Treasures of our Town
Road Trip To Minnesota's North Shore : Josh's 8000th Geocache Find!
Get ready to hit the open road with us, Joshua and Craig, as we regale you with tales from our latest jaunt across America's heartland. Imagine the thrill of geocaching on the rugged cliffs of Minnesota's North Shore, the warmth of small-town diners, and the laughter shared with our lovable companions, including the one and only 'Reese the Rock Johnson.' From the wilds of Silver Bay to the cozy corners of Two Harbors, join us in celebrating the milestones, the communities, and the unexpected delights that punctuate every mile of our journey.
You'll feel the pulse of adventure and the comforts of the familiar as we recount the joy of an 8,000th geocache find and the serendipity of discovering a black sand beach off the beaten path. Our encounters aren't without their quirky moments, either; deadpan humor and a dash of Reese's witticisms add a delightful flavor to the mix. Through the highs and lows, the upgrades and delays, we share the personal triumphs and the bonds that make our travels truly unique.
As the laughter echoes and the memories take hold, we explore not just the landscapes but the legacies we build along the way. Pull up a chair and let our experiences spark your sense of wonder and wanderlust. No guest needed in this episode—just two friends, the open road, and the shared stories that connect us all.
Get ready to hit the open road with us, Joshua and Craig, as we regale you with tales from our latest jaunt across America's heartland. Imagine the thrill of geocaching on the rugged cliffs of Minnesota's North Shore, the warmth of small-town diners, and the laughter shared with our lovable companions, including the one and only 'Reese the Rock Johnson.' From the wilds of Silver Bay to the cozy corners of Two Harbors, join us in celebrating the milestones, the communities, and the unexpected delights that punctuate every mile of our journey.
You'll feel the pulse of adventure and the comforts of the familiar as we recount the joy of an 8,000th geocache find and the serendipity of discovering a black sand beach off the beaten path. Our encounters aren't without their quirky moments, either; deadpan humor and a dash of Reese's witticisms add a delightful flavor to the mix. Through the highs and lows, the upgrades and delays, we share the personal triumphs and the bonds that make our travels truly unique.
As the laughter echoes and the memories take hold, we explore not just the landscapes but the legacies we build along the way. Pull up a chair and let our experiences spark your sense of wonder and wanderlust. No guest needed in this episode—just two friends, the open road, and the shared stories that connect us all.
I did see a video of Rhys jumping between rock to rock and when I saw that I thought, okay, I could understand Rhys doing this, but I was worried about you a little bit, josh, especially after your sack racing.
Speaker 2:Yes, just saying Do you love to travel?
Speaker 1:Do you love road?
Speaker 2:trips. Do you love finding hidden treasures in towns all over the USA? Hi, I'm Joshua.
Speaker 1:And I'm Craig. Welcome to Treasures of Our Town. It's a podcast that explores unique and charming towns scattered throughout the United States.
Speaker 2:Join us as we venture into some of the country's most intriguing destinations, uncovering hidden gems and local secrets along the way.
Speaker 2:On today's episode Josh, cheers, cheers, we're together we're in person in minnesota and you've been all around the country, at least halfway around the country, some parts, yeah, yes, and we are sitting here at my kitchen table sipping listen to that sipping miller high life, the champagne of beers brewed in milwaukee, wisconsin, right here in the midwest. That is not sponsored, but miller highlight. If you're listening and you don't see this miller high life. But, craig, I'm looking at you. Yeah, you're wearing the miller highlight hat. We are fully representing. But you know what? We don't need Miller High Life because we have our Patreons.
Speaker 1:Exactly right, exactly right. And Josh, you took a photo before You've got Goliath on your lap. I've got the Miller High Life hat, but you outdone me tonight with the Goliath on your lap.
Speaker 2:How happy are you to see Goliath right now?
Speaker 1:How happy is he to see me as well.
Speaker 2:He loves you I was sitting here at dinner eating my chipotle and he was on your lap. The whole time yeah craig, I haven't seen you since october but you know why?
Speaker 1:because you could get a good advantage, like a like sight advantage, so I could see you eating. Josh, that's what it was. Yeah, that is true. That is true, he is a dog, he used me.
Speaker 2:I know, hey this. This is the first time since october you've been in my living room.
Speaker 1:There's something different there is just slightly so up to the right hand side of josh, because you can't see because this is a audio podcast only, but he is proudly displaying a big silver plaque, known as the silver play button from youtube. And congratulations, mate. Very well deserved, most well deserved, I think. Personally creator on the internet, because you've been at it for like 13 years, 13 plus years, yeah I know I had to.
Speaker 2:I had to bring it up because you know you never saw it in person. So you came here last time in october for my 100k youtube celebration party. You surprised me. We did a whole podcast about hanging out in minneapolis, st paul, because you know what I'm proud of my town. You had to get in early tonight I know so you didn't forget. I don't want to forget this time. I'm so proud of my town and I'm so excited you're here, because there is a major and I mean major Munzee Mecca. It's not Munzee Mecca.
Speaker 2:It's Munzee Mania event here in Minneapolis, st Paul and everyone. The who's who of Munzee is here in town.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited Exactly Not just one event either, josh, not two or three, but actually four events over the weekend, so one on Friday, two on saturday and one on sunday saying goodbye as well. So there's a big group of people as well, I think, that are combined to organize these big events as well, and a big shout out, big thank you to them, because they're the ones that bring us all together. I mean, josh, yeah, I know I've been road tripping, etc. But the road trip is because of this event.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know Well, this is also your halfway destination point, True. True To Geowoodstock, which happens at the end of the month.
