Steph's Wedding Weekend - Saturday/Sunday

Lake Itasca in the early morning light

Erin and Rodney outside the logging camp

Saturday morning started early, we had told Rodney that we would meet up with him at 6:00 am to go geocaching. As we were getting ready I was sneezing and felt some seasonal allergies kicking in.  I asked Erin if we had anything and she gave me an allergy pill.  She warned me that she takes them at night because they cause drowsiness. Not being all that concerned I took the pill and we were on our way. The cache we went for was in the northern part of the park.  Well, not technically in the park, but close enough.  We were able to park about 500 feet from ground zero and take a trail right to where we needed to go.  We were near some cabins, so we quickly and quietly found the cache and were on our way. We decided that since we had found the cache quickly we'd have plenty of time to go to breakfast at the logging camp near Park Rapids. On the drive over we had time to chat with Rodney.  Years ago he spent a summer working at a nearby resort, so we got to hear some interesting stories.  We arrived at the logging camp a bit early so we wandered around a bit before heading in to eat. It had been years since I've eaten year, but I still had a sense that the place was familiar.  Breakfast was fantastic, and we all had our fill before heading back to the park. I was glad that we were able to sneak this fun excursion into our trip.

Mmmm... Pancackes...

Picture Time

The back of Luck and Rachelle with the musicians in the distance

When we arrived back at the park Erin rounded up her stuff to help Steph get ready.  Around this time is when the allergy pill started to kick in, and I went to lay down. The next thing I knew my phone was ringing and Erin was telling me I needed to get ready and go down to the dock for pictures. I got dressed and ran into Rachelle just outside the cabin. She pointed me in the right direction and I soon ran across my dad.  He didn't want to walk down to the docks and then back up in the heat, so we drove down and waited for pictures. The day was starting to heat up, and there was a fair bit of humidity. The AC in the van felt wonderful. Pictures didn't take too long and after that I drove over to where the ceremony was going to take place with dad. I spent some time chatting with Tim, the officiant, while people were arriving.  It had been a while since I'd seen him, and it was nice being able to catch up with him. When the ceremony was ready to start I found an empty seat with Rodney and Betty. Tim came over and handed me the marriage licence and said we'd meet up afterwards to get things signed.  The ceremony itself was fairly brief.  Tim was really funny, and the breeze off the lake helped keep everyone cool.

Steph and dad walking up.

After the ceremony everyone headed over to the reception, except Steph and Jake who went to take a few more pictures.  When they finally showed up there were a few more family pictures before we ate.  I was disappointed with the food, but that seems to be common for most weddings I go to.  When the party died down, I went back to the cabin to change before coming back to help take down decorations. After that we headed to Koreen and Dan's cabin again for some more Farkle and Bean Bag Toss. I stayed until just after it got dark and the fire was going.

The following morning everyone was planning on grabbing breakfast together, however when we got up and started talking to people they all began to bail on breakfast.  After saying our goodbyes Erin and I went over to the lodge to checkout and have breakfast.  We both had the french toast special and were very pleased with it.  The waitress told us that they had just switched to a new bread for it that day.  When we were done with breakfast we headed out of the park and down to Park Rapids to do some geocaching.  We found a fun PMO only cache and cleaned up a cache we had missed on a previous trip.  From there we stopped a couple of times for caches before arriving in Detroit Lakes.  We tried to find the final of a multicache we had started previously, but even with an extra hint from the cache owner we couldn't make the find. We then headed south of town for some new caches that were put out for a recent event, but it was getting hot out and we were feeling a little frustrated so we decided to call it a day.

Steph's Wedding Weekend - Friday

The view on our drive to Itasca

Friday morning Erin and I had a couples massage scheduled. I was still a bit tender from my recent surgery, but felt good enough to go ahead with it. Laying on my stomach was a little uncomfortable at first, but I soon forgot all about that.  Both Erin and I thought this place was better than the last one we had gone to for a couples massage.  After the massage we headed back home to pack up some final things and then we hit the road for Itasca.  

No, this isn't the same picture, look at the trees

We needed to find a cache along the way to keep our streak alive, so we stopped in Hawley.  The cache was a bit tricky, with a tool being the only obvious thing at ground zero, however after looking at the hint we found the container and got the log signed.

Yeah, that's the same truck in front of us.

When we arrived in Detroit Lakes we stopped at Perkins for lunch.  I think the kitchen was really backed up that day. It took forever to get our food. With all of the neat places there are to eat out here it's amazing how often we just go to Perkins.  There's something to be said for consistency and predictability.

