Archive for the ‘Geocaching’


Annual May Caching Trip to Northern Minnesota

Chuck and I headed up to Itasca County in Northern Minnesota for our annual “first weekend in May” caching trip (our 5th year running) and met up with Craig and Mike for a weekend of food, beer, and caching based out of Craig’s cabin in Nashwauk, MN.

I nearly lost my GPS at the second geocache we did, requiring another two mile round-trip hike to retrieve it and then we spent the day doing a ton of long hikes through many awesome parts of the Chippewa National Forest and other parks and waysides along the way. We got to the Laurentian Divide, saw plenty of lakes that had not iced out yet, and watched as four or five eagles took off together from a deer carcass that they had decimated next to the road right near the Cottonwood Lake Campground.

After blowing off Richie’s due to a gaggle of drunken baseball players, we ate at Marcell, MN’s Timberwolf Inn where I had the Tilapia Sandwich and both Chuck and Craig got their Aussie Burger. There was an on-site yellow lab that was quite possibly the best dog ever.

The end of the day included some more crazy long hikes through rolling terrain and several ticks, of which I was the only lucky recipient — none attached, dinner at the cabin and plenty of beer. We got up on Sunday morning, had an excellent breakfast cooked by Craig, and went and erased a DNF from Saturday before Chuck and I headed back down towards the city.

On our way back we stopped in Mora MN’s Sportmen’s Cafe and Drive In for a Hot, Open Faced, Turkey Sandwich and a Well Done Hot Ham and Cheese Sandwich which was topped off with a nice slice of rhubarb pie for me and strawberry ice cream for Chuck. The bill, before tip, was less than $17 and the food was pretty fucking good. The cafe was a hell-hole and a half but the regulars seemed to like it just fine. If you happen to be heading through Mora on MN-65 and you’re looking for some good pie and a surly waitress, the Sportmen’s Cafe might be the place for you.

Check out all the pictures from this weekend on Flickr here (camera).

It’s Tick Season Already?!

The Melt: Cottage Grove Ravine Park

On Saturday, I took advantage of the surprising weather forecast and joined up with Chuck for a day of caching in Cottage Grove. A bunch of new caches had popped up in Cottage Grove Ravine Park and Chuck suggested that we head out to nab them, along with many others, while enjoying the day.

We started a bit later than we are accustomed to (8:30) and eventually made it to the park itself just after 9. There were about 15 caches in the park and many of those had been hidden quite recently. Most of them were regular sized and several were nicely hidden ammo cans — my favorite. We hiked the entire length of the park to get almost all of the caches and were quite surprised to find that only one other caching group was out at the same time we were. I took a couple of pictures of the lake to show the receding ice but didn’t get any showing the snow that was still on the trails and in some of the deeper wooded areas.

Even though the weather has been warmer very recently, I was quite surprised to hear that tick season had already begun here in the Twin Cities. I seriously believe that the little blood sucking fuckers are getting more resilient every year and show up earlier and earlier even with snow cover still sticking around. Chuck already had several ticks on his pants after the third cache in the park (and the second in the woods). I found about 20 total yesterday and while I don’t have the same enthusiastic reaction (previously known as the “tick dance”) that I used to, I was not pleased to find the little bastards making their way up my clothing.

The next caching adventure I will likely have, especially with the new job starting soon, will be with Chuck and Craig “Up North” on our annual first weekend of May trip. With the 10 to 12″ of snow up there, I hope that the ticks will be able to hold off from their first hatch at least until after that but after finding them nearly crawling out of the snow piles this weekend, I’m not so sure I will be that lucky.

See all the pictures from Saturday here (camera).

Geocaching Trip: MN, IA and NE: January 18th - 21st, 2008

Somewhere in Rural Iowa

Chuck, Dave, Steve and I are currently on our annual Martin Luther King Day Jr Weekend caching trip. This year (the third year in a row) we’ve headed down through Des Moines and over to Omaha, NE for some fairly rigorous caching through sub-zero temps.

