deeples

January 15, 2006

Findin’ Stuff

Filed under: Around Town — Tags: , , — denise @ 3:20 pm

Oh my god… I just typed this whole blog and then accidently hit “Cancel” instead of “Post” and now I want to “Slap Myself”.

Now you get the short story:  this woman I work with “geocaches” with her husband. It’s a big hobby of theirs. Basically people hide treasure and people find treasure. Most people do both….   All the hiding and finding is recorded and accomplished using GPS tracking devices.  I thought this sounded like a fun hobby and bought one for Kory for Christmas – who instantly loved it- if for no other reason than it was gadgety and therefor lovable. We spent some time on Christmas day walking around our house and his parents house just to watch the machine track us… tell us how fast we were going.. the altutide… Hell, it could even tell us if today was a good day to hunt or fish in this region. (Yeeeeeah…. anyone trying to mentally picture Kory and I setting out to fish OR hunt?)

We finally set out this weekend — on this website http://www.geocaching.com/ you can enter any zipcode world wide and see all the caches hidden in your area.  The treasure in the caches can range from actual money, jewelry and antiques to every days stuff like toys, golfballs, keys and buttons.  You must leave treasure if you take some. So, when looking for cache you have to bring some treasure with you unless you don’t plan on taking anything.  Kory found 2 that were pretty close by and entered the GPS coordinates into our machine and printed off some maps from http://maps.google.com/ (which has a satellite option) and we were off.

The first one took 20 minutes or so to find. We were able to park very near by – but the cache was buried under some brush and in a camophlaged can so I missed it several times. Kory finally found it. We were so excited to find our first treasure!  We signed the log book… took a picture and let Peter select the treasure. He picked a U.S.ARMY Chaplain badge lanyard (????) and we left a denim bracelet with silver sculls on it, in return… hehehe..  I have to admit, I felt a little goonie.  This place was right next to a main interection and it was busy with lots of traffic. I’m not sure if people worried why 3 people were crawling through bushes and climbing into trees while wildly pointing a bright yellow machine this way and that… but I was pretty selfconcious about it.  You are suppose to hunt/hide on the down-low so that “muggles” (as they are called) don’t steal/vandalize the treasure. In fact, the cache we found said “If you found this by accident.. this is what it is.etc.etc”…..

Off to the next treasure – this one was much further away. Not quite a quarter mile, though — and in a park in the middle of huge field that Peter actually used to play football on….  I found this one pretty quickly.  It was on the ground under some brush and hay — a Christmas cookie tin.  Unfortunately, there was a half-eaten, guts-bursting-out bunny about 12 inches from the cache that made the find a gagging one — but we were happy, regardless.  From this one we took a little flowered tape measure and a keychain with a level on it.  We left a Ricky Williams football card and a Windsor Canadian Whiskey fishing lure (original in box)….

Geeky, I suppose…. but it was actually great fun. We all got out of the house and were running around and having a blast. Can’t wait to go out again and to hide our own treasures, too.

Speaking of finding things —   I found a KILLER new toothpaste.

I don’t know if I blame Pledge or Joy or what- — but that idea that “lemon” and “clean” go together is a strong olifactory notion for me.  It tasted good and the mouth just seemed… well…. like sunshine, really…..

Crest Whitening Expressions - Fluoride Anticavity Toothpaste, Lemon Ice - 6 oz

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