Speaker 1:And I've only got, like what, 10 days to get there from here. Now, geez, I'm in car.
Speaker 2:You've got a lot of driving ahead of you. I do. I have to work and I'll fly there and meet you there.
Speaker 1:I have to work as I go as well. True, true I've got audio things to edit, video things to edit.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, yes of course you work too, but you road trip while you work this is true, and that's what we're talking about.
Speaker 1:Exactly, we're talking about road trips Because we've got no special guests today.
Speaker 2:We don't need them today.
Speaker 1:We're enough, Don't you think we're? I think we're enough. You're my special guest and I'm your special guest.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and so some of our best shows are just you and me Exactly.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile, Josh, speaking of special guests, I'm going to get in straight away to my upgrade for this week.
Speaker 2:Ooh, we're talking about our upgrades.
Speaker 1:We're talking about upgrades and delays.
Speaker 2:Delays. This is what we started. Started last time, last episode. You didn't listen last episode. Go back and listen, sort of like highs and lows. But we're a travel podcast, so we talk about our delays, the bad things you know. Being delayed, I think rob rob vardeman he is the mudsy president is currently delayed he is down in for real for real in orlando, yeah, and the upgrades being bumped to first class.
Speaker 1:Those are the highs. They're the highs exactly. So I'll start with my high, Josh, Okay, my upgrade for this week. You know what? It happened only like an hour ago when I came into your house and I was met by Goliath, who's now licking my feet.
Speaker 2:So, yes, goliath, g'day buddy. Well, that's pretty good, he's my upgrade 100%.
Speaker 1:He is my upgrade for the last couple of weeks, a couple of months, to be honest.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's impressive. What a good boy Cool.
Speaker 1:So what was your delay? Well, my delay actually happened today also. Oh no, yeah, took my car to the mechanic.
Speaker 1:Oh no, I know it was making some noises, some strange noise. It's got a squeak now happening. It's got a little whirring noise in the engine. Anyway, I took a mechanic and he said to me at the end of the day, don't worry about it too much, this is what happens with the older cars, and blah, blah, blah. And yeah, this is what I'm gonna have to do in future, whether that future be, you know, in a month's time or six months time, but I'm gonna have to replace a part in in any future. So so it's nothing like major, major. No, nothing major and nothing to break down, because from here I'm going through the dakotas for the first time.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, cool so that's cool, we're going through dakotas, we're going through wyoming, then all the way south down to the woodstock.
Speaker 2:So you're gonna love the black hills yeah and uh mount rushmore and I'm not going. Devil's tower, I'm not gonna get by that, I'm going. I love the Black Hills, yeah, and Mount Rushmore, devil's Tower. I'm not going to go that far. I'm going to Devil's Tower. Oh, you're not going to go that far.
Speaker 1:You're going to Devil's Tower, I'm going to Devil's Tower, that's the one I mean.
Speaker 2:You're going to drive right by it, then You've got to stop.
Speaker 1:You've got to stop. I'll save a lot of time, mount, if you go during a weekday and it's not even summer yet, it's going to be fine.
Speaker 2:Haven't you ever seen National Treasure? There's like treasure actually behind it.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's right.
Speaker 2:There is, too, the movie I was going to say. What are you talking about? Of?
Speaker 1:course the movie.
Speaker 2:Exactly Nicolas Cage, I mean, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, Josh, let's start with your delays for today.
Speaker 2:I'm feeling my delay right now really. Oh, it's connected to my delay two weeks ago when I had the sack race incident.
Speaker 2:Oh, when I saw sat, I mean your shoulder, that's right, it was your shoulder, that's right I I dove, you remember I dove to win a sack race at work and I injured myself and I've been, I've been on the men, so I've been, you know, going to the doctor, chiropractor. You're not a young guy anymore, but I did beat all the young guys. That doesn't matter if I'm not a young guy, I still won was it worth the 25 starbucks voucher it wasn't starbucks, oh what was chick-fil-a worth it you can't use it on a sunday no chick-fil-a sauce all right.
Speaker 1:So that's your delay. What's your new upgrade?
Speaker 2:well, it's happening right now really I've been waiting so long for you to get here. Really, I'm proud of my town. Yeah, I'm so happy that you're here. I've been really. Honestly, I have been looking forward to this weekend because I really do enjoy hanging out with you and and and.
Speaker 2:Minnesota Boy, like the gangs all together, and it's in my hometown. So I've been excited about this. But something happened this week that was unexpected. I was traveling for work in my hometown and I asked Craig, I was like because I knew you were coming up this way. You were coming up through Iowa and I was curious. I knew you were getting close way. You were coming up through Iowa and I was curious. I knew you were getting close, so I was like where are you staying? And I found out you were staying in the same city that I was staying.
Speaker 1:Not just the same city Across the street.
Speaker 2:Across the street. Our hotels were across the street.
Speaker 1:We didn't even plan it.
Speaker 2:No, not at all, and so, of course, we had to spend some time together, yeah yeah, that's on my list.
Speaker 1:That's on my list for today, so stay tuned because that's at the end of the show.
