An unexpected road trip

My friend and me at the last cache of the MN Star Geo Art, near Hill City.

By Allan Olson

I had this past weekend all planned – we were going to do some stuff around the house and in general just stay close to home. I messaged a friend on Thursday to let him know that I was all set, if it still worked for him, for our planned geocaching outing next weekend. He called me back immediately and said he was just about to message me – his weekends at work got switched and so he had this weekend off and asked if I was available. I’m not one usually for last-minute change-of-plan trips, but we already knew where we were going a long time ago, so it was just a matter of whether or not I could get free.

I discussed it with my wife, and while she wasn’t happy, we didn’t argue about it and she set me “free.” As it turned out, she didn’t stay home either. 

I left Saturday at 5:45 a.m. and arrived well ahead of schedule to meet my friend at the pre-arranged time at 8 a.m. Since he doesn’t carry a cell phone, that was the best we could do. From there it all went like clockwork. He pulled out of a gas station as I was approaching, and I followed him right to the destination, both of us about 30 minutes ahead of schedule. We started searching for a geocache that we couldn’t find last year, and after that we headed off to get to work on finishing the MN Star Geo Art near Hill City. 

That group of caches is located in some nasty terrain, including swamps, and takes nothing but flat out bushwhacking to get to them, but we needed 27 more to complete it, adding to the total we had last year to make a complete 51 caches. It took a lot of work, but we wrapped up those caches about seven hours after we started, and we found ourselves with about three hours of daylight left to do more caching. There were several more caches to find in the area not included in the MN Star Geo Art, so we pressed on. 

We didn’t stop for food (we had some snacks packed), but we did stop to gather some firewood for later. It took us about an hour to whip through a series of 22 caches, most of which we could drive right to the spot, jump out and grab them. Finally, at about 7:30 p.m, we ran out of good daylight and decided to head back to camp.

At camp, I arranged my vehicle the way I always should before heading out on a caching adventure, and made my bed in the vehicle. By the time I was done, my friend had a fire roaring in the fire pit right at our campsite. The only thing missing was me sitting by the fire. It felt great to finally take a seat with my food (a small bowl of tuna). It was easy to make and there was no cooking required; just what I needed. There were no kids to feed, or any other responsibilities, so we just relaxed and made sure the fire was going to go out before we headed off to our respective vehicles at about 10:30 p.m. Sleeping in my big old Yukon wasn’t the comfiest, but it was better than outdoors. I just need to invest in a camp sleeping mat if I’m going to be doing many more of these trips. On top of the not-so-comfy sleeping arrangements, I failed to visit with my old friend Advil before retiring for the evening, and my legs let me know it most of the night. I gave up on sleeping by about 5:30 a.m., got dressed and started cleaning up my bed. Right about that time, my friend rapped on the window – he was done sleeping, too. We headed to town in search of a warm bathroom and some hot food and coffee, all of which we found at the local gas station. From there, we headed back into the wilderness, where we knocked several more caches off our list before parting ways at about 1:30 p.m.

Back at home, I emptied my vehicle, put away all the stuff that I brought along, got a little less smelly and then waited for family to come home. My wife and kids had headed north for dinner with their grandpa at her sister’s on Sunday. He enjoyed the fresh fish dinner and the family enjoyed his company.

The majority of Sunday evening was spent logging in all the caches we found and trying not to move too much, as my legs were protesting mightily. It was an early bed time for me on Sunday (this time armed with Advil). I was ready for a good night’s sleep before starting another work week.

After last weekend’s change of plans, I think we will be staying home this weekend. We still haven’t seen our latest Great-Nephew, however, so I guess that is still to be decided. I really do need to work in the garage and get stuff cleaned up and put away. A few flurries appeared last Saturday, but that was just a teaser to get us thinking about the serious weather that is not that far off anymore.

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.