geocaching reprise

Several years ago I posted a picture of five grandbabies proudly displaying the cache they had discovered on a poison-ivy-carpeted island in the middle of a lake. Today--another summer, another lake, another state away from that moment in time--the two youngest of the now seven (and therefore "closest to the ground" :-)--were the finders of the "treasure."

Our first geocache--under a weeping hemlock tree in Fritz's garden on a community college campus--eluded us. Too many muggles perhaps?




But even the little ones were not deterred by this setback. On to the next treasure hunt. Of course, while we ladies, young and old, were making a necessary stop at the dam welcome center, the gentlemen, young and old, were in pursuit of the treasure. Just as we closed in on them we heard the cry go up. Michael, age 5, had found his first ever geocache!



Our last geocaching stop for today was at a waterfall. Unfortunately for us--or so it seemed--the treasure hidden here would also be an elusive one. Ropes, signs, and a determined lady ranger barred our way . . . or so we thought. Cassie, not quite three and therefore closest of us all to the ground, wandered away as we strained to see under the shrubs just beyond the rope barrier . . . and happened her way, much to her surprise and momentary embarassment, into the cache's new location.






A lovely way to while away a summer morning . . . making memories to keep :-)

The Fab Five?!

Geocaching on a Lake Murray Island--July 2006 Mason, Kira, Kelsey, Garrett, and Campbell

A Geocaching Glossary

camouflage: sticks, bark, rocks. logs, vegetation, and/or paint resembling these used to hide a cache from view

challenge: what must geocachers negotiate to locate the cache? can be physical (terrain) or mental (multi-caches, codes, camouflage)

compass: what the navigation screen of a lower-end GPS (like a Garmin eTrex) is not

container: what will geocachers find when they reach the posted coordinates? size and contents should be appropriate to the challenges involved in finding it

coordinates: longitude and latitude of the geocache’s or the geocacher’s location

even or up: how to trade one item in a cache for another

geocaching: sport whose name is derived from geo-earth, from “the practice that mountain men had of ‘caching’ goods in hiding spots for later use, ” and from memory caching in computers

GPS: Global Positioning System or a receiver that defines a location in terms of its latitude and longitude by calculating the time difference at that location for signals from different satellites

location: where are you taking the geocachers? can be remote, recreational, or in the midst of everyday life? can be scenic, meaningful, or simply fun to visit

logbook: where you record your visit; for microcaches, bring your own pen

maintenance: what creators of caches should assume responsibility for

micros: very small caches

multicaches: a series of caches in different locations

N 45 17.460 W 122 24.800: the waypoint of the first ever geocache (May 3, 2000)

permission: what you need to place a cache on private or public land

poison ivy: one of the many natural obstacles geocachers encounter during their search

stealth: the challenge of locating a cache in a public place without being observed doing so

terrain: difficulty rating from from ˜ (handicap accessible) to ˜˜˜˜˜ (requires special equipment to access)

travel bug: “Simply put, a Groundspeak Travel Bug is a trackable tag that you attach to an item. This allows you to track your item on Geocaching.com. The item becomes a hitchhiker that is carried from cache to cache (or person to person) in the real world and you can follow its progress online.”

tree cover: one of the many natural obstacles GPS users encounter during their search

watertight: characteristic of most cache containers

waypoint: longitude and latitude coordinates (stored in a GPS) for a given location such as HOME, the cache, on any point along the way