I know I have been remiss in updating my blog for quite some time. Living on dirt has its advantages - like electricity, hot water on demand, the Weather Channel 24/7 - but one can find excuses for not keeping up the blog. I won't go into those, but I have found a few other distractions: singing, 4 year-old Lucas from next door, yard work and something called geocaching.
Geocaching is like a techno treasure hunt. If you have a GPS and access to a computer, you can go to geocaching.com and find out where all these little hidden treasures are in your neighborhood and beyond. Armed with the GPS and the coordinates, you trot off to go hunt them down.
With nine years of navigating our boat via GPS, having two onboard, sailing some 25,000 miles or so without running seriously aground or hitting a concrete wall, one would think that I could find these caches without any trouble at all. Ha! First, it really is imperative that the numbers are put into the GPS correctly!! I looked four times for the one at our local Senior Center and only when I returned with my walking stick to ward off any snakes in the area did I find it. I dislodged it from its very obvious hiding place. I think I will add a couple spiritual tokens to my stick from now on to improve my odds.
There are over 800,000 of these stashes so no matter where you are in the world, you can go off exploring and experience the fun of geocaching. I have looked for six and found three, but I am getting better at knowing what I am looking for. Most are in small water-tight containers like a film cannister or larger plastic containers. Some contain only a log for you to date and sign and then others are large enough for you to take/leave a small token. The whole idea is to get out and enjoy yourself while getting some exercise and a little "WD-40" for your brain.
