St. Peter Geocaching

Over the long weekend, we spent two days in St. Peter, Minnesota, once again hosted by the Klunds and the Klund-ish grandparents. You'd think we'd see less of the Grandklunds now that two of them have moved into an RV, but they were all there. It makes for a kickin' Wii crowd and cards crowd most visits. And they were there to share the caramel apple pie we bought at Jim's Apple Orchard.

We'd gone past the big yellow signs for Jim's a few times, but never stopped because it was usually off season. But this time, both going down and coming back, there were dozens of cars. I recommend stopping. My apple caramel pie was hot when they handed it over. There are hundreds of kinds of honey and jam (beer and root beer) and apples. And there's something like 300 kinds of candy, which kept Eryn entranced for some time. If you've driven far enough south on 169 from the cities, you'll recognize the place from Eda Cherry's blog (via MNSpeak).

We spent the weekend eating, gaming, geocaching, and riding the Red Jacket Trail (named after a Seneca Indian chief). I've never met anyone other than Kevin who thinks a family ride with tagalongs involves an initial five miles of bicycling up hill. But it made for a lot of exercise in a short trip.

We found three geocaches in St. Peter. This is your spoiler warning if you like to geocache down that way. I'll be ruining some of the fun if you read on.

The location of the first cache. So cunningly hidden that you can't even see the Klunds milling about in the photo.


There they are! It's like they appeared out of nowhere right next to the cache. It looks hot and dry, but there were a startling number of mosquitoes hanging out just waiting for geocachers.


Cache #2 follows the geocaching rule, "If it looks out of place, suspect it." That goes double for chunks of cement in the woods. We flipped it over, and there was the micro.


The only cache that was really in the thick of it. And tricky to boot. Klund had the clue, but it's still hidden plainly in sight.


A few Klunds roll the dice on avian flu and bird mites.


Once it's ascertained it's a cache, the elder Klund is willing to touch it. I don't know why he's standing like that. It sort of reminds me of old movies where actors walked stiffly and carried both arms crooked and near their midsection. Like Charlie Chaplin. Which reminds me of a joke. What do you call Charlie Chaplin's horse? Snow Patrol. Or something like that. It was funnier in person.


Finally, unrelated to geocaching, a post for Mrs. Klund.


And, according to this post, watching someone else do it on YouTube is reason enough to try it yourself...


And in case you think only guys are that stupid, here's a woman doing the same thing. I think that's a copy of Contemporary Dentistry she's using. I think it's interesting that they're actually referred to as Bible Cysts because this is a traditional method of removing them.