Geocaching is a fun, outdoor, worldwide treasure hunt! Eric and I had heard of it, and wanted to try it but didn’t get to until my friend (from Hawaii) Ginnie came to visit and took us on our first geocaching adventure. She got us hooked!
The basics of geocaching are that you need a GPS receiver. In this picture I’m holding Ginnie’s, a Garmin 60csx, which we liked so much we ended up buying the same one. At geocaching.com, people post the GPS coordinates of where they have hidden a cache. The post will also give descriptions, hints and other information. The cache can be a variety of different containers. I won’t tell you where these are, but here are pictures of some. The one above is a large ammo can, it was full of all kinds of neat toys (if you take something, always leave something).
Ginnie is pointing to a well disguised micro (very small) cache that was hanging from a tree. If you click on the picture you can see it better. Micros are so small they only contain a paper log for you to sign with your handle. Ours is wormeyman+dianasaur.
This micro is so tiny, it’s also called a nano. It looks like a screw and is about the size of a pencil eraser. Signing the log in this one is a lot easier if you can write tiny.
This micro is an itty bitty little duckie, with something similar to the above nano hidden inside him.
Another fun part of geocaching (and Eric’s favorite part) is something called Travel Bugs. They are trackable items that move from place to place. Every time someone moves it, they post where they took it so you can watch it travel around the world. Often they have goals, this one is Gator Bait. He’s from Florida and his goal is to play in the snow and get pictures so his owners (2 children) can see him in it. He traveled all the way to Washington without anyone taking pictures of him in the snow, so even though it was spring time here, we took a day trip to the Pass so we could get him to some snow.
We took lots of pictures of him in very snow poses, but this is my favorite!
Ironically, the day after we’d gone to the Pass, we got a freak snow day at home! What happened to Spring? So here he is on top of our car at our apartment.
If you’re in the Washington area, and want to try geocaching, let us know. We’ve taken our family members more than once. It’s a great way to get outdoors together, and we love it!