tonkaMN 10,000th Find Tribute Traditional Geocache
tonkaMN 10,000th Find Tribute
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(regular)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
tonkaMN Has Found 10,000 Caches!!!
BigChiefS4
I first met Ted at the MNGCA 2011 Fall Event & Election. This was the first event I had ever attended. I had less than 100 finds at that point and meeting someone with more than 1,000 finds seemed like I was talking to a rock star. I also met Copaman that day and we ended up caching together for the rest of the day. The rest, as they say, is history. Finding 1,000 caches seemed like an unattainable goal to me at the time. After that day, Ted and I (and sometimes Copaman) started caching together on a weekly basis after work. We would pick a park that neither of us had cached in and would clear the park out together. We cleared out a lot of parks that way and he taught me that "cacher instinct" - you know the one, where you can pick out a beacon from a block away.
Soon I was approaching 1,000 finds and Ted was happy to join me for what would be the first of many milestones that we would share together. When I hit my 1,000th find, Ted was there to assist me as I was on crutches after a recent geocaching mishap. Ted and I have shared many, many geocaching memories together. We have bushwhacked, climbed trees, canoed, rappelled, climbed the steepest hills, braved the hottest and coldest temps, and crossed frozen lakes to claim those smileys.
Ted is the most generous cachers I've ever met. He will drive the whole day on a power trail run, climb the highest trees, bushwhack the thickest brush and ford the deepest swamps. He has some of the most creative caches in the Twin Cities that have garnered him lots of well-earned favorite points. He also has some tricky puzzles, some of which have stumped me for months until I break down and ask him for a hint (he's always willing to help fellow cachers solve his or offer hints on other puzzles).
Ted is a very valued member of the cacher community and I'm proud to call him a close friend. Congratulations on finding 10,000 caches and here's to many more adventures together!
Copaman
Oh, so many good stories of caching with TonkaMN, but I think my favorite have to do with TonkaMN's love of the Vikings. There was the time that we were going to cache the Senses Census, and TonkaMN had Vikings tickets. Not wanting to miss out on celebrating one of BigChiefS4's milestones, he sold his home tickets online. However, as we made the trek to complete the multi, my phone kept pinging with all of the awful plays the Vikings made, and I think TonkaMN actually came to conclude that geocaching that day was much better than being at the game watching his team lose.
But my favorite memory of all has to be when at a weeknight cache, we decided to find the cache "Vikes Trophy Case at Bryant Lake." Being a die-hard Vikings fan, TonkaMN refused to actually find this one prior to the event. And although he helped find it, and saw it, he refused to touch it or sign his name in the book, requiring one of us to do it for him. He even posed for a picture near it, but that was about as far as he would go, refusing to be too close to it.
CluelessTu!
We have been caching just over 3 1/2 years. Early on in our career we got to know Ted as he owns caches all around the Mall of America (kind of where we started) and we found most of them. One was Very Tough, and we looked several times and couldn't find it. Finally I resorted to a TAF (don't like to do that) to Ted and he gave me a little hint and we nailed it. It was a really nice as a newbie to find a tough one like that after a hint from the C/O. We never forgot that timely help. Getting to know Ted it was very apparent that he is the "COMPLETE Cacher". With a diversity of hides and hosting events on the one hand, and a casual FTF Hound and now approaching 10,000 Finds on the other hand, Ted has done it all. We have shared FTF's with him and also have had FTF on some of his caches. He has some of the most FUN & REWARDING Challenges we have ever qualified for. We have even solved a couple of his puzzles and are close to asking him for help on some others. Ted hosted a unofficial event for some of us local cachers to find one of his tough hides up on a telephone pole that requires Special Equipment (HIS). We all Got It! Ted is a Class Act and a Huge Asset to our Geocaching Community. Thanks Much for being a Geocaching Friend Ted and we look forward to celebrating your 10K Finds Event with you soon. CluelessTu! (Rick & Theresa)
I Spy
I remember seeing tonkaMN logs on caches in the SW Metro area and wondered who this person was. I finally got to meet him at his Fore cache - tricky little one that was his first of many well constructed caches. Since then, we’ve cached together several times and he’s always up for a challenging hide. He’s become quite the puzzle solver too. While I used to be the one helping him on puzzles, he has quickly become a very good puzzler and now he is the one I often contact for some help! Ted’s a great guy and I am very happy to help him celebrate his 10,000th find!
JAYMZ*BRONX
CONGRATS on 10,000! Tonkamn is the man!!!!
