Good morning everyone. In keeping with the North Dakota theme of this blog, this week's fun fact is about North Dakota. The county with the most geocaches is Cass county, in the South East of the state (includes the city of Fargo), with 441. Counties with the fewest are Steele county (Southwest of Grand Forks), Towner county (North of Devil's Lake towards the Canadian border), and Sioux county (South of Bismarck, towards South Dakota) with 2 caches each.
This week is part two of my camping trip to North Dakota and taking part in the North Dakota Geocaching Association Camping and Caching event. Saturday was the main day of the weekend, with a couple of games to kick off the morning. I was a bit late getting to the gazebo where the games were being held. Lack of sleep during the week (dealing with something), and my first night camping wasn't the best. Getting a little off topic for a bit; my camping neighbor to one side had the headlights of their car on and it shone right into my tent. If only Ralphie had borrowed me his Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-Shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock. He did say I might shoot my eye out. LOL Add to that, when the sun comes up in the morning, it's no longer dark in the tent, not conducive to sleeping in. Needless to say, I was tired and slow moving Saturday morning.
I finally made my way over to the gazebo. There was a scavenger hunt and a bingo game. For the bingo game, you needed to find another geocacher who accomplished something on the bingo card. Found a cache with over 500 favorite points, hid a cache in two different countries, had a geocache blown up by a bomb squad, and so on. I visited with some of the cachers that were hanging out at the gazebo. One thing that was at the gazebo, and started the night before was a post with arrows. You signed one of the arrows with your name, where you're from and how far away you've travelled.
This week is part two of my camping trip to North Dakota and taking part in the North Dakota Geocaching Association Camping and Caching event. Saturday was the main day of the weekend, with a couple of games to kick off the morning. I was a bit late getting to the gazebo where the games were being held. Lack of sleep during the week (dealing with something), and my first night camping wasn't the best. Getting a little off topic for a bit; my camping neighbor to one side had the headlights of their car on and it shone right into my tent. If only Ralphie had borrowed me his Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-Shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock. He did say I might shoot my eye out. LOL Add to that, when the sun comes up in the morning, it's no longer dark in the tent, not conducive to sleeping in. Needless to say, I was tired and slow moving Saturday morning.
I finally made my way over to the gazebo. There was a scavenger hunt and a bingo game. For the bingo game, you needed to find another geocacher who accomplished something on the bingo card. Found a cache with over 500 favorite points, hid a cache in two different countries, had a geocache blown up by a bomb squad, and so on. I visited with some of the cachers that were hanging out at the gazebo. One thing that was at the gazebo, and started the night before was a post with arrows. You signed one of the arrows with your name, where you're from and how far away you've travelled.
Back to my campsite to relax some more. It was early afternoon when I finally ventured out of the campground to find some of the newer caches that were placed. Across the highway from Icelandic State Park is the Pioneer Heritage Centre. A museum of yesteryear North Dakota. On the grounds is four geocaches. I caught up to WhiskeySowers and Mdiers as they found one of the caches. From there, we walked over to an old, and still functioning windmill.
I found the geocache here instantly. We all signed, but replacing proved to be more difficult. The holes needed to be lined up just right and there was only one way they'd line up. On to the next cache. This one took team work as we had to shimmy the container up a tube with our fingers. I thought I had a picture of this one. It was a very cool cache. If you haven't found it, then you'll have to take my word. LOL.
On to the last geocache on the grounds. WhiskeySowers and Mdiers had already found this one. Whiskey came with me to offer up any hints if needed. We were joined by another geocacher, who's name I don't remember. For this one, you needed to find the combination to the lock to gain access to the container itself. We searched in every possible place for a combination. The lock itself wasn't the dial type where you turn three times clockwise, twice counter clockwise and once clockwise. This lock had individual numbers that spun independently. Whiskey had offered up the first two numbers. Not knowing where to find the full combination, and only needing the other two numbers, I decided to brute force the combination. I wouldn't have tried this method during the Winter. I began, 00 tug, 01 tug, 02 tug, and so on until I got a kathunk. The lock is now opened. I won't say how many tries it took. Whiskey told us after where the combination was and how to find it.
From here, I did half of a new trail of caches that run along a bike path between Cavalier, and the park. Then it was back to my campsite. It was a hot day out, and by looking at my arm, I could tell that I had too much sun. I was slightly overcooked, but still pink and tender inside.
The evening started with a potluck supper, put on by the NDGCA. There was also prizes for the scavenger hunt, bingo card, a silent auction, and prizes just for signing the log for the event. One table was exclusively Manitoban. Joining me were fellow Manitoba geocachers Trove Chasers (they were camping the weekend as well), Mhz with Gord from Morris, okeeffeks, Awol, and JB. JAB007 was there for the day, but had to leave before the windup. If I missed anyone, my apologies. We tried to do a quick head count, and we figured there was between eighty to one hundred geocachers and family members. There was a group photo with us holding a sign with the number of geocaches we have found so far.
Back to Trycacheus' campsite for a bonfire and a night cache. The night cache was a temporary one set up just for us. Unlike typical night caches, this one had us finding clues and solving puzzles to get information that will help us unlock the cache at the end. We split up into two groups and went in different directions. The group I was in was coincidently led by Canadians, JB, K from okeeffek, and myself. The pressure was on for us Canadians to do well. Along the way, we came across something that wasn't part of the night cache, but just as cool to find.
That was one very cool spider web. As it turned out, both groups arrived at the final at the same time. Back to the campsite for some homemade campfire donuts, provided by weissfamily_m&ms. These were awesome. Just like mini donuts, but slightly larger. My mouth is watering just thinking about these yummy donuts. In the end, there was just four of left by the campfire. Trycacheus, weissfamily, JB, and myself. I finally parted ways around 12:30am and headed back to my tent for some sleep. Another early start the next day as there was one more event and more caches to grab.
That will be next week as I conclude the weekend with part three. Until then, be safe, peace out, enjoy, and have fun.
Really Wonderful Post!
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