Geeks outdoors

About two months ago, our local paper ran a feature article on 'geocaching'. My wife was quite intrigued by the idea. I had planned to buy her the geek-tool required to do this for her birthday, but she beat me to it. So we went geocaching for the first time together, along with our sons (daughter was out with a friend), last Sunday afternoon.

What is geocaching? Its an activity using a GPS navigator to find hidden 'caches'. The caches are smaller boxes (ammo-cans seem well suited for this) hidden by other people. After the boxes are hidden, the coordinates are posted to the web for others to use. The most popular site for this seems to be geocaching.com.

The caches are hidden in public places, especially in parks. My wife feels a little self-concious about being seen wondering in the woods aimlessly. The inherit inaccuracy of the GPS tool left us wondering around a 20 foot patch of ground several times. And some of the hiding places are crafty.

To me, it brings back memories of doing 'compass courses' when I was in the National Guard. The GPS makes it easier, but the game of geocaching is much more fun.