Crawling to 100 Finds -- with photo

I have a string of geocaches that I have not even attempted. You could call them drive-by's or run-by's perhaps. Things just haven't worked out to get me to the goal of 100, so I am now crawling to 100 finds. I now declare myself a cold weather cacher.

The string includes: McMart GodRanch GCRR7P, in Algona, Iowa; Briggs Falls GCJ8YQ, near Webster City, Iowa; and three new placements by oddestduck in Walnut Woods State Park. For the first two, we were in the area for a funeral of a dear man named Harold Reit, married to my husband's godmother aunt. The Greatest Generation traits were certainly held by him.

We passed McMart GodRanch on the way to the funeral. The name entertained us. We were not late in arriving to the church, and we like to think that it was because we stayed focused and drove by McMart GodRanch.

On the way back home, we stopped at the Grotto of the Redemption. We hadn't been there in eight years. The boys didn't remember being there. Everyone loved it. Matt had "G" go to the top of the grotto. As he stood there looking out over everything, he said in his serious nine year old voice, "Dad, this is so beautiful that I would cry if I could."

After our time there, we were just too tired to attempt Briggs Falls since the day started very early for us. We kept on driving past the entrance to the park. Fortunately, it's only an hour away, so I am sure we can visit here on our own time. We did stop for gas nearby -- at $3.50/gallon. At least there was gas that weekend. (Nearby Ft. Dodge had a shortage the previous weekend.)

As for the Walnut Woods group of caches...well, we're just wimps. For Mother's Day, my hope was to be outside. Alas, the weather was too warm for my enjoyment, so we did not search for them on Sunday. We attempted to find them today since the temperature has been around 70, but the mosquitoes are out in full force. The wind did not help us, as I was hoping it would. We came very very very close to two of the caches. I am sure we were standing right next to them, but standing still and looking for a cache makes us look like a buffet line for the mosquitoes. Mosquitoes are not fun. We just drove by the coordinates for the third of the group. Didn't even attempt it once we saw where to go.

Before we left the park, "I" and I went to the river's edge. I have never been there when it was so high. Usually "Rock Heaven" is quite large. It is now under water and very inaccessible.

Oh yeah, I'm at 96 finds. Urban caches, free of mosquitoes, here I come.