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Geocaching and My Birthday Week Adventure

 Good morning everyone.

What has almost become an annual tradition with me, is the one big adventure during the week of my birthday.  I normally take a week of vacation during the week my birthday lands on.  This is always the second week of October.  I did have big plans for my adventure this year, but I scaled those back with the recent spike in gas prices.  When I plan, I have a tendency to plan big.  Bigger than what I can actually accomplish.

This year I had plans on grabbing letterbox caches along the Trans-Canada Highway in Saskatchewan.  That plan started to morph into something bigger.  There's a D5/T5 cache just East of Regina.  Maybe I can go that far and get that cache for my fizzy grid.

That's when plans changed.  I wouldn't be going that far.  I still wanted to go as far as the Saskatchewan border so I could do a Trans-Canada Highway Adventure Lab that runs from Brandon to the border.  That's the new plan.  Focus on Adventure Labs and any caches that are along the way.  I also wanted to drop off a travel bug at the border as well.  


My first find in Saskatchewan in over six years.  I would find one more before returning to the border to drop of a trackable.



The very first geocache I found in Saskatchewan six years ago.  It's still here, but the information building is gone.  I dropped off the trackable, but it didn't stay very long.  It was picked up before I got home to log it as dropped.



This looks different too.  I should come this way more often than once every six years.


Back home in friendly Manitoba.  Now to work on some Adventure Labs.


A quick stop in the town of Elkhorn for this Adventure Lab.  A very easy and quick AL.  


The car museum was closed.  There's supposed to be a traditional cache located somewhere along the front of the building.  I didn't see it and I had more Adventure Labs to do.


Another Adventure Lab in the town of Virden.  There's quite a few caches hidden here as well.  I only found one and the bonus cache to this AL.  If I had more time, I would have searched for more.


I'm not sure if this container cuts the mustard since it is glass and you're not supposed to use glass containers as a geocache.


I've been to Brandon a number of times, but I've never noticed this little church just off the intersection.  


That's one Trans-Canada Highway Adventure Lab complete.  Time to start the second one.  I have time working against me now.  I still want to detour to the North and find caches in the town of Forrest.  My younger son MewTwo goes to school there and he told me of a geocache he found behind his school.


Hopefully this tiger on the front of his school doesn't bite my finger off.


Halfway done the second Trans-Canada Highway Adventure Lab.  The sun has set.  The final two stages were done in the dark.  I got the answers needed.


As I logged all my finds the next day, my final total for my Birthday Week Adventure came out to: 2 Trans-Canada Highway Adventure Labs (10 stages each), 2 regular Adventure Labs (5 stages each), one letterbox, one multi-stage, 5 mystery caches (3 challenge and 2 AL bonus), and 14 traditional caches.  A total of 51 finds for the day.  This was done in over twelve hours from the time I left my apartment to the time I pulled into my parking stall.

That's all for this week.  Until next time, be happy, stay safe, hug your pets if you have one, and most importantly, have fun.

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