Southeastern MN caching day trip

Kris: Last Sunday was what we dedicated as our FREE day as we haven't had an entire day to do whatever we wanted to in a long time.  So of course....we slept in and took off driving south to go geocaching all day.  Our intention was to drive STRAIGHT (Mark: Straight if I would have taken 52 and not 35W, adding at least 45 minutes to our drive time) down to the two state parks we wanted to pick up for the day and then spend the rest of the day caching our way home.  But about 3/4 of the way down there we spotted this really cute little road with an old bridge and stream running through it.  (shiny object!!) So we turned around and spent a few minutes exploring and taking pictures.

The first park we got to was John A Latsch and it's a super small park.  We got the Safari multi in probably less than 2 minutes and then we were after the other cache in the park that supposedly had a coin in it.  But walking past this sign, I was wondering what we were in for.....

591 old wooden stairs later, we were at the top of this climb with very tired legs but had a great view over the river.  Another couple came up and took our picture for us.   She said "kiss him!"...so I did ;)

The cache was a short hike past the viewing spot but easy to find as it was called "Timberrrr!" and was a regular.   Not sure how great a muggle would feel accidentally stumbling across this ammo can in the woods.

  

Explosive is maybe a bit scary......

Once we finished up here we got a few quick caches and got distracted by a few that hadn't been found in a long time.   The first one was a multi that took Mark's poor Ford Focus onto roads built for a Jeep.   

When picking up the final stage way up in this remote area, sure enough a muggle comes by on a 4-wheeler.  There we are probably looking all suspicous and he asks "you two seen any other people around up in here?  We've had troubles with people setting fires"   Then (it gets better...)  The guy mentions some cool caves just up the road.  Not really pointing at the road on the left or the right, we decide to see if they are up the road on the left (wrong!!!)  As the road narrows and becomes increasingly hard to navigate much less turn around I notice we pass a "Private Property, No Trespassing" sign.   Having no where to turn around we keep going up (and I keep waiting to hear a shotgun) find a place to turn around by this house and make our way back down.   Sure enough, we meet up with this old truck with two older gentlemen and a dog.   We stop as we were passing each other and he gives an interesting grin...."Whatcha doin' up here?"  Sigh....I figured geocaching was a bad answer so we went with playing dumb, didn't see the sign, someone said something about caves and we couldn't find a place for our little city car to turn around.  Great!!  I'm waiting to be summoned to court for either starting forest fires or trespassing.

Once that fun was over, we noticed another cache with a relatively high difficulty rating that also hadn't been found in awhile and had a coin in it. Mark: We had juts gotten done finding a graveyard cache, one of Kris' favoties when we noticed this other high difficulty cache and were debating about trying to grab it or not when Kris mentioned that most likely the coin was still in the cache so I turned the car around and we headed to where the description talked about parking, As we drove to the parking spot we got to within .1 miles of the cache, remember that as I continue to tell this story. So we park and head up the trail, which turned out to be a ATV trail, kind of rough in a few places but plenty wide. (The picture below gives you an idea of what the trail was like) So we started our hike and it was not to long before we were passed by a family out on their ATV's, we let them go by and continued on our way. We walked for quite a ways and during that time I kept asking how far, .25 miles, then it was .3 miles and everytime I asked, Kris kept telling me I don't want to know. As we were approcing a final bend, hopefully back twords the cache we were passed by a second group on ATV's this time there was about 8 or so, OK this is their trail after all. So we get to the bend in the trail and finally we start heading towards the cache, as it turns out we ended more then a half mile from the cache before we actulley started getting closer. Eventually we got to GZ and made the find VERY quickly, not to hard considering it was an ammo can leaned up aginst a tree trunk. We still had to be stealthy as the ATV'ers were still up here at the lookout at the end of the trail. Unfortunally as we opend the cache and investigated we saw that the coin was missing, the coin sleeve (with the tracking #) was still in the cache and there was a entry in the log dated with todays date, "found while peeing, this is my first geocache." One of the ATV'ers found the cache stole the coin and signed the log. Sigh..... All that way and the coin was gone, that was the main reason why we decided to try for this cache, and it had not been found for months prior to this day. We were so close, remeber me mentioning being .1 miles from the cache. Since then I have checked on Geocaching.com and no one else had logged a find or logged the coin, so even though they signed the cache and replaced it, it was muggled.

Weird you can't really tell from this picture if we are looking up or down hill :)

We were definitely getting tired by this point but had to pick up Frontenac State Park so we scooted over there pretty quickly, got our passport stamp, safari cache and then headed out for a nice quick 2.5ish mile trail run to pick up the Hiking Club word.   Very pretty park with some steep terrain on the trails

Kris heading up a long a-- hill

All in all we ended up getting a little TOO distracted by caches that took a long time so we didn't get a high number of finds this day but it was quite the adventure.  3 multis, 4 traditionals, 2 earthcaches and 1 virtual.

Next adventure (tomorrow) we are heading down to Otak 2010 GeoFest - Bike, Hike, & Crawl in Mankato.  Bringing the mountain bikes along for the caching part and then hopefully will have time for a nice run as well. 

