Current mood:	content
Entry tags:	geocaching

First Find!

Okay, anybody who knows me knows I'm not one to spontaneously do anything. If it costs more than $5, I'll research the item to make sure I'm getting exactly what I want. I am not sure the last time I agreed to do anything more involved than going out to lunch without first double checking a schedule, calling my wife, or at least sleeping on it to make sure I really want to do it. I'm a bit wary of quick decisions. Always have been. Always will be.

However, on Sunday November 20th, I was at work, listening to TWiT, and they mentioned something about Geocaching.

I won't say I didn't do a fair amount of research first, but still, my $114 purchase of a GPSr* roughly 8 hours later was a bit... How should I say it... Abnormal for me.

The order went through on Monday, they said it was ready to ship on Tuesday, It made it to Ohio by Wednesday, and... Well, Thursday it sat there all day and did not nothing because it was Thanksgiving. But on Friday, it arrived.

Friday was the third day of a 3-day cold snap that brought us the first snow of this very young winter weather season. It was also Black Friday and, considering my job is directly tied to retail, I was kind of busy working Friday, so I could not go out and do any Geocaching.

Saturday, I was too busy. Sunday, I was too busy. As was I on Monday and Tuesday.

Today, though, I found something extremely interesting on the Geocaching website. It seems there is a geocache (I'm not sure, yet, if it can be called a 'Cache' or a 'Geo'. But I'm a newbie) right outside my work! Literally 1/10th of a mile from the door I use to access my department, maybe 150 feet from the main front door.

On my second break, after most of the company had gone home, I snuck out in the dark, armed with my GPSr and a heavy P-Coat, and I searched for the cache. And I searched. And searched some more.

Someone left work, and they slowed down as they drove past me, hunched down in a little group of trees. I will likely be asked what in the blazes I was doing. But no matter.

My 15 minutes burned up, I headed back in, more resolved than ever to find the treasure at 9:30 when my day was over.

9:30 rolled around, and I was back. I let the GPS find 10 satellites (Before, I think it only had about 4 before I started looking, which I think caused a bit too much error). I zeroed in on the trees, and finally found the one tree that had to be the one. I checked the base of the tree. Nothing. I checked some pinecones around the base of the tree. They were all actual pinecones, and none hid anything. A truck drove by, and didn't seem to see me. A bit flustered, and with my legs starting to ache from being hunkered down under the tree, I tried to stand and got poked with a branch. I turned my head, and saw something. No, I thought, false alarm. It's just a bird's nest.

Then something happened in my mind. Something that I can only assume, in my newbieness, is the barest hint of the feeling that a seasoned Geocache veteran gets when their "geosense" tingles. That bird's nest seems a bit too bowl-like, doesn't it? It's dark, too dark to even see if it's made out of wood, but something looked odd. I touched it. Definitely wood, but more wicker than twigs. I stood up (Nearly poking out an eye on another branch) and, lo-and-behold, my find! My treasure! My booty!

Well, okay, it was a lip-gloss container, roughly one inch in diameter and another inch tall. It contained nothing but what they call a "logbook" but it was really just a piece of paper. I ran to the car, excited and happy. I dug through the glove box, located a pen, and wrote my name (Well, my online name) and date in the log. I then ran back to the hiding spot, hid very deftly as another truck drove by, and replaced the cache for another to find.

Yeah, I think I'm hooked.

*GPS stands for Global Positioning System. the added 'r' stands for 'receiver'. I don't know exactly why you need to add the 'r' as it's very unlikely that I'd be carrying a geostationary satellite around with me. But, as I said, I'm a newbie at this so I'm erring on the side of caution here.