I normally split these multi-day excursions up and only post one a day, but since these are just two of these, I’m kicking them both out tonight.
Day 2 was a little bit harder because we were tired from the first day and from staying up later than usual. We slept in until 9 and didn’t get out of the house until 10, then dawdled some more getting breakfast. Based on our energy level and Jon’s headache, we decided to stick to caches that had lower ratings for difficulty and terrain.
Our first stop was City Park, where we scored five caches to start the day off. The park is big from the outside, but being on the inside, it seems even larger. It has a splash park and sports fields and water slides…it’s a pretty busy area of MHK. Being that it was early, there weren’t many people out, so we were able to make some stealthy finds.
Manhattan started getting busy, so we headed out into the outlying areas to hunt. One of the finds took us down a two-trail type of road that made us feel like we should have a jeep, not an Impala. The scenery was great though, and the cache was worth the trip.
Another cool cache we found was at an old church and cemetery, but coming upon it from the road, the top looks like a castle tower.
One of the cool things about this cache was that the owners had placed a disposable camera in there for people to take their picture with. I’m pretty sure Jon snapped us before I was ready and was licking my lips or something, so I have a feeling that’s going to be a pretty silly picture.
After finding a few more off the highway, we decided to go to Ogden. It wasn’t in our original plan, but it seemed like a good way to finish off our finds for the day. Before we resumed hunting, we grabbed lunch at Subway. It was very much needed. We were losing steam and still had a few to go to make sure we both had 100.
One of the caches in Ogden looked like it had been muggled, but the log was intact, so we signed and put it back together. Another one sounded like it was going to be a difficult one, an ode to DNFs, but instead, it ended up being a fun park and grab with a travel bug to discover.
At the end of the day, we’d made our goal to break 100 caches and grabbed a few bonus ones. The weekend total was 31 found and 0 DNFs. The weather was great, the driving was relaxing, and we just had a good time hanging out together.
This trip also gave us the chance to compare our endurance and stamina levels from when we first started. The first geocaches we found (a few months ago when we first started) that involved walking across uneven terrain were pretty tough. This weekend, we found them challenging, but nothing that kicked our butt completely. The first time we tried to do a full day of caching, we made it four hours before we went home, sore and needing to crash. This time we went two days and cached for 7-8 hours each day. Granted, a good portion of that was spent driving, but there is still a decent level of physical activity taking place on these hunts. Jon even ran up a short hill today without getting winded.
I think we’re doing awesome, and it’s exciting to think that at some point in the future, we’re going to be able to find some that are rated at a more difficult terrain level. Our next big goal is to hit 250, but we’ll probably plan a couple more weekend cache trips before that.
Once we got home, I took a shower and some ibuprofen so I wouldn’t be too sore for the work week. I did some photo editing and uploading to FB, finished the blog posts, and kept half an eye on a couple movies, Clue and Vanilla Sky (which is still in progress and will be watched with both eyes when this is done, because it’s one of my favorites). We didn’t make it to the gym, but I’m not going to stress on it. It means we missed our gym goal this past week, but I think we made our walking goal, plus some.
I still anticipate being able to sleep well tonight.
A.
The Romance Factor 