While temperatures at home were bottoming out in the -25F range, they were far more balmy here in IA and NE with the lows at -5F and highs just under +10F ;)

We have two more full days of caching and driving to do and we’ve already revisited a favorite of Dave and mine from 2005, Austin’s Steaks and Saloon where three of us enjoyed some amazing Omaha steak.

We’re hoping the predicted snow holds off and that the temps rise just a bit. I’m pretty tired of having to defrost my eyelashes to get my eyes to open and having to dry and warm up my socks under the floor heater in the truck between caches :)

See all the pictures from the trip so far here (camera).

Longest Stretch of Being Awake Since College

This weekend I had the longest uninterrupted span without sleep since college. I’m generally someone who goes to sleep by midnight and is up before 8. If I don’t get my ~8 hours I will find a way to make it up.

This weekend we were quite busy. On Friday night we went to watch the Minnesota Gophers go 0-3 (eventually 0-4 for the weekend) and start off with zero wins in their first four games since the WCHA began in 1959. Kim and Laura were surprised at their interest level in the game and so was I ;) We had pretty good seats and the action was certainly steady. Kim is really looking forward to seeing a couple of Gopher sporting events this year and into next. Our next will probably be Gopher’s Men’s swimming vs Arizona State in January. Woot.

On Saturday morning I woke up at 5:30 and headed out the door for caching in and around New Richmond, WI. We were trying to stay out of Minnesota and the hunting season that is raging on this side of the river. We did some some hunters out scouting the Waterfowl Production Areas and other public hunting grounds and did hear some gunshots off in the distance but nothing close to us — thankfully. The weather was absolutely perfect with just a slight chill in the air following the very chilly morning. Unfortunately the cold wasn’t enough to keep the freshly hatched ticks down and I came home with several very young ones running around my clothing/body. Yuck.

Kim met us in Lake Elmo at the Machine Shed and being that I was quite weak after too much walking on 1,000 calories, we went inside for dinner. Their menu was different than we were expecting but I was in no shape to care. We quickly ordered and ended up with a trip to the salad bar to get something into my quickly. The steak and chicken I ate were very tasty and I enjoyed the leftovers again this morning.

After the Machine Shed we headed over to Trader Joe’s in Woodbury following the suggestion of many of my co-workers and Kim’s cousin. While we were there I grabbed some polenta, turkey jerky, two bottles of cheap ass wine (I don’t know the difference anyway), and Kim got some stuff she was interested in. The place is entirely too small for the number of crazies packing the place and I just couldn’t understand the people who had entirely filled their carts with processed foods and organic vegetables as if they were stocking up for the end of the world.

We headed home and I went down to Northfield to hang out with Josh at the Rueb ‘n’ Stein until too late. I haven’t drank anything in about three months so I headed home just before 2. By the time we went to bed at 3 I was absolutely wrecked. With the time change this morning I was up too god damn early with the sun blaring in my face. 5 hours of sleep after that much time being awake (and doing stuff) was not enough.

After a train ride to downtown Minneapolis with Kim to pickup some items from her office that she needed to work from home today, I was just dead. While the train ride there was sardined because of the football game (109 yard TD? Sorry, #28 and his 295 yards doesn’t quite make up for that untouched blunder) the empty ride back was quite the perfect little nap before grocery shopping today.

So after grocery shopping and then heading over to Chris and Laura’s for turkey brats and other healthy food options (turkey brats taste like dry horse shit BTW) I should have joined Kim in an hour-long nap but instead I’m sitting here writing this pointless crap.

Does anyone even care? I didn’t think so.

BTW, I did some more research on my dropped PageRank and dropping rankings as a result and found that Google has done this to plenty of other high ranked sites and while no one really knows why it occurred everyone seems to believe it’s because of link selling. Sorry, I don’t have anything to do w/that shit so I have thrown that out the window. Read more on the shitty Google pulled here.

Anyway, I’m off to bed, finally.

Geocaching High Above Winona, MN

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).