geocaching!

Rory took my geocaching today! It was SO FUN and fascinating. It is like a modern day treasure hunt. You use the Geocaching website to find where caches are, then you use a GPS receiver to enter the coordinates. The GPS puts you about 5-10 feet in contact with the secret hidden treasure. Sometimes the person who hid the item in the first place will include a riddle or a clue how to find it. It is then up to you to look high and low for a little container in the specified area. Once you have discovered it you take out the little log, write your name, the time/date you found it, and if the container is large enough sometimes it has little treasures/trinkets inside. If you take something you must leave something. It is one of the most thrilling things in the world. Rory has found many caches and when you are close to the object your heart sort of races because you don't know what to expect. I recommend doing it if you have access to a GPS device and you have some free time. Once you get home then you also log in online when you found the object so other users can see how long ago it was re-found.

This is what the official Geocaching website has to say about geocacheing:

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment.

Here is the first hunt of the day. Rory is wearing these glasses so that he can leave them in the container. We didn't have any luck finding this cache, unfortunately.

Onto cache #2, Rory gets on his hands and knees in order to find the item. Again, no luck.

The 3rd hunt, we found it! It was a little plastic film canister with a logbook hidden underneath a parking lot lamp post. There is a circular cement slab holding up the lamp post, and there is a recangular metal box with fake bolts screwed into the cement, we lifted it up and voilà!

Fourth Hunt. Again, unsuccessful.

Rory found this Jeep in one of his caches. I guess finding a Travel Bug Jeep is sort of special. Each jeep has it's own dogtag and it's travels can be logged in online through the website, that way you can monitor the distance the jeep has traveled, and check out what previous cache it was in, etc. Pretty neato, huh?