Today I have a guest post from a friend and former co-worker that escaped the madness. John left with his family and went further south and started blog. I asked him to do this guest post over a year ago and It is finally here. Enjoy this great write up on the hobby of geocaching. You can find more at his blog here -James
In July of 2012, I stumbled across a link to geocaching while looking for a cheap and fun way to celebrate my thirteenth wedding anniversary with my very lovely wife. Cheap was important to us, because we have five children and our finances prohibit many luxuries. On this website, the number one “cheap and fun” thing to do with your date was Geo-Caching. I thought to myself, “What in the world is that?” After some brief research on the subject, I became intrigued. Then after further research, I became very curious. So curious, I went out and found one to see what it was all about.
I spent about 15-20 minutes looking for that hidden thing and thought, “How in the world can this be fun? I can’t find it at all.” Well, I looked at all of the description on the cache, checked out some of the logs from previous cachers that found it, and used this information to discover it. I was forced to be sneaky because it was hidden behind an old sign outside of the Cracker Barrel next to where I worked. I didn’t want folks walking by that don’t know what Geocaching is (the folks are termed “muggles” in Geocaching circles) to think, “What’s that guy doing?” So, I quickly snuck my hand behind the sign and found a magnetic key holder and pulled it out. Inside was a simple log sheet that had dates and names on it. I happily signed my name and the date in the confines of my vehicle, and then quickly replaced it, . Following the directions, I then electronically logged the find in the geocaching system and got my first “smiley”: the term used for finding the cache. After that initial success, I was hooked.