Speaker 2:We talk about what we did at the end of the show. Sorry spoiler alert, but that was just so serendipitous. That was pretty cool.
Speaker 1:So, josh, do you want to start off with my? If we get into the duck's guts of this, the good old meat and bones do you want? Me to start first, or do you want? What? Did you just call it the duck's guts?
Speaker 2:what the heck is duck's guts? The duck's guts I've never heard of duck's guts. Is that australian? It must be.
Speaker 1:I've never heard what does that mean? It's like getting getting into it. Get into the meat, into the meat. Yeah, the meat and bones, the duck's guts duck's guts yeah I've never heard that you go.
Speaker 2:I think it's australian. I've never heard that before yeah, really I like it.
Speaker 1:It has a nice ring to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the duck's guts.
Speaker 1:Hayaka. I knew you'd bring that up, hayaka.
Speaker 2:Duck's guts Want some Vegemite mate.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile I'm drinking a Miller High Life.
Speaker 2:The champagne and beer is Milwaukee Wisconsin.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, just to let you know, foster's, they say it's Australian for beer, but we don't drink it in Australia. We don't sell it in australia.
Speaker 2:Fosters, fosters, that where is it brewed?
Speaker 1:it's it's brewed, and made in australia, but nobody drinks it. No, because it tastes terrible, it's a it's just an import or export, export, import for us yeah, export for it to you, and we laugh as we do. It just saying anyway that's interesting there you go, there's another one. All right, what are you going to do this?
Speaker 2:podcast we. I had a recent road trip as well. Yes, so I'm going to do Mike this podcast. I had a recent road trip as well. Yes, so I'm going to go through and talk about my recent road trip.
Speaker 2:It was a very cool area, and the area I'm going to bring up is a place that everyone I'm just going to say everyone who's listening to this podcast should make their way up to the North Shore of Minnesota. The North Shore, it is just beautiful, and when I say North Shore, what I mean is I live in Minneapolis-St Paul. Yeah, if you take 35 directly north, you'll hit Duluth, and when you hit Duluth, you hit Lake Superior. That's when you can hit Lake Superior. Oh, the biggest freshwater lake in the world.
Speaker 1:Oh, so that's the shore.
Speaker 2:And that's so. The North Shore is the North Shore of the Minnesota part of Lake Superior.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So it starts with Duluth, but as you make your way all the way up to the shore, it can take you all the way to Canada that way. Oh, okay, between Duluth and Canada are all these cute, adorable, beautiful scenery, waterfalls, small little towns like quaint, like breakfast nooks, agate stores, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It is so cool, it is so beautiful. It's like our closest thing we get to the ocean. If it's too windy, do you get some actually waves coming through? Oh yeah, there can be people, it can get uh wavy enough that people actually can surf.
Speaker 1:No, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Surfing lakes, oh yeah in the winter too, because that's when it's it's kind of wild up that it would be cold.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's cold, but they wear wetsuits or dry suits dry suits, I going to say you have to wear dry suits, then but so here's the deal Geocaching related.
Speaker 2:This is a podcast all about being guided by geocaching. I had a milestone approaching 8,000 geocaches.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's a decent milestone.
Speaker 2:Which is nothing compared to your 10,000 plus. I thousand plus I know 12, just saying up to 12. Holy crud almost at 12, yeah, so since the last year, woodstock, you've done 2 000 caches. Yeah, yeah, almost yeah, yeah, wow. Well, I want everybody to know I'm a really a quality guy.
Speaker 1:Here he is. This is an excuse. Is this an excuse? The average.
Speaker 2:I've said it before the average favorite point that my cash has is like 80. The average cash I found fine has 80 favorite points that's understand.
Speaker 1:Is that not wild? That's that is.
Speaker 2:That is quality yes, I'm bragging, but I have the data yeah, exactly, and you gotta get it to back you up.
Speaker 1:But in saying that, josh and this is where I'll get to in my my trip so far I started my trip and I was lucky enough to have favorite points under my belt ready to hand out, which I'll discuss in a second, because the place I went there was like. It was like the pennsylvania version of west virginia team almost oh, really, yeah, really nice really nice caches, and, and I was driven around by the co as well.
Speaker 2:So that's cool, Dan yeah, Dan Okay cool.
Speaker 1:I look forward to hearing that Meanwhile get back to you. No, that's fine. So you went to the North Shore.
Speaker 2:So it's for like over a month. I mean, no wonder I can't hit 10,000 fast. Well, over a month I was stuck at 799,000. 7 000 sorry 7 998 caches because I didn't want to reach. No, I didn't want to reach too fast, yeah, but here's the deal big blue switch day was in between this, this cash and the other one, so I had to.
Speaker 2:I had to time it out because I wanted to get big blue switch souvenir, but I didn't want to use that as my my 8 000th cash, so I had I had to give myself a little bit of a buffer so I, I was debating like what, what am I going to do for my eight thousand?
Speaker 2:I didn't know. I had a potential plan that I have. I'm very close to completing all the counties in minnesota, so I was going to make a special county run and then complete that. I think, oh, that's a great eight thousand. I completed all the counties, yeah, but it didn't work out because there was bad weather and stuff like that. So fail safe. I knew there was some quality up in the north shore, just because the beauty alone, exactly. It's just so beautiful and it when you see the pictures in the show notes and of course there is a video. It will be out when this comes out Nice.
