Right now I am compiling a list of sites for on the way to the airport and back... there will be quite a few, so it will be interesting to see how many we actually find.
Wish us luck!
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
The First Find
Well, Toni got home from work today and was all excited to go and try to find a couple she saw on the website that were down by the airport. Since we still don't have a GPS, I kind of didn't want to.
We ended up going back out and looking for the first one we looked at yesterday again. It took a while but we found it!!! We signed in, looked at the other stuff people had left, and I even took a picture of the box. VERY clever hiding spot.
I wish this thing did a spoiler tab, I would tell you about it... oh well, go looking yourself! I was very impressed.
We took another stab at the fire station as well...
Oh! I missed the other part of our first search. Toni noted the online name of the person who hid the cache and did a search on that name and came up with a property owned on that block by someone with that last name... kind of told us which yard to look in.
Cart before the horse
In our typical fashion, we got excited about the idea before we really knew what we were doing.
I have now created a login over at geocaching.com and am able to see the coordinates of the hides. I was pretty shocked at just how many there are in the Aberdeen area, so that was exciting. In fact one of them is about 3 blocks from here.
Rather than wait until we had things like a GPS unit, I just plugged the coordinates into google maps and got a fairly close idea of where it was (not sure this is a very precise or good way to do the hobby).
The clue was the title "S.kid T.ires O.n P.avement" to which Toni immediately said, "a stop sign!" This seemed like a pretty good idea, so we packed up the kid and dog and headed out to see if we could find a stop sign on that intersection with a geo-cache.
Now, there is other information that seems relevant to, but I don't really know about it. For instance, the size of the cache is listed and seems relevant. This ranges from micro to large. A micro cache is something like a camera film canister... but I have no idea what the other sizes actually are... things like plastic containers and ammo boxes I think.
Anyway, we get to the designated intersection and start looking at stop signs, but we also quickly notice that there is a covered bus stop. So, we start looking in and around the bus stop, anywhere we think it might be... all to no avail.
It is then we realize that we have no idea how accurate the map we were looking at is. The coordinates I plugged in might be right on top of it, but the google maps might not be as good.
Well, we gave up. I remembered another a few blocks down that was something like "for our fallen heroes." Since there is a fire station on that block with a memorial it seemed like a no brainer... well, we didn't find that one either.
Maybe this geocaching with out a GPS isn't such a good idea.
But... we still got out for a walk and had a good time... Toni is going to see if she can borrow a GPS from a hunter at work.
In the beginning...
My wife and I have been looking for a hobby that we can do together for some time now. We have shot down a lot of things that just I enjoy as well as many things that just she enjoys. We eventually turned to that source for all ideas and knowledge, the internet. A quick googling (yeah, that's a verb now) of "couples hobbies" turned up a lot fewer porn sites that one might have expected. Instead we found some lists of activities and decided that we might want to look into GeoCaching.
Alright... so first things... should I start with "what the heck is geocaching?" or "is it 'geocaching' or 'geo-caching'?"
I will start with:
What is Geocaching?
Best I can tell it is game in which people hide a box with a log inside and post the GPS coordinates onto web-sites like geocaching.com. When someone then finds the box, they take something from inside the box and leave something of equal or greater value. These are typically little knick-nacks and nothing of much value. You then go back on the site and can log that you found that cache as well.
The idea, for us at least, is it is something we can do as a family (kid in the backpack and puppy on the leash) and get us out and moving.
Anyway... the task now is to look into what it takes to start.
First thing that occured to us was to have some sort of log in which we could keep a journal of what we have found and maybe attach what we take. That is what this blog will be. If I can figure it out, I may even start attaching pictures.
Next Time:
Getting started. What you need and your first find
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