I started a family geocaching account on geocaching.com back in 2011, but never did anything with it because I didn’t have a gps and because it seemed like a very complicated endeavor to search for items hidden in the woods with naught but a piece of paper explaining the items’ whereabouts. Smart phones have come along and changed all that, though.
So, back in February, while attending a cousin’s birthday party, I started asking Aunt T questions about geocaching because I knew that her husband, Uncle R, was really into it.
“Oh, I find one almost every day,” she explained. “R does every day.”
Well, that revelation only led to more questions. Are there really that many geocaches? And everywhere? Then, T pulled out her phone to show me a map of geocaches hidden in the area. We were, quite literally, surrounded.
Right now, while sitting at your computer (or wherever you’re reading this), you are oblivious to the handful of containers hidden in a nearby stump, fence post, or lampskirt. Sitting outside a restaurant? Well, there’s probably one in the nearby newspaper dispenser or on that fire hydrant over there.
The day after the party, I decided to revive the old geocaching account and try to learn more. My sweet Hubs wasn’t too keen on the idea at first. It sounded kind of fun to him, but deep down he didn’t really care about doing it. I think he was just going along with me to be nice. But finding our first one only made him want to find another one.
Here are a couple of pictures of our very first find:
We’ve been going strong ever since this first one. We’ve even hidden several of our own. If you look to the right sidebar, you’ll see my geocaching badge. I hope to share more about how geocaching has been a boon to our social studies and science activities. Right now, though, I have to go check myself for ticks. Ewwww!
