Erin had been able to get a Monday off, so we had a long weekend. We've known about it for a while now, but didn't really make any plans. As it approached we came up with the idea of heading to Grand Forks to do a little caching. I looked for a fun place to stay, but Grand Forks doesn't seem to have anything like that, so I wound up booking a hotel through Priceline.com the day before we left. Since we didn't really care where we stayed Priceline seemed to be a good option. I'll definitely keep it in mind for future trips.
Saturday morning we headed out and took a roundabout way North, grabbing some caches along the way. We made it to Grand Forks early afternoon, and just grabbed a snack since we were meeting some friends for supper. After ice cream at Culvers we hit a couple more caches until we could check in. I had a headache, so we stopped by Target to pick up some drugs. After that we went back to Hanging At The Pepper, a cache we had missed on previously. With the hint we picked up a few weeks back we made the find easily. Then we headed into East Grand Forks to do the Avian Adventure cache there. At the first location someone overheard us talking about coordinates and asked us about caching. We probably spent 10 minutes getting to know this other cacher and swapping stories before continuing to find the rest of the cache. From there we cleaned up East Grand Forks as much as possible. There was something going on down by the river, so we skipped a few caches near there. After that a few more in Grand Forks before hitting up Pizza Ranch for supper with the Pirates.
Matt, Zoa, and the kids have a frantic sort of energy about them that always makes get togethers fun. Over supper we traded a few stories and told each other about how the day had gone. After we finished eating we decided to grab a cache. Erin and I aren't much for night time caching, but the pirates seem to do their best work when the sun goes down. Not wanting to miss out on the opportunity to have 18 eyes looking for a cache we decided to go for one that was a bit tricky. Oliver was the first to spot the cache, when we found it we discovered that although the cache description was perfectly accurate it was also misleading. That sort of misdirection makes caching fun. From there we walked over to a cache that they had found before, but that some of the kids hadn't seen. Again this one was tricky, especially with the sun already set. Simon pointed out that the cache wasn't in the right spot, and after he put it back, the rest of us made the find quickly. We walked back to the vehicles, and talked some more before finally calling it a night.
The next morning Erin and I had breakfast in the hotel. Nothing special, but it wasn't bad. We tried for a few caches in town before heading North. Instead of a cache I found a family of mice at one location. I was leaning in to look behind a tree and under some bark when they startled me. We decided to move on after that. I was able to solve Larry's Cache with an item that we had in the car. I felt really good about figuring out how to get into that one. After that we headed out of town to the geocaching Mecca that is Gilby North Dakota. Erin and I had gone last year and found about half of the caches in that area and were excited to go back. Trycacheus puts a lot of thought and effort into all of his hides. We had a great time finding unique and exciting caches, but got a bit tired of solving a cryptex to sign some of the logs. We also discovered that very few of his caches are as easy as they look. After clearing out the caches in that area, and adding a few new towns for a challenge cache in Fargo we headed back to Grand Forks for a few caches near UND.
When we finished caching for the day we hit up a grocery store to grab a few items to bring over to Matt and Zoa's farm. They had invited us to stop by for supper on our way home. Since we had GPS coordinates finding their place was easy. When we got there the boys had setup some geocaches on the farm they wanted us to find. We got a tour of the farm, and found some very challenging caches. After that Annie showed us the animals. Since I'm the typical city kid that doesn't know much about these different animals, I found this all very interesting. After that we had supper and chatted until Erin and I needed to hit the road and head for home. It was a great weekend.
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