Geocaching and Getting Wet

Geocaching and getting wet!
Our big adventure today was to go find a geocache named "Yogi and Boo-Boo's Stash". For those not familiar with the sport, geocaching involves using GPS and the internet to find small stashes of inexpensive trinkets that have been placed all over the world. I discovered the sport last year and have turned several folks on to it through www.geocaching.com. It is an especially kid-friendly thing to do as the caches usually have several small toys for kids to trade out. Another aspect of the sport involves trackable items. Called Travel bugs or Geocoins these have a unique serial number engraved on them and in some cases an objective such as to visit the Eiffel Tower.Today we moved a geocoin from Big Pine Key, Florida to this cache. It started out in Germany a few years ago. Since we know the serial number, we'll be able to track all the bugs we've found as they move through the world.
In many ways geocaching is like a hidden world. If you don't know they're there, the caches are hidden and invisible. Similar to spies and their hiddden message drops, all are in public places but hidden. In fact, the name for curious people that don't know the game is "Muggles" from the Harry Potter novels where the "normal" world exists unaware of the magical world in their midst. It's always a worry that you will be "muggled" while in the act of retrieving the cache from its hiding place. Some muggles will vandalise a cache just because they don't know any better.
Many geocaches are placed so that you will slow down and take a walk in a very pretty place and see something you wouldn't ordinarily stop for. Some are virtual caches that ask you to learn something about the place you are in order to get credit for the find.
After you find a geocache, you go online and log the find and what was taken and moved.
For those of us who travel, this is a really fun adjunct to any trip. There are literally thousands of geocaches hidden around the world. They say that at any given place on earth, you aren't more than 25 feet from a rat. Nearly the same with as geocache. Inside the park are three and within 5 miles around fifty. Nearly every rest stop on the interstate highways have at least one. Military bases, national parks and most private property are off-limits as are hazardous locations. But some require rock-climbing and the airplane at the lake requires Scuba.
After walking through the woods,we found the nice paved trail and followed it for a few hundred feet to the cache. It was an old ammo can full of toys and trinkets for the kids. Savannah and Harken enjoy that part.
We put a geocoin into the cache. We picked up that coin in No Name Key, FL in May. It had started life in Germany and had no other purpose than to travel and be tracked, which is another facet of this sport. It is fun to see where some of these items have been and how diligent people are at moving them along.
Our last geocache for the day was a "virtual" cache. These have no container or logbook, but are really neat places to go that you wouldn't go without a push. In this case it was a rickety fire tower. The state put an odd sign up that said you were allowed to climb it, but it was all on your nickel. Just beyond the sign were two completely broken cast iron steps. Really intimidating when you look up and see acouple more that have been patched. The top platform was wood.
I made it to the first platform, but felt that wisdom did not include load-testing a fire tower. Terri, Rhonda and the kids went all the way up!
Terri did it twice as the objective was to count the steps in order to get credit for the cache.