I have a story to tell you, if you have a minute.
So we're out grabbing what I'm pretty sure is the most northwesterly geocache in Minnesota, and I think to myself, I want to put one even further northwest. No problem. My GPSr shows a road that pretty much goes to the corner of the state, and there just has to be a great spot there.
As I approach this road, leaving GZ of a nearby cache, I see that it's a bit rough, and I'm driving a little car, but it looks like if I go slow, things will be fine.
As I start down the road, I think, It would really, really suck to break down out here.
The road itself was just fine. No problems. As I said, a bit rough, but my car can handle it without problems. What I didn't count on was the 12-inch diameter fieldstone boulder sitting in the middle of the road, covered in dirt the same color as the road. As I approached it, it looked smaller than it was, and I didn't realize it was a rock. So I merrily drove over it. When I heard the sound of tearing metal underneath the car, I knew I was in trouble. When I saw the large cloud of white smoke, I knew I was in Trouble. And when I heard the engine rev to 6,000 rpms and felt the car gradually slowing down, I knew it was that sort of Trouble-You-Have-When-It's-Especially-Not-Needed(tm).
My girlfriend looked at me as we coasted to a halt. The 8 year old in back started weeping, and the 4 year old started bouncing up and down. It was going to be an Exciting Day!
The exhaust was torn off and the transmission was destroyed. The tow truck guy had trouble finding us, it's an absolute miracle that the cell phone had reception (we lost roadside assistance several times), and I swear, I SWEAR, the tornado sirens sounded off about 30 seconds after we coasted to a halt. I had been thinking it would be cool to see a tornado out on the plains, but it wasn't so great when I didn't have a car to outrun it.
Fortunately, some great people in Pembina helped us out. The local shop borrowed us a car out of pity (I scrapped mine when we realized fixing it would cost more than it was worth) and the greasy-spoon food at the little clubhouse at the local golf course was excellent. A local gentleman, Dennis, graciously offered to let us spend some time in his beautiful home when we stopped to ask him for directions. And best of all, I got to place my geocache while we waited for the tow truck.
You can see the offending granite boulder sitting right next to the geocache. When you do, give it a kick for me (don't move it, and don't hurt yourself please) and be thankful that you aren't broken down out here, a quarter mile from the Canadian border and 8 hours from home.
Update: I was on the fence about archiving this one, since it seemed to be gone, but EskoClimber very kindly replaced the container and got it up and running again. This should be a SUPER EASY find for anyone, so if you don't find it, feel free to replace the container if you so feel. If you do so, you can log a find. Thanks! -MastahMatt