#Geocache365: Week 4 - August 30th - September 5th

Mark: Week 4 found us still working on finding the stages of Golden Valley History and then on Sunday we headed out for a 1 day geocaching road trip to grab a couple more State Park Safari caches.  Kris:  It ended up more of a hiking adventure than a road trip :)

Monday: Day 22 - Mosquitos were so bad they almost carried off Truffle.

Mark: Out in Waconia again, this time with Truffle and before Kris' chiro appointment we decided to grab our cache of the day.  Kris:  Yikes the mosquitos were vicious!  It was a short walk into the woods followed by a quick signature and carrying little Truffle briskly back OUT of the woods.

Tuesday: Day 23 - Woof, Woof, Woof.

Mark: This was a quick grab on our way out to a Fajita cruise on Lake Minnetonka.  Kris: Cute little park with this pretty walk through area.  The cache had a super cute name and very fitting for the item it was stuck to :)
 

Wednesday: Day 24 - Shhhhhhh.... People sleeping.

Mark: This cache was a direct result of one of visiting one of the stages for Golden Valley History cache. Great example of a quick fun multi-cache.  Kris:  Bleh!! I never do like cemetery caches but luckily this multi didn't actually make you go in the cemetery.  You had to use information from within the cemetery but could stay on the outside of the fence.

Thursday: Day 25 - Coffee and a Cache, and yes Kris is throwing her gangster signs for 25.

Mark: After stopping for coffee in the morning we decided to get our cache of the day out of the way early.  Kris:  OK walking closer to GZ it was obvious that it had to somehow be ON this bridge but the GPS was jumping all over the place within 20ft of either end of the bridge.  By reading some of the prior logs, we were able to narrow our search to a particular feature on the bridge to make the find.  One muggle did come by as Mark was under the bridge so he sat like a silent troll while I politely said "good morning" and made it look like I was just hanging out enjoying my morning coffee ;)  Oh, and this was our Day 25 find, hence the gangsta signs.

Friday: Day 26 - Found it as the light was fading fast.

Mark: This was supposed to be a quick find on the way to the store, but by the picture you can see we were running out of light. Can you see Kris in the pic?  Kris:  This is a little less accessible in the summer since there is a lot of tall brush and potentially hidden poison ivy (I'm a little paranoid...) but we found a sort of path in to near the cache location.  There were a few muggles on the trail so I tried to hide as best I could ;)

Saturday: Day 27 - 13 Stages later we found "someones" stash.

Mark: After almost two weeks of visiting the various stages and figuring out the final location we finally made the find.  A very long multi but also very fun!  Kris: This was a fun multi for history buffs since it made you find a lot of historical places around Golden Valley that you would otherwise drive right by.  The final stage was obviously "found" by a critter who packed the cache location full of their winter stash.  Yes folks, we did put it all back before we left.

Sunday: Day 28 - 591 steps, good grief! At least we made the find!

Mark: One of our stops during our Labor Day weekend State Park Safari challenge road trip. The trip to and from the cache is what made it our cache of the day.  Kris:  Holy flip that was one hell of a climb!  I suppose when the sign at the bottom says "difficult, one hour, 450 elevation" we should have had a pretty good idea of what we were getting into.  Cache we were after is called "Timberrr!" so we knew what we were looking for.  A long climb and short hike brought us right to the big beacon lining the path.

Grandma's Marathon - Caching Duluth and a Few State Parks

Kris: Last weekend we were up in Duluth to run the Irvin 5k on Friday night and then watch a handful of friends run the Grandma's Marathon the next morning.  Friday we walked through the expo and there was  a discount on registrations for the Rock 'n' Roll races so we are now officially signed up to get married at the Las Vegas R 'n' R Marathon!!

The 5k went ok but the weather was hot and very windy.   So we both missed our goal times but I managed a new PR and Mark won his age group (yay! my wonderful speedy man! :)  It was a ton of fun cheering on our friends along the marathon course.  Mark: After the 5K we drove about 14 miles to Fon Du Lac to attend a Geocaching get together, it was a nice chance to meet up north geocachers but at the same time we saw a few familiar faces. After the gettogether we found a very challanging cache, had to follow a trail deep into the woods and then navigate to the bottom of a rack wall/cliff.

Kris: Mark did one of his infamous "in action" photos when he went out on the course to run a few steps and snap a picture with his buddy Steve.



After the marathon was over and the marathoners were showering and napping, we took off to cache out to the Minnesota Point and back.   It's such a beautiful little hike.  We were snapping nature photos along the way.

 

There was also an abandon building and remains of a lighthouse that we stopped to take photos of.  

 

Mark: Technically we are not supposed to be able to get to the lighthouse, there is a chain link fence surrounding the ruins but someone at some point tore down a big hole in the fence and it looks like people have been in and around the light house for years. Take a look at the names that have been scratched in the bricks.

Truth be told, I have been wanting to get back to see this lighthouse (remians) for several years. Last time I was here was not as good as an experience. ;)

Kris: There was a cache at this location called "Ah, sweet relief".  Yes folks, that's an old outhouse :-P

We picked up a virtual and an earthcache that I didn't have before leaving town and also snapped a photo of our friend Steve by the Grandma's Marathon logo stamped on the ground by the finish.

