Shoreline District of Tall Pines Council and Five Rivers District of Gerald R. Ford Council (Boy Scouts) put together a Geocaching camporee which was held Friday through Sunday at Camp Tapico near Kalkaska. Since the two organizers are good scouting friends who both geocache and know of my passion for geocaching, they asked me to present a geocaching 101 class on Saturday morning.
Drove to camp on Friday, through (mostly) drizzle, sometimes a bit harder rain. It's about a 3 hour trip, but found 8 caches along the way, all were easy almost drive ups considering the weather. Got to the camp turn off and discovered that the roads, which were trying at best last time we were there, are not only trying but muddy. The van is pretty dirty right now!
Set up in a light rain after finding Ted and Dave. They drove us back to the campsite, about a 3/4 mile walk so appreciated not having to haul my gear back that far. Then got things ready. My job was to sit in the OA lodge, with a nice fire in the hearth, and check the scouts in. Turned out that all of the participants came from Tall Pines; I wasn't surprised as our council had just been to Mackinac the weekend before. That was ok though.
Leaders/SPL meeting at 9 p.m., then we went down to camp. Not much else to do but turn in so I was in bed just before 11. A damp and chilly night but my sleeping bag kept me warm and my tent kept me dry. Did wake up in the middle of the night and had a debate with my body over the necessity of getting up and heading for the latrine. My body won. After I was able to get back to sleep, 6:30 came pretty early though. The guys cooked egg casserole for breakfast, then we met the Seabees from Camp Grayling for flags at 8 a.m. The seabees were in camp to do service projects all weekend.
My geocaching 101 followed that. I have a power point presentation now which helps get the points across much more easily. I had an attentive audience and that helps too. After my presentation, the scouts were let loose to tackle a 37-cache course set up in camp -- Cache to Eagle. There were "parts" of Eagle Scout requirements hidden in each cache and the goal was to collect everything you need to earn your Eagle rank. Not sure anyone finished as I left shortly after lunch.
We fixed our lunch at the OA lodge, veggie soup and grilled cheese. Felt good to get warm food in us as it was still cool and damp, though no rain. No duties in the afternoon so I left for home as I didn't want to miss church two weeks in a row.
My first stop was Geocache 612, a few miles away. More muddy dirt roads, but not as bad as those leading to camp. This cache is the second oldest active cache in Michigan so once I realized it was so close it was my plan to get this one if nothing else. Mission accomplished! Then I decided to tackle one more "dirt road" cache. Got stopped on the way by a large temporary body of water across the entire road. Had nightmares of what would happen if I got stuck or shorted out the engine so decided to turn around and get on home.
I did find four more caches on the way and made it home about 8:30 p.m. The fall colors were about at 40 percent or so of peak - getting nice. We're a few weeks away from peak around home though.
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