geocaching

so, long ago, in a familyfun magazine, i read about geocaching, sounded fun, but i did not pursue it. Then a teacher at the kids school, became very into it and posted about it on her fb ALOT! so i decided to check it out again. While it isn't the passion for us, that it is for the teacher (yet anyway,) it is very fun and cheap, plus it gets the whole family moving. not to mention you learn so much about places you never even realized, that are around where you live,

and alot of times there are other educational aspects. for instance in the spirit quest series, they are all in cemetaries and it gives you a little history on some of the tombstones and the people that occupy them. they also request, wherever you go, you take trashbags and help clean up wherever you are. so... now, do i have your interest peaked at all? i would say our top 10 reasons for loving geocaching and wanting to share it with others are the following:

10. you get plenty of excersise, but it's so fun you either don't realize it or don't care.

9. once you purchase your gps, (who doesn't have one of those now a days anyway) the only expense you HAVE to put out is your gas. AND if you do caches close to home, you could even ride your bikes or walk, so technically.....lol

8. the adventure.....if you love the challenge of an "i spy" book or trying to solve a puzzle, you will probably love geocaching

7.discovering places you never knew they were there.

6 realizing there are "secret" caches all around where you pass on a daily basis.

5. some of the stories you come away with of what happened while you were out geocaching

4. finding places that would be "perfect" to hide a geocache

3. planning the trips, seeing where all the caches out there are and which to start with, it's like walking into a store of all your favorite candy! where to begin!?

2. the challenges, trying to "solve the puzzle" to get the correct coordinates sometimes, and then when you find the cache.....

1. the time spent with family and often friends. you can spend a whole day and it seem like an hour has passed. no matter the heat or the cold, you don't mind.....

How WE Geocache

1. go to http://www.geocaching.com/

2. go to the "hide and seek" section and type in your zip code

3. you can either download the caches you want to go to onto a gps (if it has that ability) or print the pages out for each cache. i like to do both, that way one person can be using the gps but the rest can see the papers.

4. set your course. plan the order you want to hit them. i strongly recommend this so you aren't back tracking alot.

5. i like to have a list of all the caches i plan to try to find and then i can write the date found and any funny little thing to remember (ie. this is where i fell in the mud) for later

6. some caches have little toys in them, you are allowed to take one but you are supposed to replace it with something of equal or greater value. we bought some little toys from the dollar store and keep those with us.

7. make sure to sign the logs that are in every geocache.

8. when you get home go back to the geocach website and log your visit as found, or not found and any little story you want on there. many times what people log have helped us find the right spot from clues given in the logs.

...and that is about it, it's very fun, exciting and educational. i hope you decide to atleast try it once, i have a feeling you will get hooked. there is much more "varities" of it out there, such as travel bugs etc... but this is the basics.