GeoCaches

I just heard about a new wonderful hobby I can't wait to try it out. It's called geocaching. I just borrowed a hand held GPS from a friend and can't wait to get started. Sunday will be our first try at this fun new hobby and I will up date you on our progress. If you have never heard of this before then I will try to give you some idea what this is all about. If you like going on treasure hunts this is for you. People from all over the world have treasures buried and they leave the coordinates of where the treasure is and they even leave hints that you need to decode. Now your first question may be "Where do I find these clues and coordinates to be able to go look for the treasure?" Well that's easy just log onto this webb site http://www.geocaching.com/ create an account which is free and type in a zip code and you will find lots of them there. This is the site where you can log the treasures you have found and post a treasure you have hiding for others to find. Keep in mind I myself am a newbie to this so I have much to learn and this site will help you more than I will. All you need to be a treasure hunter is a hand held GPS and your good to go. Once you have made an account at geocaching.com you can then upload all treasures to you GPS from that site. Every time you find one you can delete it from your GPS and move onto the next one. Are you confused yet? lol Sorry if you are. Any how this is something the whole family can do together and it gets everyone out of the house for the day. I do realize gas prices are crazy and that is an added cost but just so you know when I pulled up my zip code there was 2 geocaches within 5 miles of my house~! I was so amazed~! So if gas prices is a concern try looking close to home. Ok now that you have the general idea on to the next step. Once you have found the geocaches treasure you take what you find and replace it with something else so that the treasure always remains for the next person to find. Some people don't even bother to take the items at all they just find it check out what is inside and go on to the next one because the thrill is finding it to start with and the places this new found hobby can take you. Most of the time the treasure is small and does not have much cash value so if your looking to get rich this isn't going to work for you. This is just a fun hobby. A lot of the time it's not the treasure inside the geocaches it's the scenery that is actually the treasure because people pick there favorite spots with amazing views and wonderful places such as water falls and caves ect... So be prepared and take a camera you made want one in case you stumble across a beautiful place you have never been before. You can also hide your own geocaches and track who has found it and when they found it on the site and if that's not enough you can put an item in your hiding geocaches and attach what they call a travel bug. A travel bug is a tag with a chain on it that you attach to an item and ask who ever finds it to help it get to a particular place. The treasure hunters will take it to the next geocach they find and place it there then the next person takes it to another geocach and so on . I know some one that put a sleigh ornament in a geocach and a note asking them to help get their item to Alaska. The item is now currently in Oregon. It started in Maine. You can track your travel bug online to see where it goes and how close it is to where you wanted it to end up. So there is a lot of different things going on in the geocaching. When you are at the webb site click on "trackable items" and then click on"shop for gear" this will explain things better plus show you other exciting things you can collect or track. That's about all I know for now. Wish me luck on our first "find" and leave me a comment of how many "finds" you have done and what you have found on your ventures. P.S The pictures on this post are from a geocaches site and not anyone in my family I just wanted to show the kids having fun hunting too.