Matt is our friend who got us into Geocaching. And now that I'm on the subject of geocaching, you'd better brew some coffee and settle in - it's going to be a long one.
If you don't already know what geocaching is, you can visit Geocaching.com and watch their intro/tutorial video that explains a lot, but if you asked one of my kids, they could also explain it well, and it would sound something like this: Geocaching is a treasure hunt using GPS coordinates from mom or dad's phones to pinpoint the location of where someone has left a cache - a container or some sort, sometimes tiny (micro) sometimes huge (pictures below will detail this) with at LEAST a log inside (a paper you sign your Geocache.com membership name on) and lots of time contains goodies you can trade and help move along by putting them into other geocaches!
www.geocaching.com
For us, it all started here:
That's Matt and Bobby, pointing out Humpback whales to me, as they're jumping in and out of the water about a half mile or so off the shore. This picture was taken from Makapu'u Point in Hawaii when Bobby and I were there in March of this year. To make a long story short, Matt is a navy boy, who was pulling into Pearl Harbor as his last stop of a 9 month deployment. He asked Bobby to ride along with him on his navy ship from Pearl Harbor to San Diego, but Bobby just had to get himself to Hawaii to board the ship. That turned into a week in Hawaii with Jessy before Bobby boarded the ship. See how I snuck my way into that? AND, the best part, the trip to Hawaii was paid for by my grandparents, just because they wanted to. I know, you want to punch me in the face, because I'm so lucky, but we'll hold off on that, and get back to geocaching.
As we were watching whales off the piont, Matt pulled out his GPS device and said there was a cache nearby. We'd heard of Geocaching before from Matt, but honestly never thought we'd be into it, and didn't realize we could do it from our phones (Droids thru Verizon). But we could, and decided to "help" him find this one (as if he needed our help). When he located it, he let us help sign the log and see the stuff inside, then he told us about what he'd drop off inside it - it was a Geocoin ( a trackable geocaching item that has a serial number on it, so the person who finds it can log it into Geocaching.com, find out who "owns" it and what it's all about, and send it on it's journey!). This particular Geocoin looked something like this:
Pretty simple - this coin commemorated the life of a soldier who had lost his life in the line of duty.
THIS SPOKE TO BOBBY AND ME MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE in that moment. Matt had carried this coin with him throughout his deployment, visiting all sorts of countries, and looking for the perfect spot to drop this one off. This coin is actually linked to a specific serviceman who lost his life, so the "owners" of the coin, most likely the fallen soldier's family, can see where this coin has traveled - and they can see that their loved one's legacy and memory is still alive - for everytime it's found by a geocacher, before it's sent on it's way, they have to log the serial number, then they're told the solider's name and information.
So, we decided to Geocache.
And when I say decided, I really mean "became addicted, abnormally passionate, and excited about all things geocache-related."
We became so excited about this new hobby, we kinda became the nerds of our little social group. Seriously. We sounded SO nerdy trying to get people to get on board with geocaching with us.
But we hooked 'em, I'm happy to say! Even if their geocaching names are names that make fun of us in particular, that's okay - they're out there caching!
First thing I did when I got back home, and while Bobby was at sea coming home, was to create us a geocaching name. Easy - I blamed Matt for getting us into it, so our name is MattMadeUsDoIt. Our subsequent friends both have something to do with my husband and I being NERDS! I have to say, one of our friends and their family took off running, right away, I guess we sold it GOOD! They're currently beating us, but not for long. The others, it didn't happen so quickly for, but I think they're finally on track and experiencing it in a fun way with their families! Just yesterday, one of our friends took a long walk with family and found their first handful or more of geocaches. I KNEW her kids would love it, it just too getting out there and seeing and finding some. Now I do think they'll be hooked, and they'll be the BEST geocache inventers if they choose to set some out. They are SO creative and active, I cannot see how they COULDN'T love it!!!!
It's been two and a half months now since we became members, and we have about 250 caches found.
As you can see, there's a wide assortment of sizes and shapes and ideas. If you visit Geocaching.com there's a shopping section and you can see all sorts of cache containers to purchase if you want to set some caches out yourself.
for instance, the magnetic bolt, for sale at Geocaching.com:
http://thecachestash.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=1_58 this also has great ones.
There are MANY caches that are Altoids can size - that's generally listed as SMALL in the listing, and they are big enough to fit small items to trade inside (think dollar store items mostly, things that kids would like to find, but don't mind parting with, since they need to be trading that item into another cache soon, instead of keeping it to themselves (one of my favorite parts of this adventure!) - some of the things we trade in and out of caches are small party favor kid toys, casino chips, some people leave pennies or quarters, and trackable items).
