Treasure Hunters
Equity Monday left all of the tech staff in a little bit of a lurch as to what to do with ourselves. A few plans had been discussed on and off, a hike in a local park, a little bit of boating at a local pond, some fishing, sleeping a lot... but nothing was really seeming to stick. During the poker game I brought up the idea of Geocaching which seemed to be an instant hit.
The basic concept of geocaching is sort of a high tech treasure hunt. People all over the world have placed secret caches of toys, or camping accessories, or other goodies in hidden locations in state parks, along camping trails, or just about anywhere. (Go to the website and look up your zip-code and I'm sure you'll find dozens close by you.) The GPS coordinates of the "treasure" are placed online along with clues and ratings of how hard it is to locate and hike to etc. Anyone with a GPS unit is welcome to track them down. Etiquette is that you take an item from the cache, usually some small trinket, and leave one of your own to replace it.
We set out for Wal-Mart Monday and found a cheap GPS unit which I purchased, (partially with my poker winnings). Then we checked the web and chose a half dozen local caches to visit. The first was at a location that we were familiar with, having already visited it earlier in the summer, a dam at the end of a reservoir. Unfortunately the cache itself proved elusive, and the clues were infuriatingly vague. After an hour of tromping through bushes we gave up and decided that it wasn't to be found. It was a frustrating start since none of us had ever done this before and a few people were expecting a bit more "bang."
The second location also proved a little frustrating. The heavy tree cover flummoxed the GPS unit a bit and the creator of the cache had not left a clue at all. After about a half an hour I was sensing that the crowd was on the verge of giving up on the whole idea, just as someone found the cache! It was a really renewing moment, suddenly the game was fun again and everyone wanted to see what was hidden inside.
The third location was inside a wildlife preserve and provided some great scenery as well as a fun cache. We were on the way to a fourth location within the same preserve when it suddenly began pouring rain so we called it off. We spent the evening back at the theatre where we grilled some fat steaks and asparagus and fried up potatoes. All in all it was a good day. I really need to do some research on how to properly navigate by GPS rather than just stumbling around in the woods staring at numbers and scratching my head though. We've also decided that as a group we will probably place our own cache at some point this summer.
The basic concept of geocaching is sort of a high tech treasure hunt. People all over the world have placed secret caches of toys, or camping accessories, or other goodies in hidden locations in state parks, along camping trails, or just about anywhere. (Go to the website and look up your zip-code and I'm sure you'll find dozens close by you.) The GPS coordinates of the "treasure" are placed online along with clues and ratings of how hard it is to locate and hike to etc. Anyone with a GPS unit is welcome to track them down. Etiquette is that you take an item from the cache, usually some small trinket, and leave one of your own to replace it.
We set out for Wal-Mart Monday and found a cheap GPS unit which I purchased, (partially with my poker winnings). Then we checked the web and chose a half dozen local caches to visit. The first was at a location that we were familiar with, having already visited it earlier in the summer, a dam at the end of a reservoir. Unfortunately the cache itself proved elusive, and the clues were infuriatingly vague. After an hour of tromping through bushes we gave up and decided that it wasn't to be found. It was a frustrating start since none of us had ever done this before and a few people were expecting a bit more "bang."
The second location also proved a little frustrating. The heavy tree cover flummoxed the GPS unit a bit and the creator of the cache had not left a clue at all. After about a half an hour I was sensing that the crowd was on the verge of giving up on the whole idea, just as someone found the cache! It was a really renewing moment, suddenly the game was fun again and everyone wanted to see what was hidden inside.
The third location was inside a wildlife preserve and provided some great scenery as well as a fun cache. We were on the way to a fourth location within the same preserve when it suddenly began pouring rain so we called it off. We spent the evening back at the theatre where we grilled some fat steaks and asparagus and fried up potatoes. All in all it was a good day. I really need to do some research on how to properly navigate by GPS rather than just stumbling around in the woods staring at numbers and scratching my head though. We've also decided that as a group we will probably place our own cache at some point this summer.
OK, so did you get eaten by the bear or washed away by the floods. Need to hear from you.