I have to write a story on geocaching for a summer magazine, so I've been doing a little research. What's geocaching, you ask? Grab a comfy seat, and I'll explain.
You like to hike? You like the outdoors? Most importantly, do you like to amble along, looking for all the world like you don't know where you're going, but you have a purpose in mind all along? You're the perfect candidate.
Geocaching is following a map to find a specific little "cache" - often just folded notepaper tucked inside a waterproof container - that's purposely placed by geocachers. It kind of has its origins in orienteering, where you have a set of coordinates (longitude, latitude, etc.) you need to follow to reach a predetermined finish line.
Geocaching was born May 3, 2000. That's the day after "Blue Switch Day,' otherwise known as the day when the U.S. government made highly accurate GPS available to everyone, according to geocaching.com. Computer consultant Dave Ulmer created the "Great American GPS Stash Hunt" by hiding a container in the woods and publicizing its coordinates to an online community on that fateful day. Within three days, two readers found the stash and shared their experience online. A new hobby was born!
When I first read about this a few years ago, the nerd in me consulted with the outdoors lover in me. Together, they tackled and subdued the lazybones in me, and I was off and running (actually, I don't run. Bad knees. But you know what I mean).
Since then, I've dragged my family over hill and dale in search of dirty containers hidden in buggy holes. One Easter Sunday, we decided to forgo church in search of a geocache at Moonbeams Preserve in Middletown (I think Jesus forgave us. He knows the church gets crowded on holidays).
I made Tommy climb a tree on the Saugerties Lighthouse Trail and dig into a birdhouse to grab a geocache.
And on a recent trip to Narrowsburg to meet the editor-in-chief of a newspaper for which I freelance, I dragged her to a geocache at Fort Delaware. In fact, she suggested it. We'd never met in person. And she agreed to ride with me and dig through brambly brush, snagging her scarf in the process, to find the little magnetic box. That's her hand, holding the raggedy box with the ripped papers at the top of this post.
It's fantastic.
Because that's the thing. These little caches live up to their name (by definition:
a collection of items stored in a hidden or inaccessible place). And that's the fun of it. The more you seek out geocaches, the more thrilling it becomes to find that little metal box, film canister, plastic Gladware container, or even a sturdy Ziploc, with a little logbook inside.
How do you get started? Well, do you have a smartphone? I know, silly question. But there are people in this world who still have flip phones. My soon-to-be-85-year-old dad is a good example. My sisters and I chipped in to get him a "Jitterbug Smart2 No-Contract Easy-to-use Smartphone for Seniors™" for Christmas. "It's easy," we said. "Just tap the picture to text, tap another picture to use the camera, tap the-"
"NOPE."
And back to the store went the "Jitterbug Smart2 No-Contract Easy-to-use Smartphone for Seniors™"
I digress.
Anyway, download the Geocache app, and once you're all signed up (there's a free option), you can search by location to find nearby geocaches. Imagine my surprise when I saw a geocache only a mile away from home. So this afternoon I and my dog Freckles set off.
If you're at all familiar with the Hudson Valley, you know that flat surfaces don't exist here. It seems everything is either up or down a hill. In fact, in high school, I walked uphill BOTH WAYS to school. No, really. Left the house, walked downhill to town, then uphill to the high school (if Chrissy Johnson's mom didn't pick us up in her car on the way, out of sympathy). A mile in all. Heading home, I walked the same route in reverse.
So anyway, today's geocache was at the bottom of a steeply graded hill. How steep? Well, (cue the granny voice) when my kids were in elementary school, the big buses weren't allowed to go up or down that hill. A couple years ago, that rule changed. The hill didn't get lower, the buses didn't get shorter, so that's still a puzzle I don't care to figure out.
The geocache was near the road, under a charmingly crooked tree and right next to an old railroad track that was abandoned long before we moved here 21 years ago.
At first I headed down the rail-less trail, but the geomap urged me back onto the road, and I soon found the red lid of a Gladware container peeking out from the base of that tree.
Freckles was more interested in the smells closer to the road (I often say she's getting the daily news when she sniffs her way along our walking routes), so I kinda had to drag her into the frame when I took her picture near the cache.
Luckily I had a hiking stick with me, because as I approached the cache, the stick caught on some rusty barbed wire that was lying on the ground. I thanked the Universe profusely for making me bring that hiking stick, as bare ankles and Crocs were no match for that.
Inside the cache was a tidy little stack of notepaper, with the latest entry dated 4/23/21. ****Caveat: BRING A PENCIL/PEN/CHARCOAL STICK/ANYTHING WITH WHICH TO WRITE when you go geocaching. I didn't. So just take my word for it that I did, in fact, open the cache.********
I closed up the container and tried not to notice the worms and bugs that wriggled around the tree trunk as I shoved the box back where I'd found it.
Freckles looked at me, looked wayyyy up the hill towards home, and I swear I could hear her say, "Really?" as we headed back toward home.
Up we went. And up. And up some more. I'm sure I was panting by the time we passed the horse farm that's our usual turnaround spot when we go for walks at home. Freckles gave me the stink-eye as we slogged past the sheep and horses who were probably giggling at our efforts.
Finally, we got home, where I poured myself a big glass of water, flopped onto the couch and celebrated my triumph with my hubby Jim and son Tommy.
"I was wondering why your face was so red," Tommy said.
So, thank you for reading this. It's practice for my geocache story I'm writing for this summer magazine. I hope the editor likes it. Not the editor-in-chief I mentioned earlier, but the editor of the summer magazine. She's a real bitch.
It's me. I'm the editor. And I'm a real hard-ass.
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