Geocaching

For our twenty fifth wedding anniversary, I needed to find a good gift for Frank. Since he doesn't really have a hobby, yet he loves keeping log books of trip mileage and stops, and since he loves the outdoors, I decided to get him the equipment to geocache. It is the perfect sport for him.

Bought the Garmin Oregon 450, a Moleskine log book, a laminated Wisconsin map, and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Geocaching. Wrapped it all up. He was surprised and delighted.

Geocaching is like a treasure hunt. You use Global Positioning Signals to locate a "cache," a hidden treasure. The website is www.geocaching.com.

We signed up. We downloaded some caches from the web site to the Garmin, and we were off.

And I'm hooked. Totally hooked. I did not need a new hobby. At all. But I am the one hooked. I am the one who has read the book and crawled the web site. It's so ridiculous.

Frank went on a business trip to Pennsylvania tonight. I persuaded him to take the Garmin and the Idiot Guide. He can find caches near him on the web, upload them, and score a cache or two in Pennsylvania. He wasn't convinced that he wanted to add that to a business trip. I coaxed. We'll see.

We spent two afternoons by the lake, figuring out what in the heck we were doing, and hunting downtown caches. I so love Lake Michigan. Yesterday was HOT and HUMID and the lake effect was nil. I was *so* hot and *so* sweaty. Today was much cooler, breezy and pretty much perfection. Oh how I love walking by Lake Michigan.

Here are some photos of the Red Hots. (that's our team name) I'm really hoping this is just the beginning of a leisure activity we can enjoy together both home and while traveling. Check it out!

Searching on the rocks
Following the Garmin
Found our FIRST cache - a micro-cache

Signed the log sheet. We rerolled the log and put it back in the cache (film container to the right) and then put it back in its hiding place.
Our SECOND found cache - it was inside the opening below - had to stick a *gloved* hand under there to feel around. ( I let Frank do that!)


As of today, we've found FIVE. We're on a roll.