Geo-what?!

This past Saturday our little family headed for the hills on another Geocaching adventure. David downloaded three different caches on our GPS all located within a few miles of each other. I packed the food bag, David the backpack with the bug spray, first aid kit, etc.. and we were off! We decided to stop and take a look at Tallulah Gorge and found a really interesting information center that catered to the kids. They had a great time looking at all the "stuffed" animals and checking out the birds ( real ones) outside.


After the gorge, amidst the beginnings of whining and hunger pains, we headed off to the area where our caches should have been hidden(notice I said "should").

Ok, let me take a moment to try and explain geocaching a bit, just in case you're wondering...but if you want the full scoop on this great sport just follow any of the links that I've included so far. To summarize, geocaching is a grown-up treasure hunt, hide-and-go-seek etc.. Any one can play, but the one item you must have is a GPS. The process begins on-line where you register and find all of the caches within your desired area. For instance, when we first started we wanted to find caches just within 10 miles of our home. There are so many, we'll be looking for quite some time. This past weekend we knew we were headed to a particular area in the mountains so we included that zip and were shown the GPS coordinates for caches in that area. A "cache" is "pronounced 'cash' - In geocaching it is a hidden container filled with a log book and pencil/pen, and possibly prizes. Caches were often used by explorers, miners, etc. to hide foodstuffs and other items for emergency purposes. People still hide caches of supplies today for similar reasons. Geocaching comes from the terms "geo" and "cache" to explain the sport. Some caches have cash in them, but there is no pun intended :) ( taken from the website)

So..the coordinates from the website are downloaded to your GPS and off you go on your search for a cache. Caches are hidden by anyone playing the game(there are of course certain rules to be followed) and can be thematic, such as for kids or dogs. I believe hiking and the general love for nature prompted this sport, so most caches are hidden where there is hiking involved. Some are located in parking lots, etc. but the most difficult ones are usually hidden deep in a forest.

Back to the story....we decided to stop at a grocery store and pick up some picnic stuff. We then headed to Warwomen Dell,( Which David said was named after me..thanks honey..slap..punch..), the area of our first cache. We ate lunch, but the kids were eager to find our first treasure. We were already very close to the first cache but after much looking we still couldn't find it. We gave up and decided to pursue the second one. We walked and walked for quite some time and realized that we were probably heading down the wrong trail. The GPS works well in finding specific coordinates but because of the thick tree canopy above, ours was having trouble communicating with the satellites. At that point in an adventure, you're kind of walking around blind. ( no idea why this is black!)

Climbing the 66 stairs up to our trail. The kids did so well!





After realizing that we had probably taken the wrong trail we decided to head over to the third and last cache. I couldn't believe that we had yet to find one!

Our next trail took us on a path by a beautiful stream and onto a waterfall. The hike was difficult because we once again took the wrong trail and had to backtrack ( no satellite signal). We finally made it and David found the cache after more looking and backtracking. We left some McD's fly wheels and took a toothbrush (sealed), a Grinch Christmas ornament and a bead necklace ( Ethan), logged our name in and headed back to the car. It was a great day-3 hours of hiking, lots of sweat and dirt, and lots of family fun!