So the basic steps we take to geocache are the following:
CREATE a Geocaching account - it's FREE. Sign up using a username and password type of deal, make it up yourself, make sure it's something you are comfortable with writing out OVER AND OVER since you'll be penning it in paper logs each time you find a cache. My husband's hope is that our friends, Bobbyisournerdking will sometimes forget to write the word NERD in their name!
GET A GEOCACHING APP on your phone - if you have an iphone, I'm sorry, but your best bet is the Groundspeak app for Geocaching. Just look up Geocaching in your app store, and find the app that costs about 9.99 and buy it. It will save you SO MUCH HEARTACHE. I'm a Droid owner, and I started with GEOBEAGLE, which I highly recommend, but I have moved over to the Groundspeak app for Geocaching because it's just super easy, and no middle man, and it's constantly improving and works great.
DECIDE WHERE TO GO - One of our first geocaches with our kid was RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from our house. Odds are, there's one right around your house, too. Once you create your FREE account on geocaching.com, you can look up nearby caches, and you will no doubt locate one within a half mile of where you are (unless you're where NO ONE wants to be). Anyway, we decide where to go depending on time, how many kids, how many caches we want to (or need to) find - we are often racing our friends to see who can find more - and what TYPES of caches we want to find. if you do some of your research before you leave, on the computer, or in the car as you're driving there, you'll be so much happier.
CHECK OUT THE ENTRY FIRST - when you find a geocache nearby, using your phone or you computer, look up the RECENT LOGS - that means, you're looking at who has recently found it and WHEN. If no one has found it for a while, and it still hasn't been checked on or replaced by the owner, just skip that one. Maybe put a "watch" on it if you really want to, and when they reactivate or fix the cache or replace it if it's lost or damaged, you'll know right away and can head to it later. We like to make sure we're hunting for a cache that has been found a few times recently (by recently I mean in the last six months or so). We do this for our kids' sake. It's really hard to watch them search and search and bring up nothing after we dragged them out of the house, away from the tv, and just as they were starting to love being out, we find out a cache hasn't been found for a year! Ugggh. The other thing I check in the entry info is the description and hint. Lots of times, the people who have created the cache will say something like "you're looking for a small camoflauged Altoids can" and the hint might say something like "look low" or "look up" or "under" or something like that. Those clues are super helpful. Or you might want to go hintless, which is fun if it's just the husband and myself, but for the kids, it's nice to give them a little help!
FIND - When you find a geocache (by using your app to get you to the location, using your phone's GPS, within feet of where it's been hidden), hip hip hooray, be careful to see who is around. The other day we found one RIGHT by a group of boys playing basketball at the park. My son yellled out "FOUND IT MOM, FOUND IT DAD, LOOK I FOUND IT" and everyone turned to see what he'd found. Geocaching.com lingo has a name for people who DO NOT geocache, and are either watching you or possibly going to go grab the geocache after you've put it back - they are called MUGGLES. Pretty funny, huh! A security guard once laughed hysterically when we explained what we were doing and I called him a security muggle. He loved it. So, be discreet. If we're by a lot of muggles, regular bystanders not having a clue what you're doing, we try to be really stealth, and if we grab the cache near them, we walk it back to our car to open it and sign it.
TRADE - don't take anything out of a cache if you're not going to trade for something out of your bag of goodies. You can find any goodie you want to start out. We found a Las Vegas keychain we'd never used. Who cares! We don't want it, but we can stick it in a cache and someone else will pick it up and who knows what that keychain has seen in the past two and a half months. I notice some people leave pocket change - lame - kids don't like to find pocket change, they have that in the cup holder of the car!
