Geocaching
Yesterday, our friend Beth showed us what Geocaching is. It was a lot of fun. It’s like a high tech scavenger hunt. She downloaded GPS coordinates from the geocaching website for a few geocaches and loaded them into her GPS unit. She also printed out some hints and descriptions for the particular geocaches we were going to try and find.
The first one we set out to find was called Dream Theater. We followed the GPS unit’s directions until we arrived at the coordinates. It was extremely easy.
The geocaches are all shapes and sizes. Some very small, others very large. The one we were looking for was labeled as “micro” so it was going to be in a small container. To help us find exactly where this geocache was hidden, we solved some clues from the web page for this geocache. These clues were written using the names of songs from a particular band. Some of the clues that helped were: “off the shoulder” so we figured it was just a few steps of the main road, there was a weird “noise” nearby and “hollow” because it was hanging in a tube.
We looked and looked. The GPS unit has an accuracy of a few feet, so we knew we were close to the goecache. While I was under a tree looking just about everywhere I could, I saw a piece of fishing line going down one of the hollow fence posts. I pulled on it and realized there was something attached. I kept pulling it until a little canister came out. I found my first geocache!
I opened it up and inside was a rolled up piece of paper. This was there so people can put their names on it and the date that they found it. We added our names to the list. I took a look at the list and guess there may have been 30 or so names. There was even a couple of people that found this geocache just yesterday.
There was another geocache called Eye Spy! just a short walk away. This one was labeled as regular, so it was going to be in a bigger container. The description and clues for this one helped out a lot. I found this one pretty quick. Andrew 2, Jennifer 0!
Inside this geocache was the familiar piece of paper, but also a bunch of goodies. Beth told us that when you take an item out, you must replace it with an item of equal or greater value. You also write down what you took and put in on the piece of paper next to your name and date. I got a super secret spy glass.
I think Jennifer and I are hooked. We are already looking at different GPS units to buy so we can do move geocaching.
