Geocaching is a great way to have fun

And get some exercise at the same time.

 

The first thing most people ask is “What the heck is Geocaching?’.

The simple answer is; People all over the world are involved in hiding  “Geocaches” and providing their GPS coordinates on the Internet.  Other people go to the Internet site to get locations of caches in their area and go out and find them.

 

The official Geocaching Web Site is www.geocaching.com and will supply you with everything you need to know to get started.  Here is what they say in their FAQ about “What is Geocaching” ; “Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for gps users. Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a gps unit. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache.”  

 

I really enjoy the search as well as the “Treasure” I often find.  It gives my wife and I some time to enjoy the outdoors and fresh air together and provides for some great photos.

 

The basic Geocache is a container of some kind with a minimum of a piece of paper in it to record your visit.  Well, that doesn’t sound exciting!  Most cache’s are larger than that and include a note telling people that this is a Geocache and what it’s for (in case someone just happens to find it without looking for it), a note book and pencil where you record your Geocaching name (I’m DigMaster and my wife is Pulltabs) and whatever else you want to put down, and some items for you to select from.  When the cache is originally set up the owner puts in some things to start off with.  After that, who knows what will be there.  Why? You ask.  The common practice is to take one thing and leave one thing.  One time I found a VERY NICE Indian head penny in a display card in one of the caches.  Usually it’s just interesting little toys and the such.  The normal thing I leave is a “Gold” colored dollar coin (nothing like looking for treasure and finding “Gold” when you open it) or some polished stones that the kids always love.  After you make your selection, leave something and record your visit you carefully put it back just the way it was.  Great Fun.  We get plenty of exercise and fresh air.  We actually have time (away from my computer) to talk, and we find “Treasure” all at the same time.  There are all kinds of twists and turns to make things more interesting like “Travel Bugs” and the get together's if  you want.  Don’t have to.  To find out more about it all, get on over to www.geocaching.com (after you look around here for a while) and check it out.  Maybe I’ll see you along the path someday. One more thing I do want to say before I move on is that at www.geocaching.com you will be able to enter a zip code and find out about all the caches in your area.   There are about 20 within 5 miles of me. It will also rate them for terrain and difficulty with from 1 to 5 stars.  One star is so easy it should be a crime and 5 stars, get ready for a real tough time.

 

There is another type of  search that I enjoy.  On their site they also have an area for “Benchmark” searches.  A benchmark, as you know, is a permanent location that surveyors use as a known point.  On www.geocaching.com they give the coordinates and a little about them and the last time it was recorded as found.  When you find it take a photo if you can and post it on the site when you get back to your computer.  I really enjoy this and often they are right in towns so you can drive very close to them if you don’t get around in the brush to well.  Think about trying them if you have a GPS.

 

Some people want to know if old people (like me) or children can do Geocaching.  The answer is most certainly yes, and they love it.  I was coming back from finding a cache in a park near here and an older man and his grandson met me.  Of course the boy wanted to know what I was doing with that funny “radio” (my GPS).  I told them and the man seemed interested so I asked if they would like to try it.  I told them what to do, and what they were looking for, gave them my GPS to use and we all took off on the search.  The boy was about 6 or 7 years old.  He was having a great time out in the woods with his Grandpa but you should have seen his eyes when he found the cache, opened it and saw a small bag of polished stones I had just left.  “Grandma likes pretty stones” so he took them.  They left a little change in place of it and back to the car we went.  I think that they are probably still out looking for “Treasure” together.  Talk about “Quality Time” with your family.  It doesn’t get much better than that.

 

Well, I hope I gave you a little insight into something that you will enjoy and help you get some quality time with the people you love.  That would be great.  Below I will put a few photos of some of our finds.  Not many, just a few.

 

Have Fun

Bob Jones