Wedding Cakes, Films and the MnGCA Spring Event

Kris: The past few weeks have continued to be trying on us financially but while it's very stressful, a few things are very exciting.  One evening we went to Queen of Cakes to sit down and talk about our wedding cake and options for evening cupcakes.  Their prices are very reasonable and we got plenty of options for cakes and frostings.   Yikes seriously we EACH got like 10 half slices of cake on a platter to try.  Both of us fell in love with the red velvet as top choice.   We have some fun designs started but I think I'll keep that a secret and not spoil the surprise.

We also signed a contract with Charles and Mike from Forever Films that will be helping us to capture our lives together and help us show off our wedding.  When we met with them, they were totally on the same lines of thought that we were and had some great ideas.   So after a lot of careful thought and many $$$ we've got a fantastic project in play!  Again, not going to spoil the fun on this one, you'll have to be at the reception to be part of this one :)

(And Charles, Mike, if you guys are reading this, I'm sure we'll get you to be Caribou Coffee fans before this is all over ;)

Mark: Kris forgot to mention another financial setback we had during the past few weeks. My dog Ruger broke open the tip of his tail and unfortunately it would not heal up and became badly infected resulting in us making the decision to have his tail amputated. He gets his stitches out on Friday and I will then post before and after pics.

Kris: We also got to take our engagement photos!! Last Tuesday our friend Sarah McGee, a fabulous photographer, took our photos down around Lake Calhoun which of course holds a very special place to both of us.  We had a blast, the weather was perfect and I am anxiously waiting to see the final results!  I'll show some off as soon as we get them :D

This past weekend started with a 5k race in Eden Prairie.   You can check our personal blogs for the recaps on that.  I just posted mine earlier tonight. Mark: I will hopefully post mine in a day or so.

Kris: So Saturday after the 5k we did a quick change and headed down to Nerstrand State Park for the Spring MnGCA event.  It was about an hour drive and with the pouring rain we had to get through it took a bit longer.  Here are a few blubs about our adventures :)

After lunch and a few fun caching contests (oh I won a really cool book and Mark won the Splinterheads movie!) we headed into the forest.   It was go green and so pretty!

We ran into ISpy and his family and came upon this really odd tree.  It looks like some time in the very distance past someone stuck a step between these two trunks and the tree has grown in.  Kinda heart shaped :)

We then headed over to this waterfall which was also an earthcache.

We kept seeing these signs about endangered plants and that this one was only found in just 3 counties in Minnesota.   We think this might be one of them but weren't able to find out for sure.

Before heading across the road to the southern half of the park for a "quick" multi we stopped for a picture.

Mark: So as the day was getting late we decided to try for one more cache, a multi called "A Walk in the Woods" Unfortunatly the name of the cache was was not just a name, it was very descriptive. The first stage was close by, just across the road from the park office.

Stage 1 was such a cute little little charater.

Along the way Kris decided to try her Jane imitation with a vine hanging from a tree.

Stage 2 was about a 3/4 mile walk from Stage 1 and was another very creative container.

On the walk to the Stage 3, the final stage, we decided to grab another cache that we had writted off earlier as it was too far away in the park. Apparently not since we had to walk right past it on the way to Stage 3. The cache was at a bridge at the southern edge of the park. We made the find quickly and dropped a few TB's and one of our pathatgs for the next cacher to make the trek. Now for the return trip, which was about a mile and a half back to the car. All in all this one cache took us about an hour and a half, not part of the plan, and we ended up getting home much later then we planned on, but we had a great day! 

(Ok Blogger people....please make pictures faster and easier to upload.   This post took me WAY to long to put together.  And why can't I figure out out to put the pictures in the words anymore?  Sigh....)

Obsess much?

Kris: So a quick report. We picked up the Myre Big Island park and our first 25 mile Hiking patch.

Mark: Lets give a little more credit to this park, drove around like a madman to all the different stages of the Safari cache and then about a mile trail run to the final. And we got lucky again with the Hiking club word on the trail to the cache. Saved us about half of the total distance.

Kris: We were hoping to get two other parks but thanks to the stupid sun going down at 5pm these days we made only one... Barely...

We reached Rice Park as the sun was going down but was determined to get the cache and the Hike. Mark was irritated by this truck who blocked the road not knowing how a 4-way intersection works, Didnt they know we were in a hurry? :-P We were running around through the cache stages and made the grab. It was now too dark to see my feet. So we grabbed the flashlights and took off down the trail. I thunk I stubbed my toe about 5 or so times bur luckily no face-plants.

