Tuesday, July 26, 2011

No stone unturned . . .

. . . or as some may call it, Geocaching!

Sometimes family fun comes from an unexpected text from a friend (and thank goodness it did, because I wasn’t sure what we were going to do).
BFF Molly texted that she and her kids were going to Lake Hodges to go “Geocaching”.  Well, the kids (and mommy) needed some entertainment, so we joined them.
For those  of you not familiar with Geocaching, you can check it out at www.geocaching.com.   From what I understand, it’s where you go online to see where there are hidden capsules (for lack of a better word).  These contain a piece of paper for you to record that you found the cache, as well as several “leave behind” prizes that you can take from the cache (and you then turn leave behind your own toy).
Here’s what I learned about wandering in the weeds with my kids and BFF Molly and her kids:
1)      Always make sure that your path is close to the important potties (what BFF Molly’s son calls porta potties) –with 5 kids in tow you will make at least one or two stops there every 30 minutes.

2)      Now I know what to do with all that happy meal crap, I mean toys, that my kids get and invariably end up in the donate pile, but they’re not even worth donating.  Keep a purse full of these toys as your cache leave behinds!  And then you can gather even more crap – seriously, some of these “cachers” need help – there was everything from bouncy balls which are ok, although you don’t know how well used those are, to tattoos (which, by the way, tattoos are ok if the cache is truly weather proofed, but usually they are not, so these leave behinds are useless).  My favorite leave behind, however, was the joker who left a bottle cap.  Really, they thought that was a good leave behind for young children to find?!

3)      It doesn’t matter if you have a juris doctor degree and have passed a bar exam, there are just some clues that will be beyond your comprehension.  Thank goodness for BFF Molly (aka Bloodhound who can find anything hiding in the bushes).  I would have had the kids in the middle of Lake Hodges were it not for her Geocaching instincts that helped us find the last Cache whose clue was “Motero”.  Anyone with any idea what that means and how it relates to a big huge rock on a hillside in the middle of the desert, let me know.  Not even Wikipedia knows that one.  So, either the clue maker is clueless, or the Geocache app sucks!  Either way, I learned you can’t outsmart BFF Molly when she’s with the kids and they’re on a mission.
All my bitching aside, this adventure entertained the kids for a good 3 hours and it got them outside, so it’s worth it to me!

2 comments:

  1. Has Molly found the one at the cross by our house? We have been up there multiple times and can't find the darn thing.

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  2. Try letterboxing - you don't need a GPS because most of the clues are just directions and you get to play with stamps and ink pads. The site http://www.atlasquest.com/ can get you started.

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