Going Geocaching

We have been checking out the Geocaching website. I found out about it on Families on the Road. They have a “Roadschooling” section. Seemed like a natural fit.

I watched the little videos. Showed it to the kids. It looked so easy. It is like a treasure hunt with a GPS. There are these amazing little treasure boxes buried all over the world. “Cache in, trash out” is their little slogan. You find these little treasure boxes. If you take something out of the box you put something in of the same or greater value. What fun! No worries. Right? Time for our quest of epic proportions. A treasure hunt.

In Morocco we didn’t have maps for our Nuvi GPS, for Africa, so we tried to use “Girlpod”. Our dear little Girlpod is a handmedown ipod touch with a broken screen. We gave her a facelift (replaced the glass) but she is still a little old lady (old ipod touch) and in need of frequent life-support (electricity) as her heart (battery) is that of a little old lady. Her battery has seen many moons and would only take us one hour into our quest. Not nearly enough time for a quest.

Back to yesterday. Attempt number 2.

We start off singing. “We’re following the leader. the leader. the leader….”. We took off to find the first cache.

A construction site. They are redoing the roads. We look longingly out at the bus stop in a cage. Bus stops should never be in cages of construction. It must be in there, we thought. Lets try another one.

Not another construction site. It couldn’t be.

At this point I pointed the way home for the kids. They can make it back without me. I must find one of these little boxes. Isn’t this like a kids homeschool thing. I like puzzles, for goodness sake, I am good at puzzles. When all was lost I navigated my family back to the truck without getting lost IN FES! Everybody gets lost in Fes, Andrew got lost in Fes, repeatedly, though he will probably never FES UP to it. Dang, I am sure not going to let some silly kids game get the best of me. Determined to trek on til I FIND A GEOCACHE BOX. I can be quite stubborn at times. Only occasionally. Uhhhhh. The kids unanimously decided to continue on our quest. I think they regretted it later. Could be the 4+ km of extra trekking for the next geocache. Maybe they are as stubborn as me. Trying for geocache number 3 we see many wonders along the way.

Pink bear and rabbits in captivity.

A headless bear with a button “guess who killed the cat”. Hmmmmm.

We played in the sun (get it?!? There was a sun in the middle of the roundabout. A sun in the sun. Ha. Ha. Hmmmm.)

We skipped along the yellow brick road.

The third geocache place was much more scenic. Pine trees. Dirt trails. Still, no luck. In real life it could be GONE. STOLEN. Maybe our geocache is MIA. These things are so hard. Maybe nobody has found these for years. Perhaps we have stumbled  across the most difficult level of geocaching. Perhaps no one has EVER found these enormously difficult geocaches.

We come to grips with our defeat. Finding comfort in the fact that these were geocaches of an extremely difficult level. We find consolation in other ttreasure on the way home. Treasure like pink shells and starfish.

We contemplate the day.

Surely these things must be findable perhaps they were especially difficult geocaches.

We get home to discover they were, in fact, exceptionally easy ones to find and gazed unbelievingly at the cocky faces of the LAMERS that have found our geocaches before. Ooooh they think they’re so smart. ONE of them found one of OUR geocaches only 2 days ago. Perhaps it was one of THEM that stole it. See what can happen to a, somewhat normal, middle aged woman when she plays kids games. Knock yourself out of it Deb.

After about an hour or so of going back and forth, unbelievingly, between the pages about OUR geocaches. Looking at the photos of the uh… particular individuals… that were successful. I am determined to go out again the next day. TODAY. As I make my declaration the girls all pitch in. WE will go out again. We won’t let some silly little geocaches get the best of us. Seriously now, we have trekked the Sahara. We have been chased by drug dealers in the Rif mountains. We aren’t going to let a silly little kids game get the best of us. WE WILL go out again today. They are MY stubborn little offspring, plus 1, after all. Grrrrr.