This past weekend Erin and I went to a geocaching event at Turtle River State Park on Saturday with Lindzee and Ellis. It was a beautiful summer day with the sun shining and a bit of a breeze. On the way to the park we stopped near the Grand Forks Air Force Base to pick up a cache. Despite the misleading hint we did manage to find this one. After arriving at the park we checked in at the geocaching tent and greeted a few other cachers we knew before setting out to find the permanent caches in the park.
The first cache in the park was a quick find, there were some young cachers around, and I think they saw me grab it, but I tried to act as inconspicuous as possible. After that we headed deeper into the park on some dirt trails. It was a little wider than single track, but not by much. When we were sheltered by the trees the mosquitoes attacked. The bug spray we had put on didn't seem to help all that much. We rushed down the path, only slowing to navigate around some muddy areas. The path seemed to loop around the second cache, so Ellis and I bushwhacked to make that find. Then we headed off to the next cache. This time following the main path took us the wrong way. When we stopped to evaluate our situation, Ellis was attacked by ants. When we backtracked we found where we should have turned. This trail took us through some wetlands. Erin managed to keep her feet dry, but the rest of us took on a little water. Once we were out of the wet spot and on high ground we made the find fairly quickly.
From there we headed back to where we had parked to grab a drink and stop by the bathroom. The next cache was on an old road and after walked there I found the cache easily, however it was a cryptex. Lindzee quickly figured out the combo from the cache hint and we signed and were on our way once more. The last two caches in the park were a ways off from where we were so we decided to drive there. After parking we walked down a paved trail to the first of the two remaining caches. When we got near ground zero we found a trail into the woods that we followed, and the cache was soon found. As we were signing the log we heard someone ask "Did you find it?". I turned around to see Jim heading down the trail towards us. This was the second time he's caught us in the act. He hadn't found the last cache we were heading to, so he tagged along. The last find was another quick one. After giving Jim a ride back to the information booth we headed out of the park.
By this time we were fairly hungry so we headed to Larimore for a late lunch. We stopped by the bar in town, but were told the kitchen was closed and pointed to the drive in as a place to get some food. After ordering Ellis and Lindzee found a number of ticks. Most of us got shakes with our meal which were very good, however the food wasn't all that fantastic. We had also ordered way more then we probably should have. After we ate, we grabbed a few caches in town and headed home for the day.
Sunday morning Erin and I got up and ran with Erik and Connie. My legs were hurting, so after 2 miles I left the group to do some walking. As I waited for the them to finish up, I killed time by running intervals. The starting and stopping and differing paces seemed to loosen my legs up, and when we finished the run I had close to the same mileage that everyone else did. After the run we went home, cleaned up, and packed up the bikes for another caching trip to the Central Lakes Trail. This was my third trip out to this trail. We drove out to a boat landing near Evansville that I has stopped at on my previous trip and started caching where I left off. We went about 3 miles out on bikes and then found caches on the way back to the truck. The first 3 miles went well, but after that we were getting hungry. We decided to see what Evansville had in the way of food. We found a place called the Backroads Steakhouse. We sat in the bar and ordered some burgers. While we waited an older couple had come in and was talking to the bartender about a friend that had recently died. When our food arrived a country sound about prop me up beside the jukebox if I die started playing. It seemed a little odd, but everyone grieves in their own way. The food here was way better than what we had the previous day. We will definitely have to come back. After lunch we did a bit more geocaching, before deciding it was too hot to keep going. Aside from the bug bites, scrapes and poison ivy it was a great weekend.
