More Geocaching

Eric’s girlfriend, Annie, generously loaned me her GPS unit the other day. We have had a great time playing with it at our house this week. I was especially amused to see Adam running around the yard with it in his hand on Tuesday night. He justified his scurrying about by explaining that the unit has to be moving at 3 m.p.h. or faster in order for the coordinates to update. He looked funny because, as a rule, Adam does not run. Ever. Anyway, Jacob and I rode our bikes back to the alleged location of our neighborhood geocache yesterday – this time armed with an honest-to-goodness GPS. We felt hopeful and positive. We bumped along the dirt trail to the secluded spot, parked our bicycles next to the creek, and revved up our secret weapon. The latitude and longitude coordinates on the GPS matched those from the geocaching website. Jake and I searched every nearby nook and cranny for any type of small container. We searched every tree and stump. We looked high. We looked low. We came up empty. The person who hid this particular cache lives in the house that backs up to this trail. He wrote online that it is entertaining for his family to watch people hunt for the film canister. I find that part a little bit creepy. I stayed out of the guy's backyard, but I now firmly believe that the cache is in the public easement closer to his property line than the concealed trail. And since I am skittish about having this family spy on me while I look for their cache, I should probably just give up this hobby. Or at least stick to searches in more public places, like parks, for example. Not that I am any better at finding caches in parks.