Geocaching

New GPS, originally uploaded by Squidly.

Diane, Lauren and I decided to go geocaching today. I don’t think we’d been since late 2002, and Lauren is definitely old enough now to handle the walking, so I looked up a few caches, input the coordinates into our GPS, and off we went.

We arrived at the starting point for our first search – “Catch Cat’s Cache“. A few moments after leaving the car, we had a problem. My old GPS wouldn’t pick up any satellites. I restarted the thing 3 or 4 times, and still nothing. The batteries were fine, the device turned on, but it churned away forever without fixing a position.

This was very disappointing. After explaining the process to Lauren and getting all excited about finding “treasure” in the woods, heading home in defeat without any finds was not an option. After a short debate, we piled back in the car, headed to a nearby Walmart and picked up a Magellan eXplorist 210. Batteries installed and satellites located, it was back to the park.

Below you can see us achieve victory. Diane found it amongst the thorns and spiderwebs. A very gnarly site, but the goodies in the cache made it worthwhile.

Next up was the “Teacher’s Pets” cache. This one was a far easier find once we got to the park entrance. It was located in a tree behind a baseball field.

Last cache for the day was “Fi-dough“, a dog themed cache. This we also found without much trouble, although there was a bit of poison ivy in the area. Lots of geese and a fair bit of walking, but a good time was had by all.

So 3 caches down…not a bad Sunday. Now that we’ve invested in a new GPS, I guess we’re committed to getting back into this hobby. Lauren and Diane loved it and it’s a good way to get out and explore the areas close and not-so-close to home.