What is geocaching you ask? Good question! I’d heard about this a year or two ago and put it on the back burner until I began working on this list. Geocaching.com explains it like this: “Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location.” Sounds fun, right? Kinda makes you feel like a pirate looking for a hidden treasure. Well…it IS fun, but it’s way harder than you think. You start out by plunking down a mere $4.99 to download an app called Cachly.
I was explaining it to my sister Linda the other night, and the minute I said “Geocache” she totally figured it out and was very excited. “It’s like panning for gold, right!!?” Ha! No! Although, like gold, it’s not easy to find and it requires a lot of patience and determination. So no sooner did I explain what it actually was, that she insisted we go find our first treasure immediately!
We set out on our first adventure. The cool thing is that they are everywhere. I mean everywhere! All over the world! And as luck would have it, the nearest one to us was a couple blocks away called “Funeral Home Depot.” For those who know the area you know that on Jericho Tpke. and Larkfield Rd. there is a Home Depot with a very peculiar tiny little fence-enclosed cemetery in the parking lot. I know. Sure enough, using the coordinates on the app, we found our first cache! And then we found another nearby in the Best Buy parking lot. We were on a roll!
This weekend we spent the day at a couple wineries in St. James (yes, there are two delightful wineries in St. James! Who knew?) and hit another couple spots. Two we found, one we did not, not for a lack of trying. It’s frustrated when you can’t find it, especially when you see the logs on the app of all the people who did. Geocaches can be small, or rather large, easy or difficult to find. They can contain trinkets (which you may take or leave), or just a log for you to put your name and the date of your find.
It’s doubtful I’ll become a full-time geocacher, but it’s definitely a fun activity when you’re out and about looking for something fun to do. Let me know if there are any fellow hunters out there and maybe we can put our heads together and unearth some treasures!
Suggested by Me
Completed 9/22/17