Geocaching (& An Addendum)

In case you didn't know, we are a geocaching family.

And proud of it.
(We are secretly great big geeks at heart.
Or not so secretly...)

Anyway, we've been geocaching since Nelly was itty bitty.
And easily stashed in a backpack.

What? You don't know what geocaching is? Think treasure hunting for the whole family. All you need is a GPS and a healthy dose of curiosity. There are more than 1 and a half million geocaches hidden worldwide. I'm guessing there are a few near you. They're in cities and in the woods and on top of mountains and in the middle of the ocean. We are waiting until the girls are a tad older before we go after the ones that require scuba diving.

Our Labor Day weekend was wide open which has been a rarity this summer. (Henceforth dubbed The Summer We Ran Our Legs To Jelly.) So what better way to spend one of the final Saturdays of summer than geocaching?

We had our trusty navigator wielding the GPS. It should be added that the navigator also learned to pee in the woods for the first time ever. A useful life skill in my book.

We ditched the strollers, hiked almost 2 miles, and everyone walked on their own legs.

Or mostly walked on their own legs...

We had one minor injury, but she was a trooper.

We successfully hid two of our own geocaches: our first ever. With prizes and everything. Makes you want to go treasure hunting, doesn't it? We know you want to. Embrace you inner geek, grab a GPS, and go for it.

AN ADDENDUM:

After wandering around the geocaching website this evening, I found this marvelous little factoid:

"Geocaches are allowed in space, other planets and spacecraft. We publish cache listings in outer space such as in the International Space Station or on Mars. Make sure you can land or connect to the space station/planet for it to be acceptable as a listing. Keep in mind, however, that due to the saturation guideline you can't place another cache on the ISS since one is already listed there."

In outer space people.

There is a geocache on the International Space Station!

If you don't think that is pretty stinkin' cool, I just don't think we can be friends anymore.

Now. How to get there...