Speaker 1:Yesterday, yeah, yesterday.
Speaker 2:Yesterday it was published, so decided to go up there. And here's the cool thing about it Before I leave, a couple days before I leave, I decided, you know, I wanted to make sure the weather was good because, you'll understand, this cache needed nice weather or you couldn't do it? Oh, was it EarthCache? It was Well, I weather. Or you couldn't do it, oh, because was it earth cash.
Speaker 1:It was well I did.
Speaker 2:That wasn't seven hundred nine thousand seven thousand nine hundred ninety nine was the earth, that was the earth cash, which was all beautiful, but no, the, the actual cash. Eight thousandth needed good weather, because if there were waves there was no way like it would be too dangerous.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'll explain it to you we're getting ahead of myself.
Speaker 2:Oh so, basically I, a few days before I left, I was like I could do this by myself. It'd be fine and, by the way, I couldn't take Goliath no.
Speaker 1:Because it was too dangerous.
Speaker 2:I would have had to carry him and he could have got hurt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you would have got hurt with your shoulder carrying him. Yeah, he would have fell off a cliff, exactly. So, so I asked Guess who's here? And Guess I couldn't believe. She said yes. If you said she.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking it's Reester.
Speaker 1:Bunny Reester, Bunny herself.
Speaker 2:I was like Reese, what are you doing this weekend? She's like I don't know. I was like do you want to go find my 8,000th cache at the North Shore? She's like yes, she loves the North Shore.
Speaker 1:That's cool.
Speaker 2:So she went up and we did about 30, about a 33 hour trip. Just wow, one night, yeah. Up back the next day, yeah. So it's so cool that reester bunny came along and here. So here's my travel tip. I didn't have a lot of time to plan this. My only goal was really to get this geocache yeah, yeah, that was the main reason, but reester bunny was along. I wanted to make sure she experienced a lot of fun, cool things. So I went to the robots, the robots the robots.
Speaker 2:What the what are the robots?
Speaker 1:a robot helped me.
Speaker 2:Oh, the robot travel tip the internet so if you don't have a lot of time to plan your trip, chat. Gpt is an amazing travel tool. You can literally put it in the prompt. I'm going to be in the north shore of Minnesota for 35 hours. Please make an itinerary that will include some of the best restaurants, please. On Sunday, I want to geocache for two hours in Silver Bay, no, and also add some other cool sites and cool things to do.
Speaker 2:Hit return and instantly poops out yeah, poops out a real itinerary that actually works with restaurants and and timing, and then I, you know, I would tweak it a little bit like oh no, now I want to do before I do that hike, I want to do the you, I do that hike, I want to do the. You know, I tweak it and then they change it, like I hear that I will change that for you. So we followed pretty much the T. Really. I followed ChatGPT's itinerary for this quick little weekend excursion.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow, following ChatGPT to the T like literally, yeah, that is an awesome travel tip and one that a lot of people wouldn't think about asking ChatGPT to do that.
Speaker 2:A lot of times when I travel places, especially if I haven't been there before, I'll just go to Google and I say give me five fun things, and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:But the cool thing about this is it curates the things you ask for Exactly Restaurants, breakfast places, when you want to get back, like I. Like I said I'm going to leave in the morning, I want to be back at three on sunday. Wow, it would really. It would like literally time out and the robots know generally how long things will take. It was pretty accurate.
Speaker 1:You think about it too, like they know the speed limits along all the roads, they know what speed, they know what time, what time it's to take. They take from Google, they take from Yelp for restaurants, and so they would do that. They would actually take all the ratings, the Google ratings, the Yelp ratings, combine it all together and spit out something for you within instantly. And then you could turn around and say, oh, I've got dietary requirements Right If you're vegan, if you're Gluten-free.
Speaker 2:Gluten-free, whatever. Yes, I need a place that has some gluten-free options. Wow, it actually did and it actually gave me a time. You'll leave at eight, you'll get there at this restaurant at 1130 and gave you 90 minutes. It probably knows how long people spend there and it also knows Google knows, probably knows how long people spend there and it also knows, like google knows, like the busiest times, like yes, it, it. It was fascinating and we it worked. Yeah, I had to give it a few more prompts to get it exactly what I wanted to be, but it was pretty amazing and see it's linkedin as well to geocaching.
Speaker 1:Anything on the internet it's linked into. So geocaching, munzee, all that sort of stuff is actually automatically linked in. So if you say things like you know, oh, I want to include gc code, gc one, two, three, four, whatever it is, then it will include that as well that's that, that's probably josh, I'm gonna say that's one of the biggest tips you've had on this, on this, on this series I'm not afraid of the robots.
Speaker 2:Yes, they're there to help us.
Speaker 1:Yes, not to harm us, no exactly, yet use them in the correct way I was gonna say tell that to sarah connor, but anyway, so yeah the first thing that we we left.
Speaker 2:It was kind of a rainy morning that saturday and we went straight to two harbors. Now two harbors is this cute little town about half hour north of duluth, right on the lake, a beautiful little town, and we went to the vanilla bean cafe. Vanilla bean, it was great. It was great. It had a very like minnesota north woods vibe. Yeah, everybody there. You know it's a touristy place but a lot of people there were low like it was locals and I think that was another thing.
Speaker 2:Like again, chat gpt knew I want, you know, I want the best you know I want to go where people you know, and so yeah, the vanilla bean. It was great we had. We had a great breakfast.
