Tuesday, November 30, 2010

have you heard of this????

Geocaching. Have you heard of it?

I’ve debated whether I should blog about geocaching or not. It seems like a bit of a secret society, and I didn’t want to blow it, but then in the shower this morning I realized something. The reason I even know about geocaching is from a TV show on PBS this weekend, so if geocaching can be on TV, me blogging about it certainly can’t hurt anything.

Ignacio was surfing through the channels on Saturday, and stopped on a program about geocaching. Since the program was already in progress, I was still very uncertain what the hell geocaching was. I picked up bits and pieces, and then went to my trusty iPhone to see about getting an app. You know, there is always “an app for that”.

And voila! There was indeed an app for that. Geocaching is the name of the app.

So, what the heck is geocaching? Here is wikipedia’s definition:

Geocaching is an outdoor sporting activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called "geocaches" or "caches", anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook.

Fun, right?!

So, I got the geocaching app, and then looked for nearby geocaches. There was one in our little neighborhood park. After walking home from a movie, Ignacio and I decided to try to find our first geocache. The app uses its GPS to navigate you toward the geocache. There are hints and descriptions of what you are looking for. After a short search, we found it!


It was so cool; like a treasure hunt. After our little geocache high, we had to see if there was another nearby geocache to hunt for. A four block walk took us to our next geocache. Our second hunt was a bit more difficult, but we were successful!
On Sunday, we walked down State Street for a little shopping. On the walk home, we knew there was a geocache to be found, so we did a search and were able to find our third cache. The cool thing is that there are caches all over the world. So wherever we go, we can do a hunt for a cache. However, one must be discreet when looking for caches so that the ‘muggles’ don’t spot you finding the cache.

Who knew that such a cool thing existed? I sure didn’t.

7 comments:

  1. OMG this is hilarious!
    So I have always kept a list of things I want to do, then pick the things that year and work on them. The summer Jon and I were unemployed, we learned to read palms and we put geocaching on the list.

    But we had to take it off the list bc we would have to buy a gps and we were unemployed. We thought it would be fun to do with the kids one day.

    Anyway I think with geocaching you are supposed to put out things too!

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  2. I knew it existed because my stepmother has recommended it. But I hadn't thought about it -- might have to get that app! Sounds like fun, but it also sounds like you guys are finding all the South Loop geocaches to be found!

    Laura from the building

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  3. Sounds like A LOT of fun. Question: who hides the stuff you find?

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  4. @Laura you put the cache back after you find it. You just sign the 'log' inside.

    @don I'm not sure who hides the stuff. It seems like there are bunch of different people.

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  5. That's even better! Thanks for the clarification! Did you do the pay app or the free app?

    Laura

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  6. very interesting - never heard of that before but would love to find them....ah another reason for me to get the iphone.

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  7. I am now obsessed with this. Found two already.

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