Near Adams Hill Pond, we didn't find one by the shore of the pond since rain had raised the water level well past the geocache. Nearby, we found Insert Creative/Punny Name Here in a tree. Also nearby is Farmhouses of Richfield - John McCabe House, which is a nano in the neighborhood of the original house from the 1850s (though clearly the owners have made additions over the years).
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| Farmhouse with additions |
Then we found New Years - LPC since it was near a restaurant where we were having Father's Day Brunch. We showed some friends where the geocache was to get them hooked into the hobby. The next find was near our hotel. Earl Brown Heritage Center is a virtual cache on some farm land that had an airport but is now a conference center. The center retains the rustic image while having a lot of high tech stuff. It was a bit frustrating for us because we had to walk all the way around the conference center to make the find--we were unable to cut through the middle!
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| A turkey wandering around the center, +1 for farminess |
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| Look of a farmhouse, another +1 |
Nearby is a multi-cache found in the local library. The library was still open, so we were able to find Brookdale Library cache inside one of the book. We asked one of the librarians for help, but she was on loan from another branch and didn't know about the geocache!
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| A library hide! |
We drove over to Chanhassen to look around and make some finds. The local post office sponsors two caches with puzzles based on the bank of P.O. boxes, PO Puzzle Series - Chanhassen (Mystery) and PO Puzzle Series - Chanhassen (Multi). We worked our way through an Adventure Lab and its final mystery cache that toured some historic buildings in the town.
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| The 1800s train depot |
One of Chanhassen's claims to fame is that the musician Prince lived here and set up a recording studio. We visited the studio, which was closed. Nearby we found MN Music: Paisley Park Studio and Purple Rain, both in walking distance of the studio.
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| Paisley Park Studio |
After driving far north in the state, we visited Tall Tales - Virtual Rewards 2.0. We were in Bemidji, which is the home base for this guy:
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| Famous locals and me |
The park with the Paul Bunyon statue also has the traditional cache BecidaGang#1 not too far away. I needed a traditional to fill a calendar day, so it was a very helpful find.
In between Bemidji and Saint Paul we found Follow Lexie to the Letterbox, a challenging find because we ran into some woods that had clouds of insects in the air. The find was traumatic but successful. I took no pictures because of the conditions. Much easier and at a playground, The Ponds OGCP was an easier find and had something to keep my youngest occupied.
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| A fun outdoor experience! |
At another playground park I found two cache, My lost ball and Pervade. I only got a picture of the ball field from the cache.
Later in the day, we went down to Elk River where I found MNSQ: Saint Andrews Cemetery, an intriguing multicache, and Ridgewood East Park that had the coolest little free library I have ever seen. It is an amazing replica of the front door from Fellowship of the Ring movie. When you open the door, the Hobbiton theme music plays.
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| The road goes ever on and on |
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| Bag End |
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| A peek inside |
In Cambridge, Minnesota, I found Smell good for church which was full of wasps (so I didn't sign it) and Turkish Delight by the local library, which had an awesome container.
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| Somewhere in this picture |
Further south I found another Prince-themed cache: Purple Rain - A Tribute to a Music Legend. It was a Wherigo cache with a few locations and trivia questions that required some internet research to answer. The final find for the day was Tanner Cul-De-Sac in the neighborhood of our cousins.
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| The OG Dancing Gophers |
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| Cousins |
On our last day, we found the Wherigo Hasta La Vista, Baby, a Terminator-themed challenge that only required two internet searches. Later, we found Indian Mounds Park Overlook, an earthcache by a Native American burial site.
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| View is better in winter? |
Our finale in Minnesota was the Adventure Lab Murals and Art of East 7th Street. We were unable to find the bonus cache since it started raining. See our rundown of the murals here.
We ended the trip at 1314 cache finds, a nice addition of 34 caches.
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