It all started several years ago. Several women decided to have a female only event to get together female geocachers from all over the state for a weekend of fun. This left the men with a free weekend, so we decided to evacuate the state. The first year we headed to Ann Arbor, MI, the second year was a crazy numbers run to Chicago, and last year we stayed at McCormick’s Creek State Park in Indiana.
We decided that this year we’d do a repeat of last year. There were still tons of nice trails and the cheap lodging made returning attractive. The cabins we rent are a little rustic but they have heat, beds for 5, and indoor plumbing for $50/night.
On my drive out TheMoopAlong called me and we determined we’d both arrive at I-70 about the same time. We ended up about 10 miles apart so TMA took a quick break at a rest area and we stuck together the rest of the way to the cabins. We stopped off to do a “quick” cache in Indianapolis but we found that every entrance ramp back to I-70 was closed. We ended up driving all the way into downtown before we could get back on the freeway. Once we got to the cabins we did a cache on a trail by the cabins then we headed into town for a couple quick caches and some dinner. As the evening went along we got a continued string of cancellations, at one point we had 12 guys planning to attend, we ended up with only 6.
Saturday morning we all got up early and headed over to the lodge for breakfast then we were off to Morgan-Monroe State Forest. The geocaches we did are all pretty much along the top of a series of ridges that fan out like a starfish. Getting to the first cache was the real challenge since there was quite a hill to climb. Once we were on the top the going was pretty easy and there wasn’t much underbrush. It was really pretty with the fall colors at their peak, several areas were just a shower of leaves falling from the trees. By the time we headed back to the car there were noticeably less leaves than when we started the day. We totaled about 5.5 miles and 11 geocaches with a pretty good amount of elevation change along the way.
We got back to the cabin and everyone started getting cleaned up for dinner. We had originally planned on hitting a steak house in Bloomington however since there were home basketball and football games we couldn’t get a reservation until 9pm. After a bit of discussion we were invited to GirlGeek’s parents house to grill out. We needed something to grill though so we stopped at a butcher shop and all picked out our steaks and loaded up on some massive potatoes. We watched a little football while the grill heated up then everyone cooked their own steaks. After we were all stuffed with steak we went back to the cabin for some BS and home-brew.
Sunday was breakfast at the lodge again and then we all went our separate ways. I decided to take a different route home and ended up just driving straight through. Having the time change really helped since I was home at around 2pm. We’ve already picked out location for next year, look out Louisville here we come.
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