Speaker 1:Well, we always say that too, Josh. That's one of our tips. That's always been. Whenever you go to a new town, you look to where the locals buy their coffee in the morning. You look to where the locals are all parked out at the front. You see the one across the road. There's plenty of spots available. That's probably not the pretty cool, wow.
Speaker 2:So we had a nice little breakfast. It was kind of drizzling and raining and I was like Reese, I said we're ahead of schedule.
Speaker 1:We're actually ahead of the ChatGBT schedule.
Speaker 2:She wanted to go to some thrift stores, so we went thrifting.
Speaker 1:There were two little thrift stores yeah yeah. There was a Goodwill, but then there was one. We reese picked up a cool vintage minnesota vikings sweatshirt. She loves that. She's riding that right in that era too.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, this story's so cool exactly um, then we headed to an iconic waterfall, gooseberry falls, which is actually a minnesota state park. The cool thing about gooseberry falls it's one of those rare state parks. Usually at the state parks you need to have a state park pass and pay something. This one is so popular, it has a parking area, you amazing visitor center. You don't have to pay a thing, it's completely free and it's multiple. If you do a google search for it, it's multiple beautiful waterfalls and this is an area that goes cool river raging river waterfall, river waterfall again, and it goes right. You can watch it as it goes right into lake superior so it's like fully teed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, several tears, several tears into the water because it's a national part or uh state park. There's hiking trails all the way. Like you do a loop around the and get different vantage points of of it it was so awesome and the cool thing because it was raining. It was really slow for a saturday, so we kind of had the whole place to ourself.
Speaker 1:That's nice when that happens. Yeah, that's the best part of when it rains. People and I'm one of them, Josh, I'll say this you know, as soon as it rains, I go. I don't feel like it when I feel like it. But in saying that, sometimes if it's misty rain or light rain or something like that, not as long as it's a good, it was kind of a misty rain, yeah and then guess what?
Speaker 2:we had to go shopping again because reese's nickname is reese the rock johnson. Yeah, so she's like hey dad, how about we get some crystals? Oh, yes, so we went agate shopping. I don't know.
Speaker 1:You know what agate is yeah, of course, okay, yeah, we have them in Australia. Yeah, we had.
Speaker 2:And she had like her little like phone app and she wanted. We walk into the agate shop and it's like hundreds of different types of agates, right, different names and actually from different places too. Yeah, and she goes to me, goes to me.
Speaker 1:This is so, this is so gen gen z, she goes pick one dad. That's just. You feel like a speaking to you, yeah, and I'm like okay, so I picked one that was speaking to me.
Speaker 2:I think it was like I don't know, some sort of one from brazil or something. What was it saying, though? Well, speaking it was I. She didn't say speak to me. She said, like once I was drawn to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, pick one you feel drawn to her. So I did, I picked it, so I picked it out.
Speaker 2:She's like once I was drawn to, yeah, she goes. What if you pick one you feel drawn?
Speaker 1:to her, so I did I picked it.
Speaker 2:So I picked it out. She's like okay, and she looked for the name and then she has like an app or she's like what? What does this agate like energy give you? Yeah, yeah, I can't remember what it was oh yeah but she, she picked five and I picked one, and but yeah, she was all like, yeah, she was kind of hippy dippy.
Speaker 1:See some dads out there would go, okay, I'm drawn, and they'd be looking at the actual price tags. Going, okay, I'm drawn to the cheapest ones, they weren't bad.
Speaker 2:They were like you could fit them in your hand and they were like two bucks a piece. No, that's okay, they weren't bad so she bought a bunch of agates because she is reese the rock johnson and then I realized I saw on I'm on minnesota travel like instagram like.
Speaker 1:I follow all the kind of minnesota travel influencers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and, as I was like in the car, on the algorithm it's the robots.
Speaker 1:Again the robots helped me again.
Speaker 2:There was a instagram about like, like. Look at this black beach. Is it in hawaii? Is it in iceland? They're like no, it's in minnesota. And I was like oh my gosh, where's the? We're pretty close to the black beach. I was. We were literally 10 minutes from it. I was like reese, we gotta go to the black beach now the black beach is a black sand beach. The sand is actually black.
Speaker 1:It's very rare did you do an earth cache there? Oh there isn't.
Speaker 2:There wasn't earth cache there. But guess what you could? I can't do it, you weren't allowed because, you had to hold back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because that would have been my 8 000, so I just let it go just like what we could have done it, but not actually right, I didn't have time, for nobody had time for that well, it wasn't on the itinerary chat.
Speaker 2:Gbt didn't have time for that but this black beach it's very rare, it's, it's obviously, it's obviously from ancient yeah, volcanic, of course activity, yeah, yeah, even, you know, even up here in minnesota the whole time and it's just, I don't know. I don't know if I would have done the earth cache I'd know more exactly what a botch and you call yourself a jcash vlogger that I made a tiktok of it.
Speaker 2:I think you saw it, craig and me and reese walking kind of towards the sea with the black sand. Yeah, and it's. It was just.
Speaker 1:It's very rare and I'll say this as well. When I first saw that TikTok the video itself, it reminded me of Iceland, to be honest with you, because I've seen so many other creators that I follow, like photographers and videographers that I follow go to Iceland trips and you see that beautiful black sand and they ride their dune buggies through the sand. It's beautiful. But yeah, that's what I thought, josh. I thought definitely you were in.
