Addicting More People to Geocaching

I received an e-mail request this week from a friend whose son is in school with my daughter. She and her family have been wondering about geocaching and asked if I would take them out for a beginner's lesson. So yesterday morning we piled our three kids into her vehicle with the two of us and set out for Baker Park on the Bow River in Calgary. I had my iPhone with the geocaching app and my Garmin Oregon 200 to show them both options when they start out.

We began with the Dollhouse cache (GC1RT7C) to get the kids excited because I knew it had recently been found and was supposed to have good swag in it. This one took a bit of looking and then was found where we didn't expect it. The kids found it easy to follow the compass on the Garmin so I let them carry that one and worked off the iPhone with my girlfriend. The three kids took turns holding the GPS and telling the others which way to go. We followed along making sure they didn't get too far off course but they did very well. And we had our first smiley for the day.

The next cache we aimed for was Baker's Bark (GC1EV27) which was a different kind of 'micro in a tree'. No trades here, just signed the log and off we went to search for I Do (GCXJTA). This is a very beautiful area right down by the river with bright beds of flowers surrounding a stone wall. We watched a few young men leaping into the chilly waters across the river and a Zodiak float by with two life-jacketed paddlers aboard.

 The search was briefly interrupted by the appearance of two snakes who may have been guarding the cache and who caused all the children to leap upon the stone wall and scream! Luckily my friend and I were not deterred and continued to peer under rocks and into nooks and crannies. Unfortunately, no cache was unearthed and we had to leave this one for another day.

We moved on to look for one of the Calgary Parks caches called, of course, Baker Park (GC299K3). This was when I saw the change in my friend from 'interested observer' to 'addicted cacher' as she made her first unassisted find. Her face lit up and she got excited and declared herself hooked! I always love that moment!

Our last cache of the day, Baker's Hedge (GC1EV1Z) was also exciting for her young daughter when she made her own first find. We told ourselves it was because she was closest to the ground but really we all had our backs turned when she said ' Oh I found one." And honestly I didn't really think she had found one, but there it was! So much for me showing her how its done!!

After such a good day of caching I am sure we will be going out as a group again before too long. And we have another girlfriend with kids who we'll have to take out and addict!

Just Do It!

Lately I have been trying to get my family out for more caching together. Although we always enjoy our caching adventures, it is still hard to motivate them to just get out the door. So a couple weeks ago I asked my daughter if we could try to do one cache a day for a week. And it worked. As long as she knew there was no pressure to get a long list of caches checked off, she was willing to jump up and go. And I made sure to choose cache locations that included a park with swings, or an easy drive-up find, or one we could bring a friend to. So we completed the week with eight caches found and a new outlook on caching. If you are trying to motivate others to go along with you or you are trying to motivate yourself off the couch or away from the computer, just set small goals and have fun on the way. As they say, its not the destination that is important but the journey.

Today the skies were dark grey with thunder and rain about to spill down any minute. But knowing that in Calgary, the clouds could just as easily blow away altogether, I rallied the family out of the basement and into the car for a quick drive to Nosehill Park. There were three caches fairly close to a parking lot (within 600m) and I thought we would start with the easiest one and if it went well try another. I gave my daughter our Oregon 200 GPS and I used the iPhone app from Geocaching.com to navigate our way to Bushdee (GC21RWH). Our chocolate lab Scooby Doo was thrilled to be along on this adventure and she bounced along the trail chasing the ball we were throwing for her. The trees and the gully we were walking in gave the iPhone a bit of satellite trouble but the Garmin had no problem and the cache was soon in hand. The littlest cacher was still happy so we continued up the hill to find Beating Around the Bush (GC1B5GZ). We had looked for this one before but were unable to find it due to the snow cover on the ground. So we were very happy when the oldest goat came up with the goods and we checked off another find. The littlest goat got her hair tangled in a tree and ended up with a sappy knot but it didn't dampen her spirits so off we went for a third search. I didn't really think we would be able to find this one, DUCKY TAPE ROCKS!!! (GC3NZ8G) as it was listed as a 5 for difficulty (on a  scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being easiest) and a 3.5 for terrain. We had to do a bit of bushwhacking off the trails and a bit of back-tracking while we looked for a good way down into a gully. The hint indicated that the cache container was going to be a fake rock so we checked a few rocks without success. And then the oldest goat found a rock that rattled and that made three happy faces for the day! And not a drop of rain.

Geocaching at Nose Hill Park

I had a day to myself while my daughter is at Brownie camp and I decided to combine a dog walk and some geocaching this afternoon. Took Scoobydoo and her frisbee to Nose Hill Park where the air was cold but didn't stop lots of people from being out enjoying the spring day. Unfortunately we only found two caches before my free Geocaching app for iPhone lost its satellite feed and wouldn't come back. I did get a photo of one cache container which is a large plastic tube (about 16") containing lots of good swag for trading. Since our grass and plants still don't realize spring is here, the cache was covered very neatly with sticks which actually made it stand out quite well. In a couple months this will be well hidden by longer grasses and undergrowth.

Tomorrow I am still hoping to attend the workshop on how to hide a cache as my family is anxious to do a good job on our first hide. I'll post anything interesting I learn!