This past christmas, one of the gifts I received was a handheld GPS. The whole point of this gift, in addition to aiding me from getting lost in the woods, was to experiment with a phenomenon known as Geocaching. The general idea is that someone, anyone, hides a small cache somewhere in the world. A website, Geocaching.com, is the default registry for these caches- it allows you to find them locally. Most of these caches are just a logbook where you write down your name and date that you found the cache- the idea is not to take something from a hidden location so much as it is taking the journey to find it.
Rachel and I decided to actually seek out a few of these caches in the Boise area. Our first was inside a park not but two blocks from our apartment. We found the cache by Rachel almost tripping on it. We thought it was a neat adventure so she decided to look up the location of some more caches near to where we live. Low and behold, there was a cache hidden along an irrigation canal where we always take the dog on walks. We have passed it probably twenty or thirty times and never knew it was there. Quite an interesting concept when you stop to think about it- how many things are there in the world that you pass by each and every day and never notice?
Rachel found this cache- it was hidden in a rusted piece of metal that, to me, looked pretty normal to the area. She found it odd so flipped it over and discovered the cache. It was sealed in a pill bottle and contained a log book. Bender joined in on the search but was preoccupied with trying to get away and sniff whatever he decided needed sniffing at the time.
In the end- we've found a neat new hobby that I hope to take with me on my upcoming trip to Yellowstone. I imagine there are some pretty neat caches to be found out in the massive forest.
If you haven't tried it- I suggest you do. You don't need any kind of fancy GPS- even the most basic will do. The only option you need is the ability to enter GPS coordinates and even that is mostly automated by an plug-in on the Geocaching website. It's pretty much a no-brainer but a good adventure for a day.
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