Speaker 2:Iceland. But no, no, alas, he was not. He was in the Black Beach in Minnesota. Yeah, there aren't very many Black Beaches. I looked it up and it was like Iceland and Hawaii and then apparently Minnesota.
Speaker 1:There you go, so that was really cool.
Speaker 2:And I've been up to the North Shore several times and I had never visited the Black Beach before.
Speaker 1:So it was really really neat.
Speaker 2:Then we were hungry for a little snacky poo. We went to Betty's World Famous Pies.
Speaker 1:Oh, what pies are we talking here?
Speaker 2:We're talking American pies, american sweet pies, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:They were, oh gosh. So just for our Australian listeners out there, we're not talking about the Australian pies.
Speaker 2:Not a meat pie.
Speaker 1:Not a meat pie, definitely not a meat pie, because I've found one decent one here in the last three years. But we're talking the sweet pies. So what sort of sweet pies were there, josh, at this Betty's World, famous?
Speaker 2:We got a fruit crumble one with several different kinds of fruits in them, and then we got a butterfinger one. Oh so we wanted to do a. They had a whole list of cream pie ones and a whole list of fruit ones.
Speaker 1:So the butterfinger one, yeah, because you got it. You guys got a chocolate bar here called butterfinger. Yeah, and is that what it was? Yes, that's what it was oh, so it had, yeah, it had like butterfinger crumble it was.
Speaker 2:It was very good.
Speaker 1:Very rich, very sweet, very sweet.
Speaker 2:So then we were ready to go for a hike and we went this is all in one day, like literally. We left that morning and we're now doing all this stuff In the afternoon, yeah, in the afternoon. Yeah, the Palisade hike and lookout. We wanted to do a hike up to a lookout right next to Lake Superior, and so we parked there, we hiked up and you've got to remember, it was raining the whole time, but it was so cool. Once we got up there, the clouds parted.
Speaker 1:Of course they did, and nobody was up there. It's for you, it was for us.
Speaker 2:Well, again it was raining all day, nobody was around, and up there and then all of a sudden, the clouds parted and we had this whole cliff. Lookout to ourselves, looking over all of Lake Superior, and you can't see the end. It looks like the ocean. It was just a really awesome way to end our day.
Speaker 1:Was that your 8,000th?
Speaker 2:that was just a hike, oh wow, no because it wasn't again. I had to wait for really good weather for my eighth house that was not it. That was not it. We'll get there. We checked into our hotel at the american end. The timberwolves minnesota timberwolves, by the way, yeah, they're doing really well in the nba playoffs, and so recently I watched them.
Speaker 1:You know why they're doing really well? Why? Because, uh, I think it's j motion media is is doing a lot of editing work as well, for the Timberwolves too, I've noticed. So if you don't know J Motion Media, go and follow him on social media. That's Jonah Josh's voice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there you go. He's a big basketball guy, so we watched the Timberwolves playoff game and then we had a late dinner. Thank you, chat. Gbt Pulled through again Blackwood's Bar and Grill in Two Harbors. I had a great steak. It was a really good steak. You know I love my steak and potatoes.
Speaker 1:What did Reese have? What did she have?
Speaker 2:See people he only remembers himself.
Speaker 1:I don't remember. Oh wow, you don't remember what your daughter had like a week ago. I wish she was here, All right.
Speaker 2:So the next day it's the time for the 8,000th. This is the cast Geocachers play along, here we go. Silver Island Treasure in Silver Bay, minnesota. Are you going to say the GC code? I will GC Q as in quick Quebec, f as in fart, three as in three. T as in terrific.
Speaker 1:Three as in three, t as in terrific Tango. Here I am doing the phonetic for everyone else out there.
Speaker 2:Gcqf3t. This was an incredible, awesome two hour adventure to an island, a hike to an island. It's a literally a real island, yeah, but the city. I don't know if it's because of waves in the bay or whatever, but there is these boulders and rocks, a whole path that leads you. It's about a half-mile hike and we're just boulder hopping where you could literally, if you're not careful, you could fall in between the boulders or really twist an ankle, really bad.
Speaker 1:I did see a video of Rhese jumping between rock to rock and when I saw that I thought, okay, I could understand reese doing this, but I was worried about you a little bit, josh, especially after your sack race incident just saying the whole time.
Speaker 2:We kept reminding ourselves because I this is, I'm like, I'm notoriously clumsy person and I kept reminding her and she kept reminding me to just take our time, stay focused, stay like, yeah, stay focused. She kept on saying I had a camera in my hand. She was like dad, like you gotta, like you gotta use some of your hands, but we took it slow, took easy and and also know it probably took way longer than it should have, because we filmed the whole thing Of course it always does, normally twice as long, I'll find.
Speaker 2:Yes, right, yeah, so we got to the island safely. The island is like pretty much on the top, it's like a plateau, so it's just like all around the island it's straight up like probably 20, 30 feet. I don 30 feet.
Speaker 1:I don't know. So here I am thinking, josh, and and forgive me, forgive me if I'm wrong, but it's like a, basically like a toothbrush. So you go out, you go out straight, and then you actually have to go up onto the island.