So here's how the story goes, I found a cache in Eden Prairie called (dd) Minnesota Edition and I put it on my Watchlist and got a DNF from that infamous tonkaMN guy which I've never met but seen his name all over the South so I emailed him and ask if he wanted a hint, so I gave him one and he DNF again 😛 That was the first time we spoke and since then we have built an awesome friendship! We've cached together, hungout at Events, shared Milestones, hid caches for each other, attended Twins & Vikings games, WNC... etc. His knowledge of Geocaching is great, he can answer any questions I ask. As far as his hides I've said it time and time again they are very creative and unique, some will probably never be duplicated. I've nominated some for COTM! His Challenges will also have you running all of the place trying to complete. He is also pretty artistic too. He painted the ammo can for my 1000th tribute (which I plan on taking and replacing with a plain one) and he also did a J*B's Minons series for my kids! By now you get the picture that we are close Geo-Junkie Buddies, so if there is The One Not Known As My Nemesis it's tonkaMN!!! Well I don't wanna hog up too much space so here's a toast to you My main man from the south from your Northside connection JAYMZ*BRONX aka Skinny Creeper aka Geo-Junkie aka J*B......
Leopold22
I had been wanting to go visit the Jabs Farm Virtual and heard that another group was going to go out too. So Hives and I met up with tonkaMN, BigChiefS4, Copaman and Langlie at the trail head. We had a pleasant walk out and through conversation along the way I got to know more about Ted and the other people in our group. We spent some time exploring the remaining structures and took some photos and then headed back. It was a very nice experience. I have found several of tonkaMN's cache hides and he puts out some very creative and nicely hidden ones. He is an asset to the local geocaching community. I am happy to call him a friend.
nsaj
"The first time I met TonkaMN was when I was trying to figure out a field puzzle in Terrace Oak East Park (Burnsville, MN). I had been struggling with it for a while when I saw someone approach. I was hoping it was a fellow Geocacher so I could get some assistance. Lucky for me, that's when I met Ted. We tried the cryptic lock for a while before he used a PAF. We were both planning on heading to an event a few days later, so we met-up again to go caching. After the event, BigChiefS4, TonkaMN and I head out to find a 5/5 along the West banks of the Mississippi. This was still in my early stages of being a more serious Geocacher. Well, Ted had traversed the terrain and had the cache in hand before I was even 1/2 down the steep hill!"
Red_Devil35
Back in March 2011, TonkaMN & I took a trip to Hudson. I needed to pick up beer, and we were going to grab some caches, too. We were focusing on the HHAA series, which was bringing a lot of people to the area at the time. It was a big day, I think it was the first time either of us had found 50 caches in a day. We had a good time, except for one weird experience. Since it was a Saturday, we maybe weren't really obeying all the traffic laws in the industrial area where many of the caches were. So, maybe someone noticed us driving around. Someone in a pickup truck started to follow us. It seemed like they drove past, slowly, several times, at least 3 times when we were signing logs. I don't really think it had anything to do with our behavior, I blame it all on the fact that TonkaMN was wearing Viking apparel in the middle of Packer country!
Sparkyfry and Sharknose Bunnies
The year was 2009. Minnesota geocachers had just been exposed to their first wherigo cache, a fledgling sub-genre still suffering from growing pains like technical bugs and the fact that only precious few GPS's were wherigo-compatible. Brilliant advances like spstanley's Wherigo smart phone app were still years away from existence. We had attempted the wherigo once already, but we had only SNB's GPS that was wherigo-compatible and it had crashed during that attempt. We came back for a second attempt and who do we run into but tonkaMN heading out of the park. On the spot, he let us borrow his wherigo-compatible GPS in case we had any problems with SNB's, which we invariably did. At that point, he barely knew us from Adam, but that's the kind of guy he is -- he will offer up an expensive piece of equipment to two shady acquaintances so that they can enjoy the activity even more. Sure enough, we were able to complete the wherigo with tonkaMN's device and out of appreciation, we decided not to abscond with it. Congratulations on 10,000 finds, tonkaMN! Here's to your next 10,000!
spstanley
One of my favorite series was the Baker Road set of caches, which helped me continue my streak during an otherwise low-cache period. Ted was instrumental in helping me continue my streak! Since then I've been amazed at the ingenuity of some of his other caches, seen with him at events and in the wild (sometimes both). I'm happy to have him as a fellow cacher in my general area!
