Beth's Perspective On ........Teaching The Young'un

Saturday my daughter had to be out of her house due to decorating for a baby shower. Why do they call it a shower,? Nobody took one yesterday. Oh well, back on track here. We decided to go caching so she could learn how to use her new GPS that her grandmother got for her. I had Pippa load seven caches that we had already found in the Giles area that would not endanger a eight-n-half month pregnant woman. We took off and went to the hardest one first, " Come On In Yall", but because of the very tall weeds and grass I did give a small hint. She searched about twenty min. and found it. The expression was priceless, "that's it?"

We went to two others close by and in no time she had found them. I was a little jealous because it took us longer. I can see a slight problem for her though, she doesn't like spider webs. She has a good sense for clues and direction, ha ha, as she followed the little feet on the screen. I think she was even trying to take very little steps to match those on the screen.

OK now she had five under her belt all her own, back in to town for the last two. "This is fun!" she exclaimed, it didn't take long to find those at all. I think that was a jab since I had already told her how long it took us to find them. She had a satisfied smile on her face as we went to the next location. Even though I knew where we were going, I still made her use the system. OK what was the clue here? My response was "look it up, I am not here." That drew a strange look from her and she went back to the truck to get Ms. Garmin. No problem here either, so off to the next. Oh no! road construction, detours, Ms. Garmin was going nuts. The last cache was the one we had set out, "Bidding U Happy Caching." Here we ran into lots of muggles. She stood there at the truck and watched as they walked and drove by, quickly going for it, she grabs and comes back to sign in. "Why would you put it where there are so many muggles", she asked. My response: "that makes it all the more fun, trying to get the cache and not be seen."

Watch Marie's Very Own Music Video (she's gonna kick Pip's kester for this)

All in all she had a full day of caching and a good time, and I got to spend some time with my oldest child. Oh, the shower was fun too. Happy Caching Y'all.

~Ox

Heads Up! Father's Day is Coming.....

If you're anything like me, its best that you think about holidays a bit before they actually get here. So, you have less than a month to consider what you're going to do with this one.

Me? I'm going GeoCaching of course! And I'm using the holiday as an excuse...

My dad and his wife live in Franklin, NC. So Beth and I are going to hop into her Dad's truck and head down there for a visit. And, to entertain ourselves and enjoy a little escape time, we will attempt a few caches. We are also going to try out the "Route" feature on geocaching.com. This feature allows you to enter start and stop coordinates, then pulls up caches along the route. Pretty cool, eh? I'll let you know how that goes.

Now about gifting. Dad's can be a little hard to buy for. Well, not my dad. I'm taking him six packs of Vienna Koegel HotDogs which his ex-wife/my mother delivered to me last month. (Wow, I was way ahead of the game this year!) Anyway, these are the dogs used in all the little greasy diners in Flint, Michigan, to create the famous Coney Island Hot Dog. Dad loves them. They provide me a bit of nostalgia from my childhood.

Back to gifting. A GPS could make a nice gift. Prices start at $100 and go up, the sky isn't even the limit for the heavy duty ones. But you could do what Beth and her siblings did, they split the cost on a Garmin Nuvi for Pop's birthday. I'll let Beth blog about how its working out for him, but I thought it was a good gift.




First, you need to ask yourself how the recipient will use the GPS. Does he or she (yes, some father figures are female) travel and will they use it as a highway navigation tool? Will he want to locate points of interest along a route, such as restaurants, shopping, etc.? Then the typical GPS found at WM might just do the trick.

If the giftee is more outdoorsy than that, a more technical type GPS might be needed...a low cost one is the eTrex, by Garmin. I know nothing about this, except the price that I looked up online. So I'm not endorsing here, just throwing out a suggestion. They have golf GPS's too. Again, I know nothing. But they are out there.

Now, let me interject here. Apparently in the Caching world there is a bit of bias about what GPS is used. I'm suspect its some ego related thing, but I'm not really sure as we are basically newbies at this hobby. My suspicious arose when we were at the Roanoke Event and someone complained that a flyer for an educational program pictured a Nuvi. My not-so little ears latched onto that. I didn't ask questions, as I basically don't care because we love our Garmin Nuvi 500 (most of the time). So much so, you'll recall, we've named her Ms. Garmin. We respect the lady.

First of all, she fit our budget at the time. Second, she has cool graphics and cute little icons. For example, when we are on a trip or on a way to a cache, we put in a cute little 4X 4 truck. It keeps me entertained so Beth can concentrate on the driving.

And while her voice (Ms. Garmin's, not Beth's) can grate on my nerves sometime, overall, she's fun....as any good date should be. She keeps track of our found and not found caches. She can pull up a restaurant when we get hungry. She found me a nurse practitioner once when I was in desperate need. And most of the time, she gets us within 20 feet of caches.

