What is geocaching?
The official site, geocaching.com, describes it as "a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online."
Basically, there are thousands of different "geocaches" hidden all over the world. Go to the geocaching.com site, type in your zipcode and you'll be surprised at how many are in your neighborhood! Geocaching is going on a scavenger hunt to find an hidden object, usually some sort of tupperware container with a logbook and sometimes even objects. You use the GPS coordinates and clues that are given to find the geocache. They are usually hidden in plain sight and the objective is to find the geocache without letting anyone see you do it.
Andrew and I like it because it gets us out of the house and it has you exploring places you would never notice otherwise in your own neighborhood. We did our first geocache on my birthday in August and it had walking for a mile along the Charles River conservation land. It was keychain cache, which meant that you were supposed to leave a keychain and take one that was in the box. We left a keychain that I had leftover from visiting my parents in Hawaii (brand new, but it must be at least four years old!) and a Bass baseball bat and baseball keychain I must've gotten at a bar as part of a promotion.
Anyway, our second geocache had us going to another random section of Newton to Lost Pond reservation.
We were able to find Lost Pond (thus making it found pond, haha) but were unable to figure out where the geocache was hidden. We did get to enjoy an Eagle Scout project that made walking the path easier:
Our second geocache was a couple miles away, but this time, we couldn't even find the entrance for the park we were supposed to be at. That's the thing about the GPS coordinates - they will get you pretty much in the general area, but can be an imprecise science as well. I think we'll try again on Monday, as Andrew and I both have it off.
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