North Dakota Camping and Caching event, Day 2

Good morning everyone.  Did you know that there are 108 active web cam geocaches in the United States?  They are located in 39 out of 51 states, including the District of Columbia.  Canada has six web cams in four provinces.  Neither North Dakota or Manitoba have web cams.

It's day two of my trip.  Friday, June21st.  I woke up to see that it had rained a bit.  I want to grab a few more caches in Williston before heading back out on the highway.  One thing I saw quite a few of in my travels is wood carvings from dead trees.  Instead of cutting the tree right down, an artist created a carving.  There is a park in Williston with a whole bunch of these carvings.  Quite impressive to see.  The one pictured below is at the Williston Visitor's Centre.

The next cache is a story in itself.  I pulled up to GZ and made my way over to the host.  As I got close to the fence, something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye.  It's a cat, with a mouse in it's mouth.  They're both dead.  Second time I've encountered a dead cat near ground zero.  Both times in North Dakota.  What's up with that?  I just hoped that the cache wasn't under the cat.  As I searched, it began to rain.  It started to rain even harder.  I retreated to the safety of my car with hopes of waiting for this downpour to pass.  After several minutes, it had let up some, but not enough.  I decided that I won't melt in the rain and ran out to give it another try.  Success this time.

All the caches I was finding this morning in Williston belong to GeoJangie.  I took a pic of the train to show that I did find the cache.  What I didn't realize at the time (I saw this as I uploaded pictures for this blog) that you can see the dead cat by the fence.

One more cache before pulling out of Williston.  This particular one was featured recently in GeoJangie's blog as part of the Cache Advance Geo-challenge of the month.  You can read more about the challenge and her blog here > GeoJangie's blog.  This was a very creative hide, and has the potential to gather many favorite points.

On the road to Dickinson.  Geocaching is more interesting when you get off the main highway and take some of the backroads.  This is where I started to encounter the Badlands.  I find the views of this area of the planet to be breathtaking.  This pales in comparison to what I'd encounter later on in the day.  

Something else you could come across when taking the country roads, people having issues with some of the signs.  It looks like someone didn't like the fact that the road turns left up ahead.

There's the old building as well that you'll find when taking the backroads.  Old barns, school houses, homesteads.  Still standing as a reminder of simpler times when the pioneers were still settling the land.

Since I'm so close to the Western border of North Dakota, I may as well make the detour and find a cache in a new state.  I can now claim Montana as a State that I have found a cache in.  That completes a 2018 challenge of mine.  A new state or province.  I continued my drive down on the Montana side of the border, claiming a total of ten caches before crossing back into North Dakota.  The drive was uneventful.  I could see the badlands out my driver side window on the North Dakota side.  Not much in the way of badlands on this stretch of highway.

Another cache that I had on my bucket list was 'Painted Canyon Overlook' GC238GK.  It has the second most favorite points in North Dakota.  It's an Earthcache with an awesome view.  There is a hiking trail that takes you down into the canyon.  I opted to not do that as I was already running late for the kickoff event for the Camping and Caching event.

(another view of Painted Canyon)

I made it to the Patterson Lake Recreation Area for the kickoff event.  The festivities had already begun, but that's ok.  I was greeted by many friendly and familiar North Dakota cachers.  It was good to see everyone again, since I haven't seen them since last year's camping and caching event.  For the first day of summer, it was windy and a little on the cool side.  I had my hoodie on and I was starting to get chilled by the end of the evening.

This year's event featured a unique way of signing in.  Jenga.  Just like the game, you had to pull out a playing piece that hasn't been signed yet, sign your name and place it on top without the stack toppling over.  I was successful in getting a piece out and signing.

Things started to get interesting as the stack wobbled but never toppled later on.  I was busy chatting with gnies, JB, GeoJangie, and others when I heard the crashing of all the wood pieces.  Since I wasn't paying attention, I believe it was the wind that toppled the stack over.

Time to check in to my cheap hotel.  The location worked out very well as it was close to the next two events.  As for the hotel itself, I'd say this one was the dumpiest of the three I'd stay in.  A lack of available electrical plugs for me to use.  As I was unloading my car, I spotted my blue extension cord that I use in the Winter to plug my car in.  Idea!!  I grabbed that and was able to plug in my laptop, charge my phone, and plug my CPAP in.  I also had to rearrange some furniture so I was sitting under a light.  As for my battery packs for my phone, I used the bathroom plugs to charge those up.  It wasn't a bad hotel.  It just needs some TLC.  It served its purpose for the price I wanted to spend.

Monthly goal update:  Day #2 saw 35 finds in North Dakota, bringing my grand total for the trip to 50 and overall to 175.  Just twenty five more to go.  I added four new counties.  Just one county shy of that goal.  Attended my second event.  Need to attend one more.  I found caches in eight counties (5 in North Dakota and 3 in Montana), a new personal best.  Speaking of Montana, new state added to my map.  I can check off that goal.

That's it for day #2 of my trip.  Next week is day #3 and the all the fun that came on the main day of the weekend event.  Until then, be happy, be safe, hug your loved ones, enjoy life, and most of all, have fun.  Peace out.