Cabin #4 - The Best Cabin

Dan taking a picture of a very tame chipmunk

After lunch we drove the rest of the way to Itasca.  It was a good thing that we had broken the trip up because when we arrived I was already feeling a little sore from sitting so long.  We checked in right away, but since the cabin hadn't been cleaned we weren't able to get the keys for it. From there we went over to where the reception was going to be held. Erin decided to help with the decorations, but since I wasn't terribly interested in getting yelled at for putting things in the wrong place and since I couldn't really do much anyway with my lifting restriction I decided to see who was around.  I wandered around a bit before finding Shelly and Betty who had returned from their walk.  After that we went up to Koreen and Dan's cabin and played some Farkle.  It's a dice game similar to one I've played on the computer before. It was fun, but Koreen seemed like she's way better at the game then everyone else.  I'm not sure how she kept getting lucky, but the luck seemed to last all weekend. After a bit the guys showed up. Rodney, Dan, and Luke had rented bikes from a local place. Koreen left to go help with flowers and we transitioned into playing a bean bag toss game. Rodney and I teamed up and were pretty good, we only lost 1 game to Jason and Rhonda and it was somewhat close. Eventually my family finished up what they were doing and came over.  The plans had been changed from going to Zorbas into just eating at the cabin. Steph, dad and I took a few minutes to go back to her cabin so she could do a last minute hair cut. When we returned there were hot dogs and brats ready and we had supper. After eating we hung out around the fire until Erin and I went to bed.

Steph's cabin

Rodney, Rhonda, Jason and Steve

The group eating supper

Dan building the fire

Jailbreak

This is what freedom looked like this morning.

Recovery from my surgery has been going well. I've been able to move around more each day and the pain is diminishing.  I've been off the pain meds since Tuesday night and my head has cleared. It's been nice being able to recover at home, but being stuck in the house has started to wear on me. This morning after I got up and showered I figured I would attempt to find a cache myself.  I decided to head North on I-29 to Argusville I had grabbed most of the caches up there, but there was one more easy one to find.  The drive out was pleasant, it was a cool sunny morning and I had the windows down.  When I arrived at ground zero I took a moment to appreciate being out of the house before making the quick find.  On my way home I stopped by Walmart for a few odds and ends.  After a brief rest at home my mom stopped by and we went to Costco and grabbed lunch.  It might have been a bit much for me. When I got home I was feeling fatigued and took the opportunity for a nap.

My brush with death (or just a routine surgery)

Saturday morning started the same way many Saturdays in the past had.  We got up a little early and met Connie for a 3 mile run. It was my worst run of the week. The pace was fairly slow with lots of walking.  When we got back Erin and I did some yard work since we were already hot and sweaty.  She started pulling weeds while I mowed the lawn. After I finished I helped her pick weeds for a while longer before we went in and cleaned up. I spent some time getting a few new geocaches ready to publish and decided I would skip breakfast and have a very early lunch.  Pizza was sounding good.

After eating my stomach was getting upset so I went downstairs for a nap. When I woke up my stomach was still upset and I didn't feel like doing much of anything.  We had planned a caching trip on Sunday with Clark and Mike and I needed to get our Garmins setup for that, but didn't want to leave the couch. As the evening progressed I was feeling worse and worse. Eventually I texted Mike and Clark that I would be cancelling the caching trip.  I was really disappointed that I needed to cancel, but I knew it was the right call. Thinking I might just be painfully gassy Erin picked up some generic Walmart Gas X. That seemed to help a little with the pain.

Saturday night I decided to sleep in the basement, since it was a easier to sleep on my back with the bed propped into the corner of the room.  Throughout the night the pain persisted and switched from a general pain throughout the abdomen to the lower right side of the abdomen. I started to think this was something more serious then just something I ate.  When I got up for the morning I had Erin search online for symptoms of appendicitis. It seemed to be a pretty good match for what I was experiencing. Not wanting to believe that diagnosis I decided to see how I felt after a shower.  Standing in the shower didn't help anything and I finally decided to go in to the Emergency Room.

We decided on going to Essentia since it was close. The ride over was very uncomfortable and I noticed every single bump in the road. I was glad we didn't have to go all the way downtown. After getting checked in at the ER we killed some time in the waiting room.  I was uncomfortable, but as long as I didn't move I wasn't in too much pain.  Since they were out of rooms in the ER I wound up on a bed in the hallway next to a staff refrigerator and ice machine. The first thing they wanted to do was get some blood from me, and start an IV.  The IV seemed to go in fine, but getting blood was a bit more difficult.  The first nurse was unable to find anything in my left arm, so she got another nurse to try my right arm.  This time after some digging she finally got some blood.  After getting a urine sample they said I would need to wait for the lab work.  It came back faster then I thought it would but was inconclusive.  My white blood cell count was somewhat elevated, but not enough to indicate appendicitis.  They said they could either do a CT scan, or send me home.  This didn't feel like something that would get better by going home, and since I thought it was appendicitis I decided to get the scan.  The scan was quick, and an interested experience, and the results showed that it was appendicitis.  I was told they would schedule the operator for today, and the doctor would swing by to see me.  In the mean time I would be waiting in the hallway until they would get a room for me.  The doctor dropped by and said there were a lot of operations going on today and it would probably be sometime in the afternoon before I would go in.   He briefly described the operation and was on his way. This was the only time I saw him, although Erin said she did talk with him after he was finished operating on me. Since we were just waiting, Erin decided she would go grab a cache to keep the streak going, and get some lunch.  I waited in the hall for around an hour or so before someone can to take me up to a room.  She asked if I wanted a wheel chair, but I said I would try walking.