Found the word pretty quickly, with another educated guess on where the post the word on the trail, after finding the word we walked through a boy scout troop camping and left the park to head for home. Made it back into Owatonna on fumes. 2miles to empty

But now I am typing as we are waiting for our buffalo chicken strips at Perkins. Mark is updating his Facebook



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DAM cache at Wild River and Interstate Hike

Kris: We decided to go straight to Wild River and come back to Interstate since we needed to get there while the office was still open to borrow another GPS. Here's a rundown of our quick jaunt at Wild River -

2:20 Get to Trail Center and spend 15 minutes in line just to borrow out the GPS
2:45 Park down at the Trail Center and jog over to Stage 1 of the Safari cache
2:50 Get the Safari cache and think we have plenty of time to go get the DAM cache
3:05 Get to DAM cache site and can't grab the DAM cache because there are bikers on the overlook
3:10 I get somewhat impatient and casually walk a small trail to sneak a peek under the overlook and spy the DAM cache.
3:15 More people come to hangout on the overlook and so we sit on the bench, trying to be casual until they leave
3:17 Four scruffy looking hikers decide to put down their packs and grab a snack right outside the overlook area. No way I can get the DAM cache with them standing in view.
3:18 Mark and I try to figure out why the hell this park is so much busier than every other park we've been at...
3:20 People on the overlook finally leave. I start giving the hikers the evil eye hoping they will leave

3:23 I get impatient for the hikers to leave. I casually pretend to check out another foot trail along the other side of the overlook and crawl hands and knees up and under the overlook to grab the DAM cache. As I'm signing the DAM cache, Mark informs me more (friggin') people are walking our way.

3:25 I get the DAM cache put back in it's damn spot and we start our run back to the trail center.

Mark: DAM she is good!!

3:50 Get back to Trail Center and grab the history cache. Most expensive container I've seen!

3:58 Just make it back in time to return the GPS as the park lady was turning out the lights.

Mark: Unfortunately we still have to come back to Wild River State Park to complete their BIG Multistage History I Puzzle Cache. The cache in the picture gave us coordimnates to the 6 differant stage areas where we have to figure out clues. In the end it should be worth it, they are handing out a Pathtag to everyone who solves the puzzle. Bling Bling!!

Phew! Now all we had to go was get over to Interstate park in time to run the hiking trail and find the Club word. It was a very rocky trail but very pretty scenery going along the river.

Luckily the word was only about 1/2 mile down the 1 1/2 mile trail so we got that in time to hike/run back and take a few pictures on the overlooks and in the pothole area.

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2 down 2 to go

Kris: Picked up the Boom site cache with a little extra searching. Mark: A lot of extra searching.... spent way to much time searching for this one. We didn't have our GPS (loaned out for the day) and were trying to find it with just our iPhones. Ok that kind of sucked...note to others, use Google.com via Safari and not the Maps Application (Maps tries to find the closest address from GPS coords, Google.com in Safari show you the actual location) to pinpoint coordinates. Stepped out the depth of the earth cache at Boom Island and then headed out to William O'Brien.

Mark: What Kris failed to mention is that figuring out how deep the cave was was not one of the requirements, I need to read more carefully.

Long trail run here to a tradational cache and the Hiking Club word. Luckily we did the hike trail in reverse and found it a much shorter distance from the car. It was a very hilly run/walk up to where there was a cache placed (this park office had GPS units you could borrow) but we made the grab and headed back, in total about a 3.6 mile trail run.

Along the way I found a nice place to rest.

We needed to hurry out of here to make it to Wild River State Park before their office closed, need to borrow another GPS, and then then back to Interstate State Park before dark so we can get the Hiking club word and be done for the day and with the State Park along the St. Croix river.


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Mille Lacs Kathio - Check!

Kris: well I think we just did everything Mille Lacs Kathio State Park has to offer except camp

Picked up the park caches...




CHECK

Mark: This one was very nicely hidden. And during our jog to the final cache we ran through a planted row pine forest, you know the type, with all of the trees in a line and the ground soft with their needles, and if you are really lucky like we were, you get to listen to the wind through the pine trees. One of my favorite sounds! I took this picture which really gave a great feel for what I am talking about.

Redeemed our 10 critter coin and card and wild card patch...

CHECK

Got our Passport stamp...

CHECK

Ran the Hiking Club trail to get the park password. ( which might I add gave me a new appreciation for trail runners)....

CHECK

And climbed up 145 steep steps of the observation tower

CHECK :)

Mark: Kris highlighted it in the photo but from the tower you could see the bright lights of Grand Casino Mille Lacs and the huge expanse of Lake Mille Lacs in the background.

Headed home by way of Embers for dinner. Another fun day, wishing tomorrow wasn't Monday


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Another great day for caching - Mille Lacs

We just made it up to our caching destination for today. One of what might be the last super nice days of the season. We just picked up a few caches in Isle, MN


Now off into Father Henn State Park for the Safari hide and some trail running to pick up the Hiking Club word.



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