The Mission Was Possible

Our mission was GC471AT … please take a moment to read Chat’s log ….

I don’t know where to begin – so perhaps the beginning is the best place. Herr Minnz came downstairs one evening saying that all the talk on CacheUp NB was about this new “multi event”. It piqued my interest and once I had checked it out I knew that I had to go. Since I knew that I couldn’t spend all that time cooped up with Herr Minnz I knew the best thing was to invite some company! I was thrilled that Ma & Pa agreed to come along.

We left Moncton at 8:00 a.m. the day before the event (it was difficult enough to break the news to Pa that we would have to leave St. Stephen at 6:00 a.m., I didn’t dare suggest we leave from Moncton!) So, off we headed, and, 81/2 hours later we arrived in St Stephen. We found out how much fun it is to cache with Ma & Pa. We left the highway at just about every exit – we saw more waterfalls than I could count, travelled more dirt roads that went nowhere and even found an unnamed road. We talked to a prospector who told us about the gold in the boulders and the arsenic in the ground. We bumped into Sussex Ace and VFRgirl in the middle of nowhere and almost had to rescue Pa from the brook at the Ole Fishing Hole. Finally, in St Stephen we checked into the B&B and set off to do some urban caching and discovered just to what lengths Ma & Pa will go to find a “not winter friendly” cache.

Saturday we joined forces with Moorely, Neaders and Gremlo to set off on the Possible Mission – before the crack of dawn! The first stage passed quickly, we even managed to stop for a few caches. At one point the car GPS suggested a turn and Pa spent the next fifteen minutes trying to tell Herr Minnz that the GPS was wrong. He then spent the last fifteen minutes of the drive to Newport trying to remember the route the GPS took us since it was much better and faster than sticking to Hwy 9.

From Newport to Lac Megantic we enjoyed the spectacular scenery and the brilliantly shining sun that glistened off the snow-filled hills. And congratulated Mother Nature for changing her mind about the 15 cms of snow that had been promised for today. Once across the border we trusted the car GPS when it took us over the mountains – and through the blowing snow! A much more interesting drive but on the return trip we took the lower route! The sugar camp was quite an experience – the meal was amazing. The staff kept bringing platter after platter and bowl after bowl of beans, ham, sausage, fried eggs, omelettes, pea soup, cole slaw, home-made bread, pork rinds and a delicious sweet crepe for dessert. They had to roll me back to the car and hoist me in.

The return trip was a lot of fun. We discovered that after being together, non-stop, for fourteen hours on Friday and eight hours on Saturday, Pa did run out of conversation. Instead, he hiked up the volume on the 60’s music channel and we played “name that band” all the way back to St. Stephen. Believe it or not, upon arriving back at the B&B we immediately headed out for dinner. I might explode anytime now!

It was a real adventure. Herr Minnz tells all our friends and family that we traveled thirteen hours to have brunch! We met some terrific people; a huge thanks and kudos to Moorely for dreaming this up, for organizing and for getting it approved! Too bad you can’t give favourites to events, I would give this one ten!

The Mission was Possible !!