Speaker 2:Yes, and it's like a toothbrush looking yes, so you go out on the arm and then it juts out. Yes, yes, you'll see it on the video. Yeah, yeah, but we get to the plateau and you're like there's no way you can climb, it's too steep. Yeah, yeah. But somebody over time created the most amazing janky ladder and we climbed this, I'd say 20, 30 feet ladder straight up Again with your clumsiness.
Speaker 1:were you worried at all?
Speaker 2:Oh, we were. Reese wanted to go first, and the whole time she was like be careful.
Speaker 1:She's much lighter than you as well. Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:This one's a little loose, but we made it up safely. That's good, it's fine. When we get up there, we discovered we were invading Bird Island. Oh the geese were going nuts.
Speaker 1:Seagulls and geese, as in Canadian geese, yes, canadian geese. Yes, canadian or canada geese, sorry, yeah, yeah canadian geese and those things are mean yeah, especially if they're guarding it.
Speaker 2:No, it's spring and craig there were eggs. We were finding eggs everywhere and the geese were going nuts yeah, also the seagulls were like protecting the geese. They were swooping down.
Speaker 1:It was like this is freaking the bird, alfred hitchcock.
Speaker 2:The birds it was, it was, it was wild. Yeah, I mean it was just we, and keep in mind this geocache, I look, hadn't been found since November. It's currently oh wow, it's currently May, so it's been seven months, seven months. About a half a year. That's nice Since this has been found, but that made the adventure feel even more epic exactly no man has been here in a half a year tell me the ego.
Speaker 1:You got the uh, the swooping and stuff on on a little bit there you'll see it.
Speaker 2:That's we're talking about that. We got video of eggs and yep, yep at the end of the video. You'll see it reese at the end of what I was like. Hey, this is kind of a spoiler of the end of the video, but yeah she's like I'm like, hey, thanks for I'm you know doing my thanks for watching the kona adventure reese just chimes.
Speaker 1:She goes, birds aren't real, yeah see, this is what I've always said to you, josh, in regards to your videos. I like it. Not that I don't like you in your videos, it's not about that but when you have like little goliath walking along and the videos about more about goliath, or especially with reese as well, or even jon Jonah as well Jonah's been in one too. Has Hayden been in one for a while?
Speaker 2:Oh, hayden has recently. Oh, he did too. He drove me around, he drove you around. I forgot about that one, yeah.
Speaker 1:Don't take Jonah again because you're always DNF, but anyway, I know that's true, we digress. Yeah, he's bad luck sometimes.
Speaker 2:Exactly that dry humor deadpan face when she says these things and it seriously cracks me up. So you're gonna enjoy this video. She says a lot of funny things, but the last I know exactly. I haven't edited yet. I'll just say that like we're in the past, we're not in the future. Uh, but the last thing she just goes.
Speaker 1:She goes birds aren't real that's it, I'm gonna cut it off. Black screen yeah, that's it. Birds aren't real, but you need the black screen. But then you need the sound effect afterwards as well. Exactly. So here you go, I'm giving you the editing skills.
Speaker 2:Okay. So once we got up there, it was a slight little hike across the island out to a point there's. Literally it felt dangerous. I mean we were a step away from our death. Seriously, it was steep Because on the other side it wasn't like the. It wasn't the 30 feet, it wasn't the 30 feet climbed.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean on the side, yeah, we got there we were kind of going up, uphill up the plateau so it was.
Speaker 2:It had to be at least 150 feet drop, like something it was. You'll see, it's wild. I felt it's one of those ones where you're like you're right there and your heart's beating yep, and you're like if I take one misstep, I'm done yeah, it's, it's over.
Speaker 1:That's the best.
Speaker 2:It's not too bad I mean it could be a worse way to die yeah, and the memories as well.
Speaker 1:You think about that. It creates memories. That's so stuff, you know your hot pounds. It creates memories it's funny.
Speaker 2:After the adventure I said to reese, as we're hiking back on the same boulder path or whatever, I say, reese, when I die, you're never gonna forget this adventure. Exactly right, and, and that's true. But she's like, that's so morbid, just stop that's so true.
Speaker 1:She'll never forget this.
Speaker 2:And now that I have it on video, like she'll be able to look back exactly she'll be able to show the grandkids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, it's all about legacy and she can. Exactly she can show my grandkids my silver play button by the way, guys, he was actually turning around and looking at and adoring it, while while he's looking over my shoulder.
Speaker 2:All right, so we're up there and here's the thing. It crossed my mind oh dnf I. I was like what if I DNF? What if it's not here? I mean, it's so likely yeah yeah. A goose could have picked that thing up and threw it in the water.
Speaker 1:Well, if it's harming one of its eggs, it's likely.
Speaker 2:I mean, when I got to the GZ there was a goose sitting right next to it. And it GZ, there was a goose sitting right next to it. It was scared enough it flew away but then called If it could speak English, it would be like all our babies are going to die.
Speaker 1:Someone help me, Help us seagulls.
Speaker 2:Caw, caw swoop, it was wild. It was wild kingdom out there man but guess what I found the cash right away it was like an old coffee. I think it was like an old coffee computer. Yeah, it was like it looked like a giant, a big, a big like peanut butter jar.
Speaker 1:See that those to a certain degree like old coffee. People say you know, oh, you can't put it in. You know food containers or coffee containers because they smell and whatever else. But but when you find an old one, especially if it's got some rust to it and stuff as well, there's nothing really better, more treasure-like than finding, as opposed to, an ammo can, ammo cans are cool and I love them.
