Treasure Hunting

I recently received a navigational device as a gift from my wife (which would have come in handy six months ago on my Salt Lake-Seattle-San Francisco road trip). Not only does it tell me every little turn I need to take during my vehicular travels, it also browses the Internet, plays music, and keeps all of my contacts organized. But that’s not all; I can download GPS coordinates from the Internet and go geocaching.
Geocaching is a modern way to go treasure hunting. Instead of using a map that was tattooed onto a pirate’s scalp, a person can find the locations online to items that have been hidden and use those items’ specific GPS coordinates to help in his or her quest for that item. The purpose of a geocache is simply to be found. Think of it as a high-tech game of hide-and-go-seek. The reward inside the cache is secondary. Sometimes it’s a sticker; other times it might be a toy or cool trinket; very rarely it could be money. After finding the reward, a person should always leave something of his or her own behind if he or she takes something from the cache. Many geocaches include a logbook; thus all finders of the cache can prove that they found it. Most geocaching websites also have some sort of log for people to document their findings.
Since I had a day off Monday, I decided to finally try my hand at treasure hunting. I’ve always had a suspicion that I’d be good at it, but one never knows until one tries, right? After downloading the coordinates to three different geocaches into my navigational device, I set out on foot with my wife, baby, and two dogs. Quite the entourage, but I figured my wife would be useful as another set of eyes, and my dogs would be invaluable should we need to dig any small holes or scare competitors off. The baby had to come along because it is considered neglect to leave a small child home alone. He was completely ineffectual as part of my treasure hunting team. Perhaps in a few years he will prove his mettle and aid me in future searches.
So off we went, with stars in our eyes and a spring in our step. The first geocaching location was only two blocks away from our house. The navigational unit told me to “drive” (despite the fact that I set it for pedestrian mode) 0.3 miles north in an annoying, nagging voice, then it directed us to turn right and then walk 300 feet east, and finally told us to turn left and that we had arrived at our destination. I looked around. My wife looked around. The dogs milled about. The baby slept. No geocache. Three minutes is my treasure-searching limit, so after they passed we set off for the next location.
We had more luck with the second set of GPS coordinates, finding a cylindrical container with a wood-wallpaper pattern on the outside so it would blend in with its surroundings. The items inside were hardly worth taking, so we signed the little logbook and left a Bahamian penny behind. The next person to find that geocache is in for a nice surprise. The third location stumped us yet again, but I practiced more patience and searched for at least five minutes, if not six. There were a lot of bushes in the area and I wasn’t about to go searching each and every one of them.
Unfortunately I discovered that I am not as good at treasure hunting as I had always presumed I would be, but on the other hand I now have some actual experience under my belt and will look forward to my next GPS coordinate adventure. The walk was nice and the weather wasn’t too cold, so it turned out to be a good adventure despite the 1-out-of-3 rating I currently hold.
If you are a geocacher, I wish you continued success in your future searches. If you have a navigational system and have never tried geocaching, try it out and see if you like it. There’s something for everybody out there and your hunt for treasures could take you into the backwoods of the Uintahs or the back alley of a side street downtown. Have fun and keep your eye out for my Bahamian penny!