“What is this thing I keep seeing…geocaching?”

I have been asked this question several times the last few weeks, with the weather being nice more these days, the girls and I (and Stephen some) have been getting out of the house and playing outside more. This is good for us all. I must say it is so stinking much fun. So what is geocaching (sounds like geo cashing) It really is pretty simple. It is high tech treasure hunting. There is a website you should visit (www.geocaching.com) there is a short video clip you can watch that explains it pretty well. You start at the website and look for caches near you(out in the woods or right there in the city you live in), key the coordinates into your gps system and then go outside and find the cache. While out looking, the coordinates will get you within a few feet of the cache from there you have to look for it yourself a little(this is our favorite part-to see which of the 4 of us finds it first). When you find it depending on the size of the cache, there may be items inside the container if there is you are welcome to take something home with you as a reward for your find, but if you take something out you must leave something of equal or greater value(please don't just leave junk, make it fun for the next person to find). Be sure to sign the log so that others that find it will see that you found it. When you get back home you go back to the website and log that you found a cache. The website keeps track of all you find, you can add friends to your profile so that you can keep up with what they have found, (we look at Sarah’s profile a lot) (Britt always asks “mom has Sarah found this one yet…?” my answer is almost always “yes honey she has.”) while out on a little road trip this past weekend we stopped at the Roaring River to feed the fish, while there we found a cache Britt then said “ yay! Sarah hasn’t found this one yet huh mom” We have the most fun out looking and sometimes Britt finds something she just cant live without. She carries a bag full of stuff to leave incase she takes something. We have found a few items called “trackables” these items can be tracked at the website by a number printed on them. So far we have found 3 different ones. The first one was a small coin that started somewhere in Colorado and has been to Oregon and several other places before being placed in a cache near Sperry. The second one we grabbed was a little puppy key chain. Britt wanted to take it so she left something in its place, it wasn’t until 3 days later that we learned that it was a trackable. We now have to find it another home in a cache somewhere. It started in Stillwater OK so it hasn’t yet been very far. And the 3^rd one that we found was while we were at the Roaring River. It started in Canada and has been all across the country and had made it back to MO. We grabbed it and carried it home with us to place it in an Oklahoma cache. We haven’t really found that many caches, we did only start in November then it got cold on us. It isn’t any kind of race for us to see how many we can get(other than Britt needing to know if she beat Sarah to one), we just enjoy the time outside together playing and searching for treasure. I know this was kind of a rambling page today, but I just wanted to share my excitement about this fun family activity with everyone…and if you go to the website you can create a membership(for free) so you can start you own treasure hunting adventure please remember to look us up(stvbCorley4) and add us as a friend on your profile. We would love to see the fun you have while caching. And holler at us anytime you need a caching partner, we love to go out and have fun. Go online, I think you will be suprised to see how many are near you and then look for your favorite places.  There are caches hidden all over the world.  Hope you have fun out there.  Holler back and let me know what you think of geocaching.