Geocaching Weekend

Geocaching Weekend


Nikolai and I at the annual Northstar Geoseekers geocaching event that was held in Blackduck over the weekend of Friday, August 19 to Sunday August 21. We had a great time together and a rare father-son only weekend.
By Allan Olson
This past weekend was one I’ve been looking forward to all year – the Northstar Geoseekers annual get-together. This year the weekend-long event held in Blackduck. The major difference between this year and last was that I was not in charge of hosting the group’s weekend event, which made it even more fun.
On Sunday of last week, several puzzles (31, to be exact) were released for geocachers to solve by the week’s end. The puzzles were in the shape of a duck – quite appropriate, considering the town hosting the event. I had all but two solved, and made a couple trips to Blackduck with the goal of getting the honors of being first to find. 
On Wednesday evening I loaded the kids in the vehicle with their bikes, and we were able to get an all-time personal best, finding 14 new caches in one day. On Thursday afternoon, the oldest two and I headed out in search of them again, this time not doing as well. We managed to log a DNF (did not find) on four of them and found 10 others. 
On Friday evening, Abigail and I were back on the road again for the first of four events scheduled for the weekend – the Friday night campfire. We arrived at our destination at about 7:30 p.m., and headed back home at about 10:30, after visiting with some guests we hadn’t seen since last year and some new guests we just met at this event. We got to dine on S’mores by the campfire, too, so it was a fun evening, and even though Abigail said she wasn’t tired or ready to go when we left, she sure had a hard time staying awake on the ride home.
We awoke to rain on Saturday morning, so I was in no hurry to rush out the door. At the same time, I didn’t have much patience to wait around the house for the weather to clear – there were more geocaches to find and games to play! After getting some hints on one of the unsolved puzzles the night before, I took some time to look at it again, and suddenly it all made sense. I just had to write the information down in the right order to come up with the right coordinates. I managed to get it done the first time, and that made me even more determined to get moving. Nikolai and I finally headed out at about 10:30 a.m,. and got checked in at the event. We stopped by one geocache on the way to Blackduck, but the rain started again, and we decided to just forego that one for the time being. 
More information was handed out at the event, and everybody took off for a day of fun. We found a few caches, some I couldn’t seem to locate two days prior, dodged a couple rain showers by waiting them out in the vehicle, and made it back to the staging area (Pine Tree Park) in time for the second annual scavenger hunt. I was excited as this year I was able to participate instead of being the host. Nikolai and I split up, each on our own team with three or four other team members, and the race was on to see who could complete the most tasks in the allotted 60-minute time frame. Unfortunately my team was not the winner. The judges were just too picky and didn’t accept a couple of our submissions. One of the tasks was to find the Cat in the Hat at the Backwoods Bash in town. We didn’t exactly succeed, but we did find an Arctic Cat in town, so we put a hat on it and took a photo. For some reason the judges didn’t accept that submission. Of course we knew they wouldn’t, but it was all in fun.
The final item on the agenda for the main event was the annual group photo. After that, some folks departed for home; others took off to do more geocaching before the evening’s campfire event. Nikolai and I left in search of some supper before heading back out on the geocaching hunt to find just a couple more before giving up for the day. We attended the campfire, where I enjoyed some more S’mores. Nikolai played some games with others, and we got home sometime after 11 p.m. My wife didn’t attend the event this year because she had a birthday party to attend up north, and the other kids opted to go north, too, to visit their grandparents and cousins.
On Sunday morning, Nikolai and I hit the road early to attend the final event of the weekend in Blackduck– a farewell breakfast. We enjoyed the meal, did some more visiting and then headed back home. 
The rest of the family returned home that afternoon, and I took the kids swimming that evening before we celebrated Abigail and Marcus’ 10th birthday as a family.
It was a fun weekend overall, and I’m looking forward to another fun time at the Northstar Geocachers annual event next year, which is tentatively set to be held in Bagley.
Enjoy your summer, and be sure to 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. To our law enforcement officers and other emergency personnel, be safe, and thank you for all that you do!

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