I think the hardest part of getting into this hobby was figuring out what we needed to get started. I did not enjoy researching GPS's. I found it a bit overwhelming. That's why I put the Search for GPS widget onto the left bar. If I would have had this when I was doing my research, it would have been nice. I read "Geocaching for Dummies". I like the dummy books..cause I are one sometimes.

Ok, maybe a GPS for dad is a bit out of your price range, or your siblings are deadbeats, or whatever. Understandable. There are some great books on geocaching. We are even starting to see short stories and novels written. There is even a country western song. No Kidding.

I put up the Amazon Carousel to the left too. I'll put some of our favorite picks there from time to time. The really cool thing is if you hold down the up or down button, it spins the products and looks really cool. Sometimes I log onto the blog to just play with it. Try it.

And yes, we are affiliates and if you buy something we get a little kick back. So what? You buy stuff anyway, why not contribute to the financial well being of a blogger.

The weekend is almost here...time to cache..... or at least think about it.

Pip

Life Is Good

We received the ultimate compliment in the past two days. Several of our readers have decided to give this geocaching thing a try. That's super cool. When you find a good thing, you want to share it and it is always a nice plus when the people you're pushing it on are actually interested!

Seems if we didn't scare Marie off, and that she is still asking for a GPS for her birthday, although, she does not want to wait until November to get it. From what I understand, if she really likes a birthday gift, she won't stop playing with it...wonder if she remembers how much she loved her Barbie Ride-On Car....her mother does, I've now heard the story. I'm certain that Marie will ditch the flip flops for more sensible caching footwear, now that she knows....my bad, I suppose.

On Memorial Day I got a surprise call from my sister, Beverly Dawn. Apparently they recently have gone out and bought a GPS. Her and hubby, Craig, were on their way to their first cache when she called. Again, super cool.


Now these folks need cool caching names. Wonder what they will choose? 'Tis all so exciting.


We kinda stumbled into DragonOx. It's our Chinese symbols...I'm the dragon, she's the ox, and yes the traits really do match us perfectly. And its cool. It's the year of the Ox, in case you didn't know....and I think Beth is pleased with how her year is going...especially when she got called back to work today....now if we just hit the lottery tonight....things would be SWEET! I haven't checked out the caches in Richmond, but I sure will if we have to make a road trip there to collect our winnings.





I've been working on our pathtag.

Here is a rough draft...I can see this developing into a tattoo...only with the Tao symbol worked in...





Oh my, I feel inspired...hey, maybe I'll videograph our getting our geocache tattoos and upload it here...using ChiroWork's new Flip Camcorder...

Oh ya, that's it, the tats will be a blogging project. Research. Hmm...That's It. Sounds like a plan.

From Brother Elliott

What do get when you cross a GPS and PMS???

A bitch that can find you ANYWHERE, ANYTIME, ANY PLACE.

Thanks to Beth's brother, Elliott, in Edmond OK and Best Friend, Kenny. Thanks Fellas! A good sexist joke is always appreciated....kinda.

Getting Started

As with any new hobby, there is the learning curve to deal with....

First things first, you need to go to geocaching.com. This is where the list of hidden geocaches are kept. You can search them by zip code. Go ahead, check it out, see what hidden treasures are located just around the corner from your place. We'll wait.

So, now you just log the coordinates into you bitchy GPS and away you go...on a treasure hunt.

You might want to take a few things with you. A pen, to log your find. Take some water, and some snacks. Wear some decent shoes.

Take some patience, as the owners of some caches can be pretty clever. For example, here is a shot of a cache that was hidden inside a super ball, the ball was rolled in gravel and just laying in the rocks at the location. Unbelievable.....

Some caches are a bit larger and contain little trinkets. You can exchange something inside the cache with something you brought along of equal or greater value. That is, if you remember to bring something along (a mistake we've made more than once).

There is terminology to deal with too. Muggles, for example. These are non-geocaching people that might be in the area. You want to avoid letting on what you're doing, as you don't want people not playing to disturb a cache once you leave.

Nano, we haven't quite figured out. Some cachers in our area have nano, or nanoman in their clues...we have no idea what this means, and its getting rather nerve racking. If anyone has any ideas, let us know.

And it helps if you know what you are looking for....what the heck is a bison tube, you might ask. We didn't know. Beth, being a farmer, thought maybe it was a type of rail used in fencing. No. Its a very, very small tube with a lid. Had we googled it before we left, we would have known. Damn learning curve.

Guarded cache, like hidden inside a guard rail. Duh.