I-35W and an FTF Party

I decided to head to downtown Minneapolis for lunch today. There are some great urban caches there and all the muggle traffic that can be found in a major metropolitan area make for some fun caches!

The real purpose for going downtown was to place a cache. I thought it would be cool to have a cache that collected pictures of the reconstruction of the I-35W bridge. So I looked at Google Earth to find the right spot. I only had micro caches with me today so that will have to do for this hide.

I drove to the area and was quickly disappointed. I couldn't get even close to the area I wanted to go to. It's all blocked off for the construction. There's construction equipment and materials everywhere and all the parks are blocked off. So lets look for another place. The 10th Ave bridge would be excellent and I should probably use that, BUT, it's a long walk up there and I don't think cachers are going to like making the long walk. So I found a spot under the 10th Ave bridge. It's definitely not as picturesque but it will have to do.

This cache has special logging requirements that cachers will have to pay attention to. They'll have to take two pictures from the spot under the 10th Ave bridge. Over time we should be able to look at these pictures and see the reconstruction of the 35W bridge.

Here's the new cache: 35W Picture Story

Later today a new cache popped up around 4:30PM or so. It's only about 4 1/2 miles from my house - but I'm at work. Humm, I guess I can leave now and and shoot for the First to Find. So I pack up my bags and head home.

The cache is SAP South (humm, I wonder if there will be an SAP North soon). I parked on the street where I'd be able to easily walk to the cache. As soon as I stopped another car pulled up on the other side of the street. I've never seen that car before. I don't know if it's a cacher or not. It doesn't look like the usual FTF suspects: Rebelex, Topgear, FSU*Noles, etc. Oh well, I need to get home so I can't wait. I get out of the car and so do they. Then I spot the tell-tell sign - a GPSr in their hand. I introduce myself and it turns out to be moon-howler (and the anonymous husband). I've never met her before. We chatted a bit while we headed to ground zero. We talked about how we probably aren't first and that Rebelex or Topgear probably beat us here. We looked for only a few minutes and moon-howler came up with the find. About 2 seconds after moon-howler said "I found it" we saw a black lab come walking into the area. Hey, that's Sam! And we know that wherever Sam go's Rebelex isn't far behind. That means he hasn't been here for the FTF yet!! Rebelex, Sam, moon-howler, and I all at GZ for the opening of the cache. Moon-howler opened the container and grabbed the log. WooHoo, it's blank. This was her first FTF - congrats moon-howler. It's exciting to get your first FTF!!

We all three walked out together talking about other caching experiences. As we were standing at the cars chatting, another car pulled up. It was OGMO. So we had our own little FTF party on the sidewalk - moon-howler, Rebelex, OGMO, Little OGMO and me.