Geocaching in Northern Michigan!

Here we are, home for the holiday!

Hunter and I haven't been able to do any caching over the past couple weekends. I made a quick trip up here two weeks ago for a funeral and then we both traveled up here for the holidays and have been busy and enjoying our time with family. But yesterday we teamed up with my sisters Karyn and Tiffany(kcgraham and tifranta) and did one together!

What we chose was unique and one I think I'll create back in Ohio. It's called Shopping and Caching and inolves two steps and only a log book; no trades, so no treasures for Hunter to find. The first set of coordinates took us to a grocery store where I had split the list provided by the cache creator before hand and divided it up amongst Hunter and his two younger cousins, K'ryn and Kyler. Our dad tagged along with us, his first geocaching experience!

Geocaching invloves a bit of stealth, which is very possible inside a grocercy store. However, not so much so when the adults bought groceries the previous day and the only thing intended to take away from the store this trip was the aisle numbers of certain products! To help us fit in a bit more with the shoppers, grandpa grabbed a cart.

On the list were items such as Wheat Thins, Lean Cuisine and Bailey's. Since the children would be doing the looking, I changed the wording around to something they were more likely to understand. Wheat Thins became crackers, Lean Cuisine turned into the kid version and Bailey's, at $21.00 a bottle in this small northern Michigan town, became cheaper botteled water.




Armed with their lists, we went up and down the aisles, calling off products to help them cross of their selections, jotting down each aisle number we found them in. I snapped a few pictures along the way and I'm sure I got more odd looks in my wake!




We left the grocery store in a bubbly rush and
climbed into Karyn's van. Tiffany called off the
items from the list and when the children read from their papers what aisle it was in, Karyn entered the number into the GPS. Then we were off to find the actual cache!


The GPS led us not far from the parent's house.
It looked like the cache was off the walking path.
We decided to go back to the house and get in cold weather gear and pull the younger children in a sled to the end.

We had a couple warm days that packed down the snow and the snowmobiles on the walking trail packed it down even more, making for an easy walk and a great ride for the kids in the sled. My ten pound rat terrier, Kit, came with us as well.



We got to where one half of the coordinates matched our grocery list puzzle and decided to leave grandma with baby Bryce. The rest of us entered the woods in the direction of the other coordinates with hopes of finding the hidden cache.







The snow in the woods wasn't so easy to walk in as the path we left. Devin and Kyler, three and five, kept up with us pretty good with just a little help now and again.




When we got to the river, we didn't know what to do. Our GPS's were saying our destination on the other side of the waterway. Even if it were in the middle of the summer heat, I doubt the cache creator would be sending us across a river...but maybe he would!



We headed back to grandma and Bryce who were lounging in the sleds. We returned pulling the exhausted children back to the house. Karyn sent an inquiry to the cache owner and we're hoping to hear back from them before our return to the U.P., Georgia and Ohio.