Hello readers. Tonka_Boy asked if I would provide a blog entry for him, and so I said why not. This story is a week or so old, so I hope you will still enjoy the story even in my tardiness. ;)
My name is Shawn Kummrow or speedysk1 to the geocachers out there. I live in Mound, Minnesota on the west side of Lake Minnetonka, near Tonka_Boy, and we’ve run into each other on the trail. I’ve also been FTF on 2 of his caches.
Anyway, on with the tale of our boating adventure on Lake Minnetonka.
It all started when GeoPierce asked if I wanted to canoe out to Big Island with him to pick up the 3 caches that are out there. I said sure, but it didn’t work out. Then I thought about hitching a ride with RickRich, who agreed to take us, but again, we couldn’t get schedules arranged.
Then after a week-night caching event, I chatted with RudeRat about the caches on Lk. Mtka. He said just let him know when and he’d be glad to take us.
TimeWellSpent hears about it and chaos ensues. ;)
Before you know it there are 6 people that want to go out to the islands on the lake. I confirmed the capacity of the boat and we were good to go. So, the cast of characters for our trip was our captain RudeRat, EPMinnesota, GeoPierce, KredEP, TimeWellSpent and I. We all met up in historic and beautiful Excelsior public docks.
We had plenty of refreshments, so off we went.
First stop…Big Island.
I had already found all but one of the caches on this island. I had found the other 2 earlier this year… mid February when the water was frozen, and I could drive out there. In February, I thought I had it made, I’d cleared Big Island. But wouldn’t you know it, RickRich put’s another cache out there. Well with no boat, I figured I have to wait for winter again, but then this cruise came up.
We arrived at the beach area of Big Island only to find geo-muggles around. We carefully hopped off the boat and headed into the woods hoping not to get spotted. The new hide from RickRich (GC1BTAZ) proved to be a bit trickier than we thought as there are some nice beacons near ground zero. It didn’t take too long and we found it, signed the logs and off we went.
RudeRat moved the boat from the beach area and met us further down the island near (GCWQ6N) Big Island Park. Since I had found the rest of the caches on the island, I didn’t have them in my GPS. So, I turned it off and agreed to “lead” the group. Now, I did say on numerous occasions the island looks different in the winter vs. the summer. But I still received quite the ribbing for not finding the path right away. Then it turned out there was a short cut along the beach. I don’t think I’ll live that down for a while.
We made quick work of Big Island Park - without any clues from the previous finders, and off we went for Roller Coaster on Big Island? (GC12GBW) After finding the cache we walked back to the boat.
Still being light out, RudeRat asked if we wanted to head for Puppy Cove (GC1F53N) by some guy named Tonka_Boy…never heard of him, but we went for the cache anyway.
GeoPierce, Speedysk1, KredEP, RudeRat
GeoPierce, KredEP and RudeRat
TimeWellSpent
So after a nice cruise across the entire lake through many different channels we finally arrived at Puppy Cove. GeoPierce and I quickly hopped out of the boat as EPMinnesota and TimeWellSpent said,
"Oh it's right there on that tree."
"We don’t even need to get out of the boat."
"I’m sure it’s right there."
And the heckling began.
GP and I found the cache pretty quickly while the rest of the crew was still in the boat - convinced it was further out in the lake. So to be a wise donkey, I tucked in the back of my shirt and hid the cache behind me in my shirt.
GP and I then pretended to not be able to find the cache.
The rest of the crew eventually got out of the boat. KredEP found a metal tag in the tree and we started convincing her that it must be a multicache.
Then TWS looked, found the same tag, and agreed that it must be some sort of multi. We had them going for quite a while, then we had them convinced it must have been muggled.
Finally as they were getting ready to admit defeat and log a DNF, I said, “You can log a DNF and I’ll sign this log”. I then pulled the cache from behind my back.
TWS wanted to throw me in the lake for having them going for so long.
So we posed for a picture, but then I needed to see a man about a horse.
Well, I got back to the shore where the boat was, and as punishment, they left without me, and were taunting me from the boat. So, to convince them to come back, I showed some skin in hopes they would find me so irresistible that they would come back for me.
By this point it’s starting to get dark. So we started heading back to Excelsior. I drove the boat for a while, and TWS and EPMN started laughing so hard, I thought EP was going to pee her pants. I knew they were laughing at me, but I didn’t yet know why. Well, the geocaching gods got me back for my little prank at Puppy Cove.
You see, the camo has some plastic leaves attached to it, and little did I know one came off. And since the last thing they saw me do was head into the woods, they thought I must have really needed to go.
Well after pulling the plastic leaf out of my waistband and even showing it to them, it was too late. They all had a good laugh at my expense. The rest of the ride was less exciting, but was very nice nonetheless. We cruised past Lord Fletchers then on to Excelsior. We finally arrived back at the docks around 10pm. All in all, a very good time had by all. Thanks again to RudeRat for taking us out.
