My parents have been swearing by their new found love for geocaching for a solid month before I finally decided to give it a whirl. I had never heard of geocaching before, so I decided to go to the website (www.geocaching.com) and do a little look around before I made up my mind. First, I had to find out what geocaching even was. As I perused through the context of the website, I find that this is truly a game of “treasure hunting”, by using a GPS to hunt the global prize. The geocache (or the found prize), can come in all shapes and sizes and be hidden in anything from bushes, fences or signs. Your imagination of locations can go wild. Once you find these hidden trinkets, you leave something to signify you were there and sign the guest log for your sense of pride. I was astonished to find that there were literally 10 geocaches within a mile from our house. How in the world did I never know about these items, that I have walked by thousands of times before? And above all, how in the world did these little treasures get all over the world!
As the sun was out, Wyatt and I decided to go for a morning walk with our family, and over to Tracy’s coffee for our delicious latte’s. We the weather was beyond perfect for a brisk walk, we elongated our morning excersize to continue to the nearby neighborhoods. As I grabbed for my phone, I decided to finally go for it. We were going to try to find out first geocache. You could imagine the look on Wyatts face when I informed him of my morning decision, as he had been poking jokes at my geocache research days prior. But he slowing mopped behind me, as I followed our IPhone GPS geocache app to our location. It took us to the neighborhood park, Griffen Oaks. As the location took us within 42 feet of our prize, it was up to us now to find the hidden cache. Wyatt stood back with Wayde, as he laughed at me rolling through the bushes and mud. I crawled through the dirt, I lifted up branches, I turned over rocks, and brushed through wet leaves. But no geocache! I SWORE a muggle took the cache (a ever so nerdy name for someone who steals the geocaches and ruins the fun for others!), but I was determined to find it. As Wyatt decided to help search in aid of getting us out of the park quickly, he reaches into the overgrown bush, and low and behold, pulls out a small plastic container wrapped with camo tape! I gasped in jealousy, but then I looked and saw the addicted look in his eye and the “I found it gloat” dance that he was starting in the park path way. I knew this would now only be our first of many geocaches to come!
We took a couple photos with our phone cameras, as we opened the prize and signed our first log book. And this is when 4UrbanExplorers was born (our geocache geek team name!). We left our zoo ticket (the only thing we had on hand), as Wyatt took the quarter in the cache for our first memento. Proudly, we re-hide the cache where we found it. As we get ready to leave the park and head home, Wyatt turns to me with a sly look and said “where’s the next closest one?”.
The next one was a compete bust, as we searched and searched with no find. We later find out that it no longer exists due to muggle activity, but our hopes were then down. 1-1, we decided we couldn’t end out walk with such a depressing finale, so we were off to find one more before we retire for lunch. This one in particular, is about .1 miles from our front door, ha! This one did not take long, as the hint was a dead give away, but Wyatt again beamed as he as the searcher to find the prize. Once again! Wayders slept almost the entire time too!
So, over all, I have to eat my words and admit, GEOCACHING IS ENTERTAINING! It gets you out of the house to places you wouldn’t normally go, and is overall a good time. I guess my parents do know how to have fun!!
1 comment:
Glad you had fun! It's addicting!
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