3rd Anniversary Run and Caching Trip to Jamestown

Matt, Rick, Erik, Ray, Jon
Erin, Cassie, Heather, Lynette, Kristy, Rachel, Connie

The day started early, I rolled out of bed just a bit before Erin's alarm went off.  We had been out the previous night watching the boys and neither of us wanted to be up at this hour.  We got dressed and I checked on the carmel rolls.  They were rising nicely.  It wasn't long before people started showing up and our kitchen filled up with the goodies that everyone brought for breakfast.  When everyone was finally here we headed back outside for Rachel to take our picture before the run. I wanted to get back early to ensure the camel rolls were coming our of the oven in time, so I biked.  The pace the group found was faster then I was anticipating.  It was fortunate I wasn't running or I would have slowed everyone down.  I biked along talking to Matt until the route turned back towards the house.  Then I hustled home and started baking. I probably should have headed back sooner, or the group should have run a little more slowly.  Either way they were back a little sooner then I was planning on.  Erin handed out our homemade race medals and the group came in for breakfast. We had fresh carmel rolls, an egg bake, bacon pastries, orange juice and fruit. Breakfast was great, and it was run catching up with everyone.  Heather's husband Doug showed up with their daughters, and I got to hold Violet for a bit.

Donvil, Ellis, and Former Hawkeye at the event

After breakfast we cleaned up, and Erin took care of the cats we're watching while I loaded up the Garmins for a road trip out to Jamestown. The first cache we tried for was in Valley City.  It was one that I had looked for previously and missed.  This time we were determined to make the find.  After looking all over a evergreen tree I finally made the find. From there we headed south down to highway 46 and cleaned up some more caches we had missed on.  We had nice weather and were finding everything, much more fun then our recent vacation.  There was a high terrain rated cache that we stopped at, but we had been fortunate to bring a telescoping marshmallow toasting fork which made quick work of retrieving and returning the cache. After cleaning up most of the caches south of Jamestown we headed north in to town for the event.  I was thinking we'd be a bit late, but we made it right on time. We had fun talking with the other geocachers and the food was good.  While we were eating Chad got a call from the pirate family saying they were out of gas on the interstate.  After finishing his meal Chad was going to run some gas out to them, and I decided to tag along.  We borrowed a gas can and headed out to find the pirates. As we drove Chad showed me a text from them with their coordinates and a brief cache description.  I enjoyed the joke they made out of their situation. We found them and got them refueled and made it back to the cafe in time for door prizes.  Erin got a matchstick container and I got a christmas themed towel. We chatted a while longer before heading out with Chad to get a couple of caches. The first one we tried for was a harder difficulty cache that required a bit of a hike.  We made a wrong turn and did some bushwhacking, but made the find.  From there we made an easy find at the Pipestem dam office before deciding it was getting late and heading for home.  One the drive back I started kicking around ideas for some fun caches to place up North. It was a great way to spend our Saturday.