One of my best friends has kids ranging from their 20s down to 7th grade, so it's hard to find activities that they ALL want to do at one time! But she has found a new activity that interests them all and lets them use their new smart phones! So here's her first guest post on a blog!
My oldest son came to me one day while I was wasting my day away on
the computer. He said, "Mom, go check out this website
www.geocaching.com. He started explaining that it is a game that is
played all around the world. The more he talked the more interested I
became. It sounded like a treasure hunt and sounded like fun. But I am a
city girl. I hate bugs, I hate mosquitos, and spiders...forget about
it. But something intrigued me about the whole Raiders of the Lost Ark
aspect of it.
So I went to the website and I read everything I could on it. I
looked at photos of all of these adventurers and secretely wished I
could be like them. I logged on with a great name, "Copchick187" and
from there proceeded to search my area for locations. I found one that
was very close to my house. I wanted to go find it immediately. There was one
problem: I didn't know how to use a GPS.
Ok, it was a big problem,
because the only way to find a "cache" was by using GPS coordinates. I read
some more on the website and it said that I could download an
application to my iPhone that would help. AHA. The next step was taken. I am
an iPhone fanatic, so I soon mastered the Geocaching application with ease!
The next step in the adventure was telling my partner in crime,
my hubby, about it. He had a look on his face that said, "She has
officially lost her mind this time". As any good husband, he humored me
and off we went to find our first cache.
We entered the cooridinates in our faithful Garmin GPS in our
car. We knew that would take us near the location. After that we were on
our own with our iPhones. We drove down a familiar road near a
cemetary.
I was kind of creeped out by the thought of looking for
something there. Thankfully, the cooridnates did not take us to a grave
site. We looked and looked. The only hint given was that it was a medium
size cammo container. What do they mean by medium size?
I guess I should
have read some more. After about 15 minutes and 1500 beads of sweat (90% humidity THAT day),
Hubby comes out of a large azalea bush with our first find! WOOHOO! We were
jumping up and down. We opened our treasure and saw lots of cute small
toys. I had read where the rule of the game is that if you take
something, you must replace it with something. I took a small green
plastic frog and replaced it with a bracelet that I had made. I signed
the log in the container, and placed it right back where we found it. I still have
that little plastic frog, and treasure it as I would a first place
ribbon!
Since that first day, some would say we are obsessed. The
kids know that everyday we are off of work, we are heading out somewhere
in this big world on an adventure. We have found hidden gardens,
mosaics, crazy art work, and dusty country roads. Bug bites are like a
badge of honor. We laugh at the scrapes we get from thorns. This city
girl has even been bitten by a nasty millipede. I have learned to
keep a first aid kit and bug spray in the car at all times.
We attended our first Geocacher's event recently. All of the
names that we had seen on the different logs were there. We were treated
like family and even given our own "Bamboozle" sticks. You would have
to meet this famous Geocacher to understand what an honor it was. We
have found over 200 caches in 4 states in the short time since we have
started. We have traded in hours in front of the TV and computer screens
for hours discovering different places and spending time with our kids.
What a wonderful way to spend the summer!
When I tell my friends about geocaching they laugh and don't really get it. I
like to reply by saying, "I use billion dollar space equipment to find
tupperware in the woods". I would write more but I'm off to get one more
find before the sun sets.
To all you "muggles" out there: TNLNSL
They've even started their own caches for other people to find! How fun is that to get your kids involved in giving to others? Check out the 'offical geocaching blog' as well for more info: http://blog.geocaching.com/ and here's another parents take on the adventure.
HAVE FUN!!!!!!!!!!
