches in town. So we had a full block of time in the afternoon to do something with and I decided to spend my time wisely – by taking a nap. Originally I thought I only snoozed for about 30 minutes but I think it was closer to a full hour and it was a great little slumber. As the afternoon started to fade towards my departure time, I checked in with my wife to see if she was going to make it back in time for me to leave. Instead she suggested that I bring the kids that didn’t or couldn’t go with so she could continue working a little longer. I loaded everyone up, my four kids, my niece and a nephew and we headed out, and ultimately left Bemidji about 10 minutes earlier than I thought I would get out of town.
Our first geocaching stop as in the big little town of Lake George we couldn’t find a cache there in the summer of 2014 and it was time to try again. We searched the area for at least 10 minutes again before Nikolai found the clever little hide in a tree. Daylight was fading and we continued to our destination, making two more stops for geocaches and one for happy hour coffee along the way. With our coffee in hand we made one more stop just out of Park Rapids and noticed the last signature on the log was the name of the caching partner we were going to meet in Menahga so all was still scheduled as planned and we wouldn’t have to do the night caches alone.
We arrived at the first location just prior to 6 p.m. and waited for the other member of our group to show up before set out on foot. Surprisingly that cache only took a few minutes to complete before we were signing the log. So we all loaded up in our vehicles and took off for the next one at the City Campground just south of town. We spotted the first set of tacks right away and worked on following the trail which led us one direction and then back past our parking spot and off again in another direction until we eventually about 20 minutes later discovered the final resting spot of the cache. Once again we inked our names on the paper and went back to the vehicles – on the way home we traveled some back roads and city streets and found a few more caches before getting back about 10 p.m.
On Saturday, we headed out to Hubbard County Rd 16 – north of Guthrie and South of Nary – I dropped my niece, girls and Nikolai off on that three mile section of trail and drove to the next spot and my nephew, Marcus and I took that five mile stretch of trail which ended about one mile north of Laporte. The original plan was to do the three mile trail and then drive around to get some others – but my niece and I discussed it, guessed about how long it would take and decided to knock off the entire 8-mile stretch of trail and possibly another mile more if time allowed. The first mistake was our estimate on time to complete the trail – we thought two hours max for the five mile stretch and it took three hours. As the time faded, I was starting to wonder if I could make it back to Bemidji in time for the evening cache I had planned and with no cell service – I couldn’t connect with my niece to make sure everything was good on her end. Since we had no choice but to continue forward we moved on – and as we neared the road I didn’t see my vehicle parked and I still had no cell service. We were standing at the last cache and I was sending out a text message or two to be sent when cell service resumed when my vehicle pulled up – whew we were safe – no more walking. Once we got to my niece we found out her phone was dead – for good. Abigail in her infinite clumsiness managed to knock the phone out of her hand and it gracefully connected with the hard trail for a grand finale. For the last 30 minutes she had been driving roads trying to find where the trail connected to the road. She searched the vehicle for a map and discovered only a Montana map – no help there. They found our old Garmin and discovered that didn’t work either and she drove and somehow stumbled upon us. Thankfully her plan “B” was to find the trail in Laporte and wait for us – lucky for us that didn’t happen as it would’ve meant another mile on the trail.
We found our way back to Bemidji traveling roads in Hubbard County heading first east and then north until I found a familiar road. We met the same geocacher from the night before and this time with some of his family at the Bemidji Disc Golf Course for yet another night geocache and using our lights and some hard logic we found the final night cache in the area and headed home, chilled, tired, exhausted and sore after over finding 70 geocaches, 18,000 steps on the trail and in the woods but thankful that our health provides us the opportunity to enjoy the great outdoors.
Some might find this adventure a little crazy but all I can say is I would do it all over again in the similar or slight variation of temperatures rather than watching any television show or sports team.  I love Minnesota outdoors – sans mosquitos.
As for Sunday – that was a road trip as I had to take my nephew back home and get my niece packed up and moved back into her term as she finishes her final two weeks of her first semester of college. We left home about 10 a.m. and finally got home for the evening at 4 p.m. – in time to start supper and get kids prepared for the school week.
As for the sick bug – we are three kids, one niece and counting.
Please remember to watch out for the buses that are carrying our most precious cargo. Also snap a photo or two to preserve a lifetime of memories. Thanks for reading, and have a great week! Feel free to drop me a line at cltimes1@arvig.net or stop by the office for a visit.



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