Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Geocaching


The Rusco family has a new hobby! That's right, we've joined the world of geocaching (pronounced "geo cashing"). We were given a GPS unit by a couple in our church who heard of our interest and we've scoured the official web page geocaching.com. So last night after dinner we went on a treasure hunt to find our first cache. We entered in coordinates and headed off to Centennial Park. The cache's owner posted a small description of the area but we were confident because we know the park so well. Jason led the search party. We did not find the cache. That was OK, we decided to move on to the next set of coordinates on Oak Street. We drove over to a large oak tree, followed the GPS and searched the area. Again, no luck. So, trying to uplift our discouraged family (and get Cameron to stop throwing a fit about being in her carseat) I baked cookies. While the cookies were baking Darren and Jason looked over the web page again. He read the Oak Street clue more carefully and decided to go back. Jason was torn... should he find the cache or stay for the cookies? I convinced him to help his dad and promised not to eat the whole batch before they got back. As you can see from the picture they were very happy they went back. The cache was hidden in a round, camo Altoids tin inside a cracked rock. We understand now how careful and precise we will have to be from now on. Tonight Darren and Jason went back to conquer the Centennial Park cache. On Friday we'll head over to the coast to look for caches in cooler weather. I'm sure you'll be hearing more about our adventures in the future.

3 comments:

Sallie said...

Didn't they do this on Amazing Race All Stars???

Jason, will you take Nanny geocacheing? It sure sounds like fun. What was in your altoids box????

Love, Nanny

Jeff said...

What's a cache? And could it possibly be better than a fresh baked cookie?

Jen said...

A cache is a small container (an altoids tin or small tupperware-type thing), usually camoflauged and hidden out of plain sight. It contains a log book so everyone can record their name and the date they found it. It also usually holds some sort of "treasure". You can take something as long as you leave something for the next person. The main thrill is the hunt, but the kids love the treasure. We looked for caches in Uganda... found only one listed in Kampala and one one the way to Jinja. You'll have to start the trend yourself...