As you may have read in the last blog, we purchased a handheld GPS unit for geocaching. I am not sure we knew what we were getting ourselves into!
I have seen the advertisements saying "for fun and exercise, get into geocaching." Also..."It is a great way to get exercise and discover new areas."
Now wait just a second here! I claim false and misleading advertising.
Please allow me to explain.
OK, the day after Thanksgiving we decided not to participate in the carnage exhibited at the stores. Heck, if I wanted to get beat up like that, I just would have gone to work. At least I would be covered under workers compensation.
Anyway, We looked at geocaches in our area and read that one was located in Minneopa State Park just a few miles from our home. I downloaded the coordinates into the GPS and struck out for a leisurely day in the park.
Well, so we thought. We stopped at the Ranger's office and purchased a new annual park permit seeing how ours expired last month. I asked the ranger if the cache was still out in the park and he said "I think so". I should have had my suspicion hat on at that point.
So we left the station and turned on the GPS thinking this would be easy. We walked about a half mile and the GPS was counting down....20 feet...19...18...17...16...you get the idea. When we arrived at the spot we could not find the green ammo can that was the cache. Man, we must have looked like old people searching for shells on the beach as we wandered in circles for over a half hour.
At that point, we headed back to the Ranger Station to tell him the ammo box was missing. He looked up and said, did you find the big kiosk that had glass on all four sides with park rules and colorful posters? Well, yes we did Mr. Park Ranger and there was no ammo box anywhere within a quarter mile radius of it.
That is when he took off his cap and wiped his brow saying " yuh know, everyone has trouble with that out here. You have to go the kiosk and there is a little piece of paper displayed among the colorful posters giving you the coordinates to the site."
Now what is that all about? The coordinates are listed on the website and there is no mention of the fact that this is a multi step process.
He had the upper hand as he was wearing a badge so I decided not to give him grief.
So off we treked, another half mile back to our starting point. So we hiked one and a half miles so far and we had not really even started. From that site we loaded in the new coordinates manually, after reading the instruction book for about a half hour. Off we went following the pointer on the GPS.
Now this looked really easy, given the fact that there were no hints, just the latitude and longitude. The machine said .48 miles to the cache. We went by some great waterfalls and LOTS of steps up and down. Pictures will follow the story.
It looked like we were going in a circle and the numbers were not decreasing. The trails were leaf covered and slippery with some huge drop offs to the rocks below. After a while (two miles) we thought we would take off through the woods and cut some time off. So we scaled hills that were a good 60 degrees up. Now that can be a challenge through dense brush, leaves and trees. It was kind of like driving in the mountains, you cross one pass and then there is another. Being the adventures we are, we trudged ahead and finally heard sounds of civilization again. Oh my God, we are entering the human race again. We saw a highway! What the hell, this was highway 99 that turns into highway 169/60 leading to Lake Crystal, Minnesota. At least we were still in Minnesota!
After considering three options, we headed off again. What three options you ask?
1. Call our son to pick us up...nope, don't like to admit failure.
2. Head off back into the woods and hope for the best.
3. Throw ourselves off the cliff.
We decided on option number two.
So back into the dense forest we went. Every step we took was a challenge with the picker bushes that seemed to wrap around us in hopes of squeezing the little life we had left out of us.
To make a long story short, we found our way through Minnesota's version of the Amazon and found familiar surroundings.
After composing ourselves, we thought that since we had come this far perhaps we could re-group and find the cache. We studied the GPS and struck out again. After about a quarter mile the trail ended and was blocked off because of a washout. We detoured around it and kept going. Finally, common sense took hold and we discoved that we were not getting closer so we doubled back and found our truck.
Now after an experience like that one would think that alcohol would become involved. Nope, we sat in the truck and ate turkey and stuffing sandwiches!
After six very difficult miles you would think we would be totally turned off with this "fun and exciting" adventure. Nope, we actually felt good afterwards. We got some really good exercise and saw some beautiful scenery.
During this ordeal we took some pictures for you to enjoy.
Sue moving leaves with her walking stick looking for ammo box.
Standard state park building
Some of the Falls
Other Pictures of the Park
In spite of the near death experiences we encountered in this park, we did have a grand time.
As if we didn't have enough of this monkey business, we took off on another adventure once we let the park.
To find out more you will have to join us again soon for another adventure of "Now What Are They Doing?"
