Zippel Bay State Park

—Zippel Bay State Park—

(South shore of Lake of the Woods; Williams, MN)

One of the nice things about doing two geocaches in the same park is that you don't have very far to go to get to the next stop.  After we finished the Garden Island Alternate, we got ready to start the actual Zippel Bay Avian Adventure Geocache.  

Even though we have been to EVERY Minnesota state park this summer, we really have not actually SEEN all of them.  We have completed all of the geocaches – which really means that we have seen the part of the park that the ranger wanted us to.  It is part of the reason we want to revisit so many of the ones on our short list.  The advantage of doing two in the same park is that we actually get to see a bit more of it – which is always fun.

I decided that we should drive to the start of the next geocache (in hindsight kind of a waste of time), so we did see a bit more of the park.  When we got out of the cars (G&G Z. were following in their car), some decisions were made... First, Luke and I would look for the cache...  Secondly... Marcus wanted to stay behind and hang out with Grandma Z. and pretend to drive the car—one of his favorite games...

"Look, Grandma... I am driving and Penguin is helping out!"

So we left them behind in search of the prize. 

We didn't have to go far to get to the first set of coordinates... They were hanging in a tree by the lake...

If you look hard you can see the board on the left side of this picture.

The ranger here used the same trick as for the Garden Island Alternate: a little lamination on a board... We entered the second set of coordinates and off we hiked.

This time the trail did not follow the shoreline at all.  Instead, we headed down a path through the woods.  It wasn't far to the next stop—only about 1/3 mile—which doesn't seem far at all when the hike is so beautiful.

You can see that the fall colors were starting, but they were not in full bloom yet.

When we got the end of the trail (strangely enough at the parking lot we were at earlier in the day), we quickly found a sign that had the next clue.

We got this geocaching state parks thing down to a science!

From here our last destination was not far across the grass.

The last set of coordinates brought us very close to the lake again... The view was similar to before but still amazing.

Garden Island is somewhere out there, but too far to see from the south shore of Lake of the Woods!

Lots of driftwood washed up on shore.  Very pretty beach.  Almost like a coastline with the lake so large!

It took us a while to find the cache because the positioning of the GPS coordinates was off by a bit – probably only about 15 feet, but when you are close to a shore and a berm that can seem like a lot of space.  Fortunately, I found it pretty quickly – before we went digging through the woods on the wrong side.

Once I found it, it was kind of a pain to get it out of the woods.  Just like the alternate ammo box this one was chained to a tree.

Looking at the log we could tell all of the regulars (other geocachers whose names we always see in the logbooks) had already been here... I can't wait to see the final log and see how many people actually completed the challenge.

We went back to the car – where Marcus and Grandma were still playing.

There was one more important thing that happened on this trip.  My dad had been struggling with his GPS for a while because he couldn't figure it out.  Luke saved the day and helped him out... What a smart husband!

A sort of funny story...  My shoes got wet on Friday when we were at Big Bog State Rec Area.  I realized at some point during the weekend that there was an unpleasant smell in the car but couldn't figure it out.  I search and eventually figured out it was my SHOES!!!!

I loved these shoes; they were old and comfy, but at this point they also had a few holes in the bottom, so it was time to go!
I did it quickly once I figured out the problem and left them behind in Zippel Bay!

Good bye shoes... I will miss you!