crEasing into Retirement: One of Three ND Camping and Caching Adventures

Last week we spent some time camping and caching in North Dakota and Minnesota. We had three specific goals for the trip. After spending some time celebrating my Mom's 91st birthday with my brothers and her brothers, we headed farther north and east.

The first and top priority for the trip was to find geocaches in some specific counties in those two states. We wanted contiguous geocached counties from Canada to Mexico. Getting just a couple more in MN or 3 more in ND would complete the challenge. (We had originally planned to do that when we thought we would be spending August traveling to Seattle, stopping at Glacier National Park and traveling home through the Canadian provinces along the US border then coming home through those needed counties. That trip hopefully will happen August 2021.)

We camped in the community of Hillsboro, about half-way between Fargo and Grand Forks. Quiet. Not many campers. Perfect location. Great price. Great WiFi. It met our needs. Monday morning we set out to complete the first of three goals on this trip.

we crossed the Red River of the North

one of several murals in Hallock

I realized on the way that a set of 5 new caches called an Adventure Lab had recently been released in Hallock. We took the time to walk the downtown area and complete the AL, but we also needed to find at least one physical cache in the town as there were not very many in the county. Adventure Labs do not count towards county geocache finds.

MN counties prior to the trip

green means we have found at least 1 geocache in that county

then back across the Red River of the North

the two circled counties were added to our count on Saturday on our drive to Hillsboro

originally we started the trip at 13 ND counties

Hubby had the roads/highways selected to make the most of our road trip. He had researched some geocaches, but as is typical with our road trips, I look as we travel and we make changes to the original plan. This was one of the changes.

Last January or February a geocacher from ND and a friend of his from Manitoba attended one of my monthly geocaching events in Apache Junction. Hubby spent time visiting with them, and the cacher from North Dakota gave out some promotional geocaching SWAG. I remembered his name when geocachers here in Sioux Falls planned to drive to Gilby ND to attend one of his events last month. Then our friends Jon & Sherry talked about stopping in Gilby ND to find his caches because his unique, creative, puzzle geocaches were featured in several youtube geocaching videos. Trycacheus has been a geocacher since 2008, but recently has received some national attention. And for good reason.

memorial to a couple of local bootleggers

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out where the cache container could possibly be located based on the hint, the information in the description, and information from previous geocachers. (Hubby was at another headstone in the cemetery.) After more time than I like to admit, a light bulb came on, after thinking about what looks different. After removing the metal plate, I found the container. Very clever and the first of this kind of find! (Trycacheus had permission to place the cache and was working with the county historical society in two counties, promoting historical oddities.)

a water fountain erected by the local

Women's Christian Temperance Union

"The cache is at one of the few remaining water fountains constructed in the late 1800 and early 1900's by the Women's Christian Temperance Union, an organization founded in an effort to persuade states to prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages. According to Wikipedia, at the 1874 organizing convention of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the members were urged to erect drinking fountains in their towns so that men could get a drink of water without entering saloons and staying for stronger drinks. Often the drinking fountains that were erected offered a place for horses to drink, another place for dogs, and of course, a place for people to drink. The fountain in Park River is one of several still in existence in 28 states and Australia."

placed in maybe 1884???

we found the log sheet

another Trycacheus geocache

We ended the day in Grand Forks where two Adventure Labs were located. We really enjoy the AL caches because we learn about interesting aspects of a community we probably would not otherwise know. Sometimes we can walk to all the 5 stages like at the Grand Forks AFB Airpark.