The trip up to the room was quick and soon I was laying in bed answering questions for another nurse. Within a few minutes of getting up to the room Erin came in. After answering the questions for the nurse I changed into the hospital gown.  She said it would still be a while before surgery and asked if I wanted something for the pain.  I was a little hesitant, but decided to try it.  I got morphine, which did wonders for the pain. The afternoon passed slowly as I waited for surgery. Around 3:00 there was some action getting me prepped, but then they came back and said it would be around 5:30 before I went down for surgery. As I waited I tried not to think too much about what was going to happen. I've never had any kind of surgery before and was a bit nervous.  Since there wasn't any other option then getting my appendix taken out I just focused on moving forward through the process.  When the time for surgery came around I was wheeled down.  We we got to the operating room I moved onto the table and was told to breath some oxygen.  I remember about 3 breaths and then fighting to regain consciousness in the recovery room and needing to cough.  I think they asked about my pain level, and I thought they game me something for it, but my abdomen was still hurting quite a bit. I didn't feel like I was in the recovery room for long before they brought me back to my room.

At least that's how I remember it, it's still a bit fuzzy.  I think Erin left after that to get a few things to stay the night. Just before she got back I remember the fuzziness suddenly fading.  It was like waking up, although I was already awake.  The nurses said that it would help my recovery if I could get up and move around.  Moving hurt, but knowing it was the right thing to do I pushed through the discomfort.  After using the bathroom I was able to walk around the hallways for a bit before heading back to my room. Lindzee had brought Erin some gummy worms when I was in surgery and I had a few of them. They were delicious.  I watched some TV to pass the time, and sometime around 10:30 I was able to eat some peanut butter toast. After that I decided to try to get some sleep.  I was hooked up to an IV which seemed to pass right into my bladder. I was running to the bathroom quite a bit before asking to have the IV slowed down.  After that I was able to get a little sleep between trips to the bathroom and being woken up to have my vitals taken.

In the morning I had some more antibiotics pumped in.  I was hungry but was hoping to get out of the hospital before having a real meal.  A doctor dropped by and let me know they could stop the IV but didn't give more details then that.  After I was unhooked from the IV I got up and moved around as much as I could. I was eager to get out of there.  Since there wasn't much on TV on a Monday morning Erin and I watched the finale of Whodunit on my Surface. Right as it finished the nurse came and in said I could go.  She gave me a prescription for some pain meds and some instructions on what I needed to do to take care of myself.  After packing up Erin and I were on our way home.

We stopped by the grocery store to get some bacon and bread.  I was craving bacon sandwiches. When we got home, Erin made the sandwiches which were awesome. Then I showered and took a nap.  I was hoping to not have to get the prescription filled for the pain meds, but later on in the afternoon I realized that I would need them. If this writing isn't up to my usual standard blame the meds.

Day Trip to Wahpeton and Fergus Falls

Last weekend Erin and I took a trip to Wahpeton and Fergus Falls to do some geocaching. We had cleaned out Wahpeton before, but enough new caches had been put out to justify the trip.  Most of the caches we picked up in Wahpeton were micros, and not many really stood out. We were finally able to claim a find on Artificial Cache which we had been to 2 previous times.  It was neat seeing the area in the summer after seeing it in both the winter and spring.  I wish I would have taken some pictures to show the differences. From there we stopped by Foxhome MN on our way to Fergus Falls.

Erin and the town founder

We arrived in Fergus around lunchtime and stopped by Mabel Murphy's for some lunch which was excellent as always. We wanted to leave a few caches in Fergus Falls to find when we're down here for a wedding in a few weeks, so we targeted some of the ones we thought would be harder to find.  A few caches brought us to some neat parks in town. And we found a fun cache under a bridge downtown. One of the caches that earned a favorite point was a micro hidden on this statue. Finding it went quickly, but signing the log took time and some ingenuity on our part.

Another fun cache was out in the cemetery at the old state mental institution. We parked a ways off and walked over on the dirt road.  As we were walking a minivan passed us on it's way to the cemetery.  We were surprised that anyone else would be out here and passed some time browsing the headstones until they left.  Once they had departed we quickly found the very unique cache, signed the log and started our walk back to the car.  Recently I had told Erin about playing on hay bales as a child and since there were some in the field we were walking past I boosted her up for a quick picture. After that we headed towards home.  It was a great day for a caching adventure.