I’ve written about my adventures in geocaching recently. There’s a great article in the most recent version of The Costco Connection, which basically describes Geocaching, what it is, how it works and why it’s appealing. Click here to read the article about Geocaching.
Recently my buddy (wilsontribe) and I headed out geocaching once again — the eternal quest to not get lost looking for hidden objects.
Although we did only hit two caches, I did snag my first geocoin (see picture). Geocoins are cool and come in all different designs. This particular one, the redhanded geocoin, has a couple goals: travel to all 50 states, all countries and continents and then return to the US.
After looking at the travel log of this coin I see that it has traveled a total of 77 miles between Utah County and Salt Lake County. So, for my part, I will be taking this coin back east with me in a few weeks to plant it in a cache beyond the Utah state line.
Our second cache was a virtual cache. This is usually a non-traditional cache that has some sort of historical significance or is designed to educate. This one was a memorial to a fallen Utah Highway Patrol Agent. Interesting, but I have to admit, not as fun as finding a little box hidden with trinkets or goodies in it.
Although my second geocaching trip didn’t prove quite as fruitful on the cache side I did learn some valuable lessons about going geocaching and how to make the most of the outing.
Doing these beforehand could save you an hour or two before you get going, or, in other words, you could find a handful of caches or just two!
So my neighbor introduced me to, and subsequently got me hooked on geocaching; the ultimate game of hide and seek. Being the gadget guy that I am, I just love these little GPS units. My neighbor has a Magellan eXplorist 210 and that thing will tell you how fast you’re moving, sunrise & sunset, moonrise & moonset, phase of the moon, in short, it tells you everything! For $10 more it will tell you your fortune — kidding!
So as a new geocacher I set out on an adventure (well, we were close to home and went in the car so maybe not much of an adventure, more of an outing) with my buddy, wilsontribe, and my son, little beldog. The great thing, for us men, is that with a GPS unit I don’t need to ask directions, just give me the coordinates and I can call in an airstrike anywhere in the world. Now, given we were staying local in Midvale, getting lost wasn’t a real concern. So after downloading some cache locations (hidden stashes are recorded on geocaching.com where one can download them and then sync the coordinates into the GPS unit to go out and find them), we set out to find our first cache.
