Bismarck Caching Trip

A walking bridge over the James River in Jamestown

Erin on the trails near the giant buffalo

This past weekend Erin and I went to Bismarck so she could spend some time with her family around her birthday and so we could do some geocaching. Saturday morning we hit the road early and started off looking for a harder cache near the wheaton exit along I-94. We weren't able to find that, but we didn't let starting the day with a miss get us down. We were able to find several caches between Wheaton and Tower City and were enjoying the morning. Our next stop along the way was Jamestown. We started out in Mc Elroy park and took short walking detour up to the buffalo on the hill. As we were in Jamestown I remembered the run Erin and I shared when I was in town for my Grandma's funeral just a couple of years prior. That morning we seemingly covered all of Jamestown before the sun came up.  It was a little odd seeing vaguely familiar places in the light of day. After clearing out the park and grabbing a few more caches in town we hit Arby's for lunch on the way out of town. We made a few more stops on the way to Bismarck including Steele where we found a cache near a giant bird statue. Oddly enough neither one of us ever noticed this while driving back and forth between Bismarck and Fargo on the interstate. When we got into town we stopped by her parents house to unload our stuff and then the four of us when caching in General Sibley Park in South Bismarck.

The next day Erin and I headed out to do some caching along the Mandan side of the river. We found a neat mountain bike trail that ran between the interstate and the river. It was the perfect place to hide geocaches, and the caches there did not disappoint. Several cachers had put some thought into placing high quality caches in this park.  We found close to 19 caches that morning and walked close to 5 miles. The weather was perfect, a bit cool with a slight breeze. We enjoyed spending time in the woods in the fall.

A view of the path near the river

A bear we found

Can you spot the rat?

After lunch Erin's parents joined us for some caching out on the university of mary campus. We had mixed success, but enjoyed the view from up on the hill

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Monday morning Erin's Dad and I went caching and found about 10 caches around town before grabbing lunch. Here is a picture of a whale toy we found with Red Lobster in the background. After lunch Erin and I packed up and started heading for home. We had a few caches along the interstate that we wanted to grab along the way. We found this neat abandoned rest area near crystal springs. After finding the cache we did a little exploring. We finished the trip by finding the first cache we missed on the way out after getting a hint from the cache owner. It was a good weekend of geocaching.

An old fountian?

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