Yellowdogs
The caching story I have that involves tonkaMN happened a couple of years ago. I had plans of going after a geocache called "In the Middle of Butcher Country" and reached out to see if any other cachers wanted to join in on the search. Well, tonkaMN said he would like to be involved and we all met on the shore with canoes and kayaks to make the trip to the island. Valsey and tonkaMN chose the "short straw" to share my canoe. An unfortunate incident happened while I (being the last to enter the canoe) climbed into the canoe. The canoe started rocking violently from side to side and caught both Mark and Ted off balance. In a split second the canoe tipped far enough to take on water and eject all 3 of us into the pond along with the TOTT we had along. We managed to get the water out and the canoe upright again. Pretty much soaked, the 3 of us piled back into the evil canoe and made our way to the gz and spent more time playing in the water (we were already wet at this point!). We did not find the cache, but it sure left us with a memorable day that to this day I have not lived down.
I did love the log that tonkaMN wrote on the cache page though: "I don't know where to start on this one. It was quite the adventure with quite the distinguished group of cachers. We must have had close to 100,000 finds between us and I felt like a newbie. I had heard at an event a while ago that yellowdogs was planning a trip out to the island to grab this one so I sent him a message asking if I could tag along. He graciously said yes and let me know when the expedition was going to happen. I got there a little early to grab a couple other caches in the area and then we started to pile into the canoes to head out to gz. There were three of us in one canoe that capsized. I won't say who was the last one to get into the canoe immediately before it capsized, but his name isn't greencats. All three of us got pretty wet, but at leas I was wearing sandals, so I was a bit more prepared. We successfully loaded the canoe and paddled out to GZ. There was a bit more water than we had anticipated and since I was already all wet I spent about a half an hour walking through the water feeling for the cache with no luck." Not surprisingly, I have not been asked to go caching with tonkaMN since then.
Rustynails.
I can't remember when I first met Ted, but most likely at an event. Been on a few cache runs with him and at one learned he's a great tree climber. Ted likes to hide them high in the trees as well. Ted's a very nice guy and is always willing to help a fellow cacher. A fun guy with many challenging hides and puzzles. Congratulations on 10,000 my friend.
rjr002
The first time I can recall meeting Ted was at the MnGCA 2011 Fall Event and Election. A group was going after a cache near the visitor center and we rode with Ted. We chatted a bit during the brief ride but our first impression of him was a nice guy, which has not changed over the years and many events we've seen him at. We've found around twenty or so of his hides as well and he does a nice job on them. A couple of favorites come to mind right away - Penn Avenue Shuffle off to Buffalo, American Blvd #1 Slamalamadingdong and of course BigChiefS4 10,000 Finds Tribute. Congratulations to Ted on this special milestone a great achievement we are hoping to reach some day.
KredEP
Don't remember when we first met TonkaMN (we're sure he'll remember though) as it was so long ago; we've been friends for a long time. It's always nice socializing with a fellow Packer and UND fan. ;-) We've also had fun sharing ideas on puzzles through the years. Congratulations to TonkaMN on this fabulous milestone.
Hal-oween
I feel fortunate to know TonkaMN. Ted is an upstanding guy who steps right up to help out or to climb a tree. His work to set up park cleanups and CITO events is really appreciated. It turns out we have a few things in common, we are sort of neighbors, we both went to NDSU and we have kids that were classmates. Congratulations on the milestone, Ted. It has been great getting to know you.
bauercache14
The first time Ted and I met was an interesting encounter. I noticed a cache from highway 62 and was able to figure out which cache it was. I didn't have the necessary equipment to reach the cache so I emailed the CO, who happened to be Ted. I told him that I wanted the cache to be my 1000th find and he graciously offered to meet me at the cache with the equipment to make the grab. We arranged the meeting after work and we headed over with my pregnant wife. CluelessTu, jschlecht, raygun, and BigChiefS4 were all there. I put the gear on and started my ascent. I was very wobbly and not confident in my skills. Ted was very supportive. My wife was freaking out with every foot that I climbed. As I was about 10-15' up, which felt like much more, my foot twisted and I dropped. I scraped all the way down the beacon. I was plucking wood out of my chest for a week (check out my picture on 'not so easy peasy'). Even though I failed, Ted was very supportive. Luckily, raygun was there to get us all signed in. Not quite what I imagined for my first to find but I got to meet a great cacher so it was all worth it.
I have run into Ted a few more times and he is always friendly and greets me when we meet. He has spoon fed me numerous puzzle hints and helped me solve a few more. Thanks for all your hides and your contributions to the geocaching community.
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)