Congrats again Steve on becoming a Marathoner! :)

On the way home we picked up our Passport Club, Hiking Club and Safari Challenge caches at 3 more state parks.

The first park we stopped at was Jay Cooke and this is probably one of my two current favorite parks!  Granted we were there hiking and TIRED after about 3 hours but the paths were great, the scenery was beautiful and they had this great swing bridge.  There was the park multi, a traditional and an earthcache that we picked up. Mark: I loved this park! Everyone should take the time to stop on there way to or from Duluth and spend some time at Jay Cooke.

 

Kris: Second park was Moose Lake.  This was a simple park but well taken care of.  Unfortunately I think we picked up a tick or two here (hate them!!  freak out over them actually.....).    Took a couple pretty pictures and unfortunately missed the Virtual Cache since the office was closed but we got the multi. Mark: I think we have started a new tradition of taking a picture with every state park sign. We have gotten really good at balancing the camera on the car to take these pictures.

Kris: Last park was Banning and we did NOT like this park at all. It's the first one we've been too that we were very disappointed by.   We got stage one of the multi and couldn't figure out how to get to stage two without going through a largely muddy, tick-infested area.   After Mark pulled about 20 off himself and the same off of me, I was thoroughly unhappy and we decided that I would go for the Hiking Club word while he braved the trail to the second stage.   Both of us ended up going along muddy, wet trails that had tall grass growing on them.   And the second stage of the multi was in the absolute opposite direction of the high points of the park.   I just couldn't wait to get out of the park. Mark: I honestly think that this was a case of the park ranger really did not understand the point of the Safari caches (Family friendly) and really didn't care either. The final stage was .8 miles from the first stage and was at the intersection of two trails, laying on the ground with just some birch bark laying on top of the cache "hiding" it. Very disappointing and a gurentee that we will not be visiting Banning again.

Kris: Luckily as I was stomping my way back to the car, there was a deer on the trail that actually let me walk up to within about 10 feet of him (or her...not sure).   That was the high point of the trip through Banning.   I took a picture, thanked the deer for brightning my horrible experience in this park and got the hell out of there.

We stopped for dinner and I was having a horrible time NOT freaking out as Mark plucked another 5+ ticks off of me and another 4 that were in my hair and probably 10 off of himself. 

DON'T GO TO BANNING STATE PARK!!  I'm hoping the complaints in the Geocaching.com log will get them to change their coordinates.  That is not family friendly nor does it highlight the parks better features at all!

On another topic, we finally found a few moments last night to plan our veggie garden...

BEFORE

 

AFTER :)

So that's all I can think of for now.  Tonight we have a meeting with our Ragnar team and then tomorrow morning are competing with my boss, our friend Jeff in the Tri-Loppet.  Jeff is paddling, I'm running, Mark is biking.  And then on Sunday we are doing the Lake Waconia Tri as a relay too.   I am swimming, Mark's brother Michael is biking and Mark is running.  

Should be a fun-filled, tiring weekend :)

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....)

Chilly weekend caching and another event cache

Kris: Heading out this chilly morning (20 degrees F) to pick up another State Park or two on the south side of the cities. Hoping I have enough layers on to keep me warm! Not running today, just going to hike it. There are a few letterbox caches in Sakatah that would be nice to grab since I haven't gotten any of those types yet.

Side note: stopped at Michael and Cari's new house this morning to drop something off. So happy for them but also jealous of the seriously awesome place they got for a great price!!

So to briefly recap yesterday, we were picking up temp caches all week as part of the Poker Fun Run event. Yesterday morning the final cache was placed at 3 am so when one of the dogs decided to wake us up at 5am by throwing up on the foot of the bed ( sigh...) we saw the cache and couldn't resist getting up to go for it. Somewhat unsurprisingly we are second to find.
Went back to my place to take care of the cats and get in a quick nap before bringing my car in for routine service and scouring the area for caches until the event at 4:30 pm. And what a fun event! Well run by cachers RudeRat and Red Devil - we played multiple games of poker/ Texas hold em /etc with different cards we got for getting the temp caches during the week. Unfortunately we didn't win any prizes but had a great time meeting new people and catching up with friends. It was definitely a "who's who" event of Minneapolis cachers :)
Here is a pic of our Wild Card hats:



So back to today, we are heading out soon and will report back on anything exciting

PS - and to the cacher(s) that picked up the travel bug I dropped yesterday and were too impatient to wait for me to log it in the cache this morning and just moved it from it's old location screwing up it's travel logs which is extra sad because it's a brand new bug and now it's first move is actually wrong and was "stollen" from my inventory last night and now looks like it moved out of it's first location twice ....("inhale")... please at least give me a day to move the inventory and obey proper caching etiquette instead of messing up it's route. Thank you...

PPS - due to technical difficulties and me not realizing it was because my app needed an update, this is being posted at 5 pm instead of 11 am when I wrote it :-P
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Location:Owatonna, MN

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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