Nerstrand State Park

Well, we headed off to Geocache #2 today.  One of the crazy things about the Minnesota Geocache Challenge is the logistics of the entire thing.  To start with there are a LOT of state parks to hit and to make it more difficult they have added 4 special spots that focus on the 4 biomes in Minnesota.  According to the website you are supposed to get all of the cards from the individual parks in each biome BEFORE you can get the coordinates for the biome geocache.  This is a pretty major logistics challenge considering I really don't want to have to go some of these parks twice considering their relatively remote locations.  I added a map (below) and stared the 4 biome geocaches (Lake Bronson, Savanna Portage, Nerstrand, and Camdem) and the final geocache (Itasca) and it is easy to see that it would be a lot of driving to go out and back twice to some of them.  So the question I wanted to resolve is if the geocache location was available now or if I REALLY had to bring all of the cards from that biome to prove that I had been to them.  I picked Nerstrand to figure this out because it is the closest so heading back there multiple times is not a huge deal (it still was 60 miles).  So the adventure begins...

We got running a bit later and Marcus fell asleep in the car... It was a longish drive down and we hit some construction so that slowed us down a bit.  If Minnesotans could just zipper merge (like the MN State Patrol advocates on the radio) it would be so much easier (but that is a different rant from Luke).

Marcus looking sleepy!

Vonnie ready to go!

We made it to the park and fortunately Marcus woke up form his nap ready for our big adventure.  The second we got there and pulled up the GPS I was able to see BOTH sets of coordinates (for the regular Avian Geocache and the Biome Geocache) so the mystery was solved and it is really good news for the future of this project.  Because it was only 18 degrees outside, I decided we were only going to do the Avian adventure today and come back in summer to see the park a bit better.

Since Marcus was a bit sleepy, we also decided to use the running stroller this week to push Marcus around.  He was pretty toasty warm and happy not walking.

 The ground wasn't very even so it was much easier pushing him then trying to have him walk.  You can't tell here but he was pretty happy!

It didn't take long and we were at the first location.  So one thing I have learned is that pretty much all of the first locations are at a kiosk close to the entry point and so they are pretty easy to spot.  If you look at the bottom of the left post you can see a box.  This is actually the final location for the geocache.  It is locked with a letter combination lock and in order to get it open we have to find all of the other locations and answer the right trivia question.

Location #1 – Trivia question

Way point #2 – Trivia question

Marcus at way point #2 – He was starting to get a bit cold here (notice his penguin came along for the ride, very fitting given the weather this day).

 You can see the path was pretty much just packed snow.  It wasn't too hard to make it through, but the stroller was also not super easy to maneuver through it.  When we hit the 3rd waypoint and entered the destination for the 4th waypoint, Marcus and I decided to head back to warm up while Luke moved on.  It wasn't really far but it was another 0.2 miles each way.

 Luke went onward and hit a small problem: we primarily use my IPhone for geocaching.  There is a great app from geocaching.com that has the GPS as well as all of the information about the cache... but it is on the iPhone.  We have also learned in the last few months that the iPhone does not like cold weather and turns off when it decides it is too cold.  That happened to Luke today, but that did not stop my AWESOME husband.  He found the hidden falls and the last cache without GPS by just guessing likely hiding spots and the direction/distance to get there while following the trails.  Very nicely done, indeed, if he doesn't say so himself!  The cold air had an edge to it though with the slight breeze.

Hidden Falls (about two to three feet of the stream were opened up with the water jumping over the rocks... ah, springtime)

We met back at the starting location and we now had the combination to open the lock.

You can see the excitement (perhaps) as we opened the box and got our card!

Then off to home we went!  2 down, 79 to go!

Luke pushing the stroller on the way out!  Brrr...

A few valuable lessons we have learned so far during the adventure....

• Make sure the Garmin GPS is in the car BEFORE we leave the house (did I mention we forgot this today...).
• Remember that the iPhone GPS dies in cold weather, so it if is your only GPS......
• Bring plenty of snacks and water (forgot the water today and I was thirsty).
• ALWAYS HAVE FUN (how can I not with Luke and Marcus)!!!!

One last funny video of the stroller being pushed in the snow.