TRACKABLES - as I said before, Trackable items are items you BUY from Geocaching.com or other sites that have a serial number on them. For Easter my husband bought each of us one - they look like a dog tag, or a shaped tag, or a coin. Mine looked like a german flag on a small coin, and it's already been brought to Denmark by a wonderful geocacher who saw it and told a friend to grab it because they knew their friend was taking a cruise to Europe and when I activated my coin, I asked for it to please try to get to Ettlingen, Germany. Well, it's on it's way, and geocaching.com tracks its miles, so right now my little "Germany or Bust" coin has thousands of miles logged! THis is SOOOO fun for the kids, because as your trackables travel, you can show them online where it has been, how many miles it's gone, and it' a geography lesson! If we take a trackable item out of a cache, we usually LEAVE a trackable item as well. It's customary to leave an item with equal or greater value than what you took. I know, doesn't always happen, but it's GeoEttiquette. Make sure if you DO pick up a trackable, then go through the trackable section on geocaching.com to log that you've found it and log where you drop it off once you do. This way the "owner" of the trackable knows where it's going. We are in a race right now with some friends - we each have a trackable with a racecar logo on it - ours is the blue car, theirs is the red. Whichever car travels the most miles by Dec. 31st, 2011 at midnight, that family will be bought pizza dinner by the losing family. You can't imagine how excited our kids are when they see any mileage build up on our trackable race cars!
LOG IT! - Don't leave without signing the log, and make sure you digitally log that you found it - you can do it from your phone app if you want, or keep a list on paper or in your head of what you'fe found that day, and log them when you get home to your computer. IF YOU ARE CARRYING trackable items with you, but you didn't put them in any caches that day, make sure at the bottom of the log page, that you have those trackable items "VISIT" the locations you went today. That way, however they belong to, they'll see they are still getting around, even though they haven't been DROPPED off yet. I understand not dropping off trackables...sometimes I pick up someone's trackable, but I really want to wait for the BEST place to drop it off, so I hold on to it for a while! Totally understandable. But then at least just list that it's been VISITING other caches with you, then it gets credit for the miles you're taking it!
CREATE a CACHE! - Do as I say, not as I do. I have about three cache containers that are ready to be put out and listed - there's a process to it, and we haven't foudn the locations we want to lay the caches, so we haven't gone through the process yet. But we read somewhere, and I agree, that for every 100 caches you find, you should create and set out one cache of your own. This means we should have set out 2 by now, but we haven't. We'll probably go out and put three down in the next two weeks and be up to par with where we should be. It's just geoettiquette.
HAVE FUN! - our kids DO fight a lot over WHO GOT TO FIND THE LAST CACHE or WHO GETS TO PICK WHAT WE'RE TRADING - I KNOW yours will too. That's when we pull out the "okay, then lets go home and get some chores done" threat, and they quiet right up. MANY larger caches have so many things to trade inside, that we let all three kids each take something and all three leave something. That's fair, and they all get to participate. If it's just a log, and no swag inside, then we take turns letting the bigger kids write on the log if they want to, and for some reason, it's a HUGE deal in our family who gets to put the cache BACK in it's spot - I think they like being stealthy and knowing they put it back where it belongs.
KEEP GOING - if you don't find your first few, keep going. Somehow, your geosenses will kick in, and you'll notice yourself shoving your hand into holes and pipes you'd never imagined you want to touch before. (I have a friend who brings a glove along for that reason!) Our kids seem to have no fear - they'll stick their hand through spider webs, climb all over things, run through ant hills, slide down rocky hills, weed whack themselves through foxtails, and it's all worth it when you find it!
UPGRADE - Eventually we upgraded to the Premium Membership for Geocaching.com - I like the upgrade.You get a few better options (explained to you in the graph that shows the differences - just check out the site) and you get access to some premium caches that are only for paid members. BUT, you DO NOT HAVE TO PAY to have fun Geocaching. Part of why we fell in love with it is because it was a FREE activity that got us OUTDOORS with our kids, and we started to see parts of our area we'd NEVER dream of driving through if we had no reason to. Thankfully, I think my husband actually has a lot better of a view of our area now, and likes it a little more, seeing how much wonderful nature and hiking opportunities are around.
GET FRIENDS INVOLVED - I don't know why, but it's just WAY MORE FUN when you have friends to do this with you. EVen if you don't actually HUNT together, the fact that you find something that has your friend's name already in the log, or the competition of who has more finds, that just keeps you going!
I'm hoping to keep up on my original idea of listing "KID FRIENDLY CACHES" when I find them. I have a list of them, and can definitely share if any of you from around my area are interested. We are lucky to live in a somewhat rural area with lots of roads we can turn off and let the kids out, so they're not next to a busy street looking for something while cars whizz by. As I think of more things I love about it, and as we get more nad more finds, I'm sure I'll post more about it.
After all, I am the nerd queen., as my friend's name so eloquently points out.
1 comment:
Thanks for sharing that! I am a geocashing clueless one....or I was until I read your post. It sounds like LOTS of fun! I don't have a spiffy phone that does coordinates on it,..but maybe this would be a good reason to upgrade. :)
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