Monday, January 9, 2012

Found It!

Found it! That's probably the most heard phrase in our newly acquired sport -- geocaching.

It's a high-tech GPS driven treasure hunt. People hide stuff in say, the woods, and then give people clues or coordinates where it can be found and you're off!

There's a cache (hidden item) and skill level for everyone. Sometimes the cache is large as a tote box or as small as a matchbox. There's everything from easy to find to insanely hard. Sometimes it's right off the sidewalk, and other times you have to slog through the woods or on top of a mountain to get to it. Some people will tell you where it's hidden within a dozen feet, other times you have to solve a riddle to get starting coordinates.

There's nothing of particular value in the caches, the idea is just to find it and sign the log book.  Occasionally there are interesting items that people leave or trade -- or not. Whatevs.

It's hide and seek writ large. Wynken and I did our maiden voyage over the Christmas break and had a grand time. We even got Grandpa Nod, Shoe, and one of the Hardy boys to try it out. Men-folk out in the woods messin' around. What's not to like?

There's a cool app for that (or twelve) on your iPhone/iPad/Android and many Web sites to help you out.  I started out with the Geocaching app from Groundspeak and www.geocaching.com, picked some easy starters and voila! It took me a couple of minutes to figure out how the whole Lat/Long/Minutes/Seconds thing worked because there are a couple of different systems, believe it or not, but mostly I relied on the visual map and the big green arrow that said: walk that way!

It's cheap, it's fun, and it gets you outdoors. I recommend.

2 comments:

Rebecca Frech said...

Oooooh! I want to play. Even better, I want to send my sons and husband out to play.

Nod said...

It really is cool. I was surprised at how many caches there were within a mile or so of my house.

Fun for boys (and girls) of all ages.

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails