I’ve heard of geocaching but never thought much about it until Rob Walker mentioned it in The Art of Noticing. Wikipedia’s description says “Participants use a Global Positioning System receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called geocaches or caches, at specific locations marked by coordinates all over the world.” The first cache was placed in 2000.
I never thought there would be a cache in my part of the world. But you never know. So I got the free app and learned that there are some caches near my home. Now I’m curious. I’ve got to try this some day.
Today was the day. I was out running errands and decided I would seek out my first cache. According to the little map on the app, it was right outside the library. I pulled into a parking spot and saw that I was seventy-five feet from the geocache.
There is no description of what it looks like. That’s part of the fun. You have to search for it. I walked under a tree at the northeast corner of the library and my phone buzzed. I was at the location.
Was it hanging from a tree? Sticking out of the ground? Was it in an official looking container? I had no idea.
Something red caught my eye. A plastic Folgers coffee container. Probably just some trash. Except on the side someone had written in marker, “This is not trash.” Ah-ha. I’ll bet that’s it. On the other side it said, “This is a geocache.” Found it. I was expecting something official looking. But I guess any container works.
Inside was a ziplock bag containing a small booklet and a pen to record when you found it. I added my user name and the date to the list of those who had found it before me, and put it back in the container. There were also some blue and purple Mardi Gras beads inside. Apparently, some like to leave a little trinket. Next time I’ll bring one of my cool painted rocks.
And that’s it. My first geocache. According to the app map, there are about ten more in town. This one wasn’t too tough. I’ll bet others are more challenging.
Waite for it... 