Oct. 24, 2006 - New Toy
My grandma used to say " The only difference between men and boys is
the price of their toys..." . He has wanted a GPS since we rented a
car with one several years ago. He has really enjoyed teasing me about
how I won't "let" him get one. He finally wore me down, and his new
toy arrived last week.
I had read an article on geocaching in a homeschool magazine, and
thought it sounded like something we would enjoy. Geocaching is almost
like going on a scavenger hunt, or an easter egg hunt using a GPS.
People hide little boxes with a log and sometimes trinkets and then put
the co-ordinates on a website so other pepople can go find the "cache".
The GPS model BRB bought is really intended for driving, not hiking,
but he found a way to download co-ordinates of some local geo-caches
into his toy. We were amazed at the number of caches in our area. One
was in the park we go to all the time, so we set out on our first
adventure. We must have looked pretty strange peering into bushes and
looking around light posts at the park. We never did find the cache we
were looking for, but we did meet another family looking for the same
"cache". We had a great time talking with them and our kids had fun
playing and running around. They were "pros", with over 1500 finds
logged. They had looking for a cache down to an art form, and were
very happy to show us some of their tricks. I was amazed by the tool
kit they had devised: a pole with a magnet to find "microcaches",
surgical scissors, film canisters....They had traveled about an hour
from their home to our town to look for caches. They knew the
different personalities of people that had hid the caches, and warned
us about some of the trickier caches.
We left on a search for another cache, and had better success there.
Once we found the first little box, MBB was hooked. He can't wait to
make his own cache and hide it. MRB wasn't so sure until we found a
cache the next day that had little trinkets in it. She has enjoyed
getting to see different animals at the places we have stopped. I get
to take pictures, and BRB gets to use his toy. BRB is even planning
on taking his toy with him to a class out of state so he can look for
caches there.
I think we're hooked. So if you see a family creeping around a parking
lot, feeling under tables at a park, or clustered around a light pole
or street sign...Say "HI!", it might be us :)
Comments
Oct. 24, 2006 - Where do you get them?
Posted by momofsix
Hi, I have heard about this. Where do you get these? It looks like fun from the little news that reported on them. Thanks for any info. By the way, what's the price (if you don't mind)...I am thinking about a good Christmas gift for my husband.
Oct. 25, 2006 - Info on geocaching
Posted by crackedharp
Visit http://www.geocaching.com/ for more than you might ever want to know :)
We ordered our GPS through Amazon. Since ours was intended for use in the car, it was more expensive than if you got a hand held device that was meant for geocaching.
