Mackinac Rendezvous 2011

A belated post to share my great weekend at Mackinac Rendezvous 2011...

Left on the drive north on Thursday morning (the 22nd of September.) Of course, my plan was to cache along the way. Hence, leaving on Thursday morning when I didn't have to be there until Thursday evening...

44 caches along the way. Some of those were part of a power trail just south of Petoskey that I wanted to try to do. 100 + caches, all about a tenth of a mile apart. After doing some, I realized that it wasn't much fun to pull off to the side of the road, turn off the car, get out of the car, go find a film canister or similar sized container, sign the log, go back to the car, start it up, and move a tenth of a mile down the road and repeat. So decided to go back to regular caching. Got to Mackinaw City, ate dinner at Burger King so I could use the wifi, then arrived at the campground about 8 p.m.

Friday morning, we got things ready for the scouts to check in starting at noon. I was in charge of the blue area, with a staff of three others. We had a little shelter, and as the units came in, one of us showed them where to go and made sure they got their vehicles unloaded and removed to the parking area. A lot of waiting time between units so we had time to talk and such. Cool but no rain until that evening. We had the last units checked in at about 10:30 p.m. then went back to our cabin and hit the sack.

Saturday was the reward for working check in/out. Took the boat to the island and had the day to myself. Rented a bicycle and rode the 8 miles around the perimeter of the island. A bit misty at first but turned out to be nice enough weather considering it's late September. And caching, of course. 21 caches while riding around the island, then 4 more after I returned the bike and did a little hiking. The obligatory fudge stop and then back to the boat and return to the campground. Dinner and a show completed our evening.

Sunday morning was check out - we were done by 11 a.m. Then off to the bike trail across the highway from the campground. There were about a dozen challenge caches there and I qualified for most of them. So another three miles on the bike to get those. Unfortunately, I think the riding was offset by the fudge...

More caching on the way home and I made it home at about 8:45 p.m. If I'd have written on this right after, probably would have had more detail. Oh well.