I, Geo-Cacher

I finally did it. This morning I figured out where the cache near home is stashed (End of the Road Reincarnated). I had some guidance from an experienced geo-cacher (Kevin Lodge - I guess he'd be my cousin-in-law?) and that definitely helped me zero in on the more likely spots.

So while trekking through the little wooded area on the way to HyVee this morning, armed with the advice of an experienced cacher, I found the cache I've been looking for since January. Ok - honestly, I haven't been searching high and low every day since then. I've only made a concerted effort to find it maybe 5 times since then. But still, it felt good to finally figure it out.

Then, later this afternoon, I went and found another one in the Ann Munn Woods about 4 tenths of a mile from home (Chipmunk Hideaway). This one was not as challenging to locate and, unlike the other one, it's big enough to contain lots of little goodies deposited by past visitors who've stopped and swapped their swag for swag in the cache.

You might notice a little image on the right side of this page now. It indicates my progress as measured by number of caches I've found and number I've placed. Hopefully those numbers will begin go climb steadily and continue to do so on a regular basis.

Almost Geo-caching...

I've been talking (and talking and talking) about geo-caching for a long time now - at least since last fall when I got a Garmin GPS as a service award from my company (15 years). I've even occasionally hailed it as the key to my new fitness and hiking program. It's a good idea, I say, because it mixes exercising with technology - and there's a mapping and tracking component that I can leverage to show where I've been (or see where I'm going) on google maps or within google earth, all of which appeal to the part of me that wants to sit in front of the computer all day and never go anywhere. Well, finally, today I went and did enough walking around to feel as though I can legitimately say I've given it an honest attempt.

There are maybe a half dozen or so geo-caches within walking distance of my house, mostly concealed within or near the edge of nearby wooded areas. In fact, there is one very close to my house - within 1/10th of a mile - that I tried to find this winter. I don't really count that as getting started because 1) I haven't found it yet and 2) it's so close it would be like having someone hide one in your backyard. My take on geo-caching is that you can't legitimately say you've been geo-caching until two things happen: 1) you need to do some hiking to get to the cache hiding area, and 2) you need to actually find the cache once you get there. By those standards, I have not yet "geo-cached". Not to my way of thinking anyways. But at least I can say I've done the hiking part now with the express purpose of finding a cache. So I'm about halfway there...

Today I tried the one near my house again, and I also tried one about 4/10ths of a mile from my house in the Ann Munn Woods/Emma McCarthy Lee Park Woods (you have to walk farther than .4 miles to get there though). Didn't find either one of them. Yet. The one near my house is a micro cache (not entirely sure what that means yet - but they tell you to take your own pencil to write on the log), and the other one was a multi-stage cache, which means you find the first cache and it leads you to another, and so on and so on. This was a two stage cache, but I didn't even find the first one, so no joy there either.

I'm thinking I should try a few that aren't quite as challenging to find once you get to the location first. Just my dumb luck that the first two I tried don't quite fit that description. I probably didn't pick the best day to start looking, either. Walking through the stifling woods on a 90 degree day with ample humidity, bugs flying around, spider webs getting in my hair and on my skin, nettles poking my legs and making me itch - all that tends to interfere with my threshold of patience for looking around once I get where I think I'm supposed to be.

Anyway, it did get me out of the house walking around - maybe a mile or a mile and a half total - so all in all, I'm going to consider it a successful first outing, since I DID get the walking/hiking exercise and in reality, all the techno-geekery is just a ruse to get me out there walking around in the first place, albeit an effective ruse for a techno-geeker like myself...