Tour de Cache II

This is my favorite time of year on the Northern Plains. The rain and storms usually calm down about now, the grass is still green, and the fields are beginning to turn gold as we head toward harvest. Farmers are out cutting hay in the ditches, filling the air with a delightful smell. Sure, it gets up to a hundred degrees in July and August in North Dakota. But the big, clear blue skies and the open space make up for it all.

Yesterday a fellow geocacher, Bob, and I went on our second North Dakota geocaching road trip, a "tour de cache," as he likes to call it. We spent half of our Saturday cruising the dirt trails, gravel backroads, and highways west of Garrison. People don't understand what geocaching is. When I explain it, they sometimes think it doesn't make sense to drive all over looking for boxes hidden in the grass. Why would anyone want to dig around in brush, pick off ticks, and swat mosquitoes just to find useless trinkets? Well, it isn't the trinkets that make geocaching fun. It's a reason to get out and enjoy the place I live. Here are a few snapshots from the two "tours de cache."