Sunday, March 30, 2008

must get out of this hotel room...

So I've been caught in my schedule at work and the weekends are my only time to unwind. I've been caught up in March Madness, but I can't be in my hotel room any more. So what am I doing to see more of NoVA??? 

Geocaching. For those that don't know, this is basically a scavenger hunt using GPS coordinates. You can go to Geocacher and search by location to find a cache near you.

All of the caches I've found so far have been in parks, so I've trodden over many bike/running trails around here. So here's a quick intro to my morning. I park nearby and walk to the first set of coordinates. It's really loud from all the birds chirping and the water running. 



I figure out how to view my current lat/long (I'm using a Garmin Nuvi 350) and find the first cache under some rocks.









Success!!!! Now I'm official. I take a golf ball as a memento. I'm going to put it into the next cache I find and cross-polinate the caches like an bumblebee.



I'm psyched now. I move on to the next cache. On my way over I hear a woodpecker going crazy and I can see evidence of his previous work. I find the next location no problem, all I have to do is stick my hand in this dark log.


Now on to the final cache of the day. I thought for sure it was hidden in here

But I was wrong, I found this nearby. I don't think the chipmunks left it.

My new friend today ....

1 comment:

John Carman said...

Glad I found your blog, man. I used to do a fair amount of geocaching (I found a few in Pittsburgh with your little bro Abeles), but I haven't gone in a while. I think the last cache I hunted was one in Central Park that G and I failed to find, and gave up before we looked suspicious enough for someone to call Homeland Security.

Seeing your pics actually made me want to go out and find a cache; I wonder if there are any new ones near me.