In an effort to spend more time outside, enjoying the Albertan summer, I’ve taken two significant steps - camping and geocaching.
The August long weekend was my first chance to expose myself to the wilderness in Alberta through camping, and I have to say that I’m pretty impressed. A friend of mine took the bus down from Fort McMurray to accompany me, and he was not disappointed either. The two of us packed our things and camped for a night at Stoney Lake.
I’d fallen in love with Stoney Lake taking a wrong turn and accidentally ending up at the campground on my way to the stampede held at the rodeo grounds back in July. It’s hilly, there are plenty of trees, and it’s really close to the lake.
Our spot was a small clearing at the top of a hill. The trees opened up on the lake, but enclosed us on the side to ensure privacy. The other guests at the campground were quiet and polite, the lake was clean and cool enough to provide respite from the dry summer heat, and everyone actually got quiet after 11 p.m. like they were instructed to. I can say that staying at Stoney Lake, even for one night, is $20 well spent.
Another way I've been kicking myself in the butt to get outside more often is a pastime called geocaching. Introduced to me by a pal who's been doing it for several years, geocaching utilizes a GPS, or Google Maps, and a person's own sleuthing skills and is basically the adult version of a treasure hunt. You use the map or GPS to track down specific (or not-so-specific) areas where caches are hidden.
The purpose, if you’re serious about it, is to find as many hidden caches as possible. Caches can very in size, and contain any number of things including toys and trinkets.
One of the more popular features of most caches is a small piece of paper or notepad that cache-hunters write their name, commemorating their success, and marking their territory for all other hunters to see.
My first geocaching expedition was last Wednesday evening. I didn’t even mean to go at first - I indulged myself with a long, relatively pointless country drive down Hwy 881 to clear my head, and the idea just came to me.
On a whim, I switched on my phone’s data, and decided “Myrnam’s First Geocache” would be as good a place as any, to start my geocaching quest.
I'm sure the residents of Myrnam were pretty puzzled as to what exactly I was doing, wandering around the streets, arena grounds, and yard of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, overturning rocks and peering into the spaces between walls, and crevices between fences and bricks, looking for a cache.
I'll admit the application I'm using for geocaching was a little sketchy. Coordinates are iffy, and utilize Google Maps, rather than a direct GPS-system.
In the end, my first expedition was something of a failure. For the record, all I found was a golf ball by the arena. However, I, forever the optimist, am more than sure that certain success awaits me here in St. Paul, where my free geocaching app lists so many cache locations along the Iron Horse Trail in particular, that the orange dots that represent them form a solid line across the map from here to somewhere near Elk Point.
And even if I don't find anything, at least it’s an excuse to go outside.