Speaker 1:I found a heap of them in my trip. This trip I went through, but nothing like a good, rusty, especially a coffee container of some sort, because that could be anything. It doesn't have to be a geocache, that could be any sort of treasure.
Speaker 2:So, yes, yes, I like so the cool thing was that that cash was to your point, was dry as a bone. It really was. It was dry as a bone, yeah, and the crazy thing is it seemed like it was the original container.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 2:And I believe I'm trying to look it up right now I believe that it's a pretty old geocache too, 2005. So it's 19 years old.
Speaker 1:19 years old 19 years old, almost as old as the Reester bunny herself, when she found it, yes.
Speaker 2:So 19 years old, 246 favorite points.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's 61% of people who are premium. It was a terrain four and a half.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Certainly was that, and a difficulty one.
Speaker 1:You got to love that. Oh, I like that.
Speaker 2:And that's exactly what it was. I found it right away, yeah, but the train was wild, wild.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we found it took many pictures and made our way back and it was like that was so epic. We're like, we're done, we headed home, we just headed back to minneapolis.
Speaker 2:We're like we're home by three o'clock on sunday.
Speaker 1:One question is that the time that chat jpt said?
Speaker 2:oh yes it was thank you the robot. It said 3 pm.
Speaker 1:I said I want to be home by 3 pm.
Speaker 2:Oh and I, I, I prompted, I said I want to leave at 8 am saturday, back 3 pm sunday, and so give me the things to do, and it gave me just the right and I was able to get a few more you know, I got the thrift store stuff of course, of course, of course, and I didn't plan an agate shop, so I got a little bit ahead of it. It probably gave me a little bit more time, but it didn't bunch so much stuff in that I didn't have enough time.
Speaker 1:It probably thought to itself, you know, geocaches being the way they are and the normal age bracket of geocaches out there as well it would take you longer to do that hike out, or they know that we, we wander.
Speaker 2:Not all who wander are lost. This is true. There's good stickers like that, yeah, so I can highly recommend it. Whether you're a geocacher or not, the north shore has so much to offer. We just, you know, we just scratched the surface in three, 33 hours yeah we, we did enough. It was great, beautiful, it was a great getaway. Yeah, perfect. So I. I that took a while, but I don't know how much. Yeah, I mean, you have a lot to talk about, craig I don't know do we have another?
Speaker 2:should we just do another podcast and call it a?
Speaker 1:call it.
Speaker 2:A second one call it a and and yeah, why not, we'll have our next episode be why not? All about your trip.
Speaker 1:Why not Two weeks? Let's talk about it two weeks later. Let's do that.
Speaker 2:Meanwhile, I mean, I have more highlight to drink.
Speaker 1:We can do other things. We can pause and get another drink. This sounds good. This sounds like a plan.
Speaker 2:I like it Fantastic.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile, before we go, though, josh, geo Woodstock, don't forget Geo Wood on stage. Yes, come and see us. Yes, if you're there, live, and we're going to talk all about the last 20 years of the locations that Geo Woodstock's been. So that's going to be big. That's going to be a big show.
Speaker 2:It's going to be a big show. There's going to be a lot of people there. Please, yeah, be a part of the audience. Yeah, it's 2 p stage. I'll probably get the whole crowd to do the yes chant, like I love firing people up. We'll fire people up. We'll get people excited. This is the super bowl of geocaching. If you have a chance, how far? We're three weeks away or so yeah, if you have a chance, get out there. I've heard flagstaff is lovely this type of year. It's up on hill. It's not hot, I know. Yeah, it's like highs in the six, high 60s, chasing the 70s. It's cooler there right now than it is in Minnesota right now. This is true, this is true. Join us there.
Speaker 1:It'd be so awesome, yep yep, and meanwhile so for next episode before that, though, what are we going to do next? Episode. We're going to talk about my trip, my trip so far, all the way across as well, right here, and it's going to include josh. It's going to include dan, dan, trucker, miller. That's going to be my first talk so there you go.
Speaker 2:Okay, tip, it's going to talk about and why am I saying dan?
Speaker 1:because dan is a patron patron. Yes, I'm saying it correctly as well, thank you. So what about our patrons, josh?
Speaker 2:oh, we love dan yeah, we do. And we love all of our patrons, yeah, and we want you to be a patron if If you've been enjoying this podcast, we really would appreciate your support. If you support us, you're helping us create even better content, keeping it free for everyone no annoying commercials so please consider joining us at Patreon, patreoncom, backslash treasures of our town. And Craig, we often have golden nuggets. We do. We often do. You know what? I should get my wife up here. I should get my wife up here. I should get my wife up here. She could be the golden nugget. She could talk about something. She's done, stuff she's traveled.
Speaker 1:She's watching Survivor, that's true. Maybe we can't get her Meanwhile. Josh, if people just want to contact us for any other reason, how can they do that?
Speaker 2:Reach out to us at treasures of our town podcast at gmailcom or, of course, follow us on facebook, instagram, twitter, x and youtube so that's it for the show for today. So please subscribe, rate and review on your favorite podcasting app and, as always, josh may your travels always lead you to the most unexpected and amazing hidden gems, like the north shore of minnesota. See you next time, guys, bye. See you next time, guys, bye-bye, bye.