Yesterday, Chuck, Dave and I spent the day caching in Winona which included much time hiking up and down the sides of the bluffs that line the sides of the city up Highway 61 from Red Wing on down.

Our first stop was at the “Kitchen Cove Cache” which is located about 500 feet above the road below and offers excellent views of Winona and the bluffs on the Wisconsin side. I, being scared of heights, did not particularly care for the hike up or watching my friends scale (hand over hand) towards the top of the bluff while I stayed where I was, shaking nearly uncontrollably, worried I would bump my way to serious injury below at a slip of my white knuckled fingers.

After Dave descended from his perch another 50 feet above me, he began to walk me down from my relative safe zone but stopped and told me to turn to my left (no my other left) and look down at my feet. I had been standing less than a foot from the cache for the last 20 minutes — too scared to look down… heh!

We spent a little bit of time in and around downtown Winona and then began a trip North again, through the crazy amount of traffic of Fall Colors watchers, and found a cache about 650 feet above the road level and well over 1,500 over Highway 61 below which is depicted above.

I had visited Winona to hike the bluff back in 2005 and was thrilled to get back to do some more. I really need to get back here with Kim one of these days and drag her up to the top to enjoy the beauty that I only seem to find the time for while searching for ammo boxes full of shit that no one wants.

Check out a video for a panoramic shot here:

See all the pictures from geocaching in Winona here (camera) and here (mobile).

Out at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum with Kim. A 1000+ acre facility owned and operated by the University of Minnesota that includes workshops, guided walking tours, a 3 mile drive, and numerous gardens.

Kim had wanted to come yesterday but due to me taking so long after setting up for the MnGCA Cannonball Run, we postponed it until today. Good thing — I had walked around 6 miles on Saturday and spent 6 hours on my feet at the Ike Reilly Assassination show.

We toured the gardens immediately surrounding the Vistors’ Center first. They have some really nice displays, waterfalls, and flowers.

After that, we moved on to the 3 mile long car tour. We stopped at several of the exhibits including the shade trees, shrubs, and roses.

Finally, we parked at the Iris exhibit and walked from there to several of the “Secret Garden” displays including miniture gardens on copper bowls which were Kim’s favorites. We meandered up to the Rose Garden and toured what they had in bloom. Most of the garden was in the early stages but offered plenty of nice places to sit and chat.

Overall a great day. I took over 100 photos between my hiptop and my digital camera. At least a few turned out ok ;)

See all the pictures from today here (mobile) and here (camera).

Chuck and I made our annual caching trip to Northern Minnesota yesterday with a caching expedition around Hibbing and Bovey, MN. The Iron Range is one of our favorite places to cache as the cache quality is wonderful, the hikes are long, and the views are fantastic.

We started the day out caching in the middle of nowhere between Cromwell and Cloquet on some *nasty* minimum maintenance roads. After spending about 45 minutes getting to the first cache I picked no less than 30 ticks off of my untreated pants. The reward of seeing a bald eagle swoop past us on the way out made it more than worth it. Immediately after getting back to the car I changed out of my untreated pants and into my permethrin treated jeans for the rest of the day. I’m sure that the two wood ticks on my upper thighs at the end of the day came from this part of the day.

After the first three caches we made a beeline for Hibbing where Team Hooligan and Minnesota Gadget Girl live. They were kayaking that morning near Grand Rapids and we had plans to meet up with them after lunch so we cleared most of Hibbing out of caches including Joboo’s “Room with a View” which offered stunning views!

We had lunch and headed towards Grand Rapids and met up with Hooligan and MGG in Bovey right off of 169. We did a bunch of great caches with them and eventually met up with their kayaking buddy “Kayak Sailor” for a few more. Team Hooligan and Minnesota Gadget Girl suggested that we make the 2.5+ mile round trip hike to “Garfield” which offered excellent vista and close up views of one of the most gorgeous pit mine lakes around! Certainly well worth the sunburn and dehydration for this one!

Kayak Sailor is also an expert at “rock surfing” which saved us a lot of time between caches!

I came home with two ticks, eight different foot blisters, and sunburn on my neck, checks, arms, and nose. We hiked no less than 15 miles yesterday and enjoyed every single bit of it.

If you’re looking for some great hikes with amazing views on the Range, let me know, I can tell you where to go :)

See all the pictures from today here (mobile) and here (camera)