Geocaching... What is it?



Hey! How are you? Are you having a great "FAT TUESDAY"? We're learning about Mardi Gras today in class - and making a Mardi Gras bracelet out of purple, green and yellow yarn - yahoo!

Hope you are having a great week! This weekend - we had beautiful weather! Our family made a quick trip to Lubbock, taking a car to my niece and we planned to find some GEOCACHES along the way.

There have been several requests and questions about what exactly it is... "What is GEOCACHING?"
It's like a "Scavenger Hunt". You become a member on http://www.geocaching.com (it's free!). You put in your home address - the website figures out your coordinates (longitude/latitude) and will tell you on a map where the closest geocaches are located. Here's an example of geocaches located in Lubbock, Texas.

When you go on a trip, you go to the website, put in where you are going and it locates the geocaches on the way!! When you select a geocache - you can write down the coordinates or "easier yet" - just put it into your GPS!! And it'll take you right to it - wow!

What do you find?? It can be anything from a "micro-cache" - a very small tube with just a paper log - and you sign and date it. Other times it's a box or something with items to switch and share, along with a log to sign and date! Our family has begun to save all the free toys that we get from kid's meals or just free"doo-dads" - magnets, pencils, stickers, pins... to switch into a geocache! After you find a geocache - you go back to the website and log your visit.
The idea is to find as many geocaches as you can!
Here are some pics of the sites that we visited this weekend. A lot of the geocaches are placed in "points of interest" and you can enjoy learning something! This pic is one of the largest geocache found - so far! See the chest?? That's the geocache...
It's fun, easy and my boys get a kick out of trying to find the geocache. In the beginning, we were amazed to find 6 geocaches within 3 miles of our house. Today, there are 988,497 active geocaches around the world. We've found 37 - yahoo! LOL!

Hope that explanation helps!

Hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day! Hang in there and have a great week, this week! Thanks for stopping by - Hug the ones you love the most!

7 comments:

Unknown said...

That sounds like fun!! But how do you know what the geocashe is? Does it say on the box or container? I bet my grandkids would love this!

Stephanie Harbin said...

Where was this??

The Vannoy Family said...

The BIG geocache? In Matador... then the canyon or mountain pic was in Blanco Canyon between Floydada and Ralls...

Jenschke Family said...

Ahhhh love Bob's Oil Well. The people of Matador worked so hard to raise the money to refurbish this building. They are very proud and should be! Glad you got to stop by and visit! Still going to get my family to geocache with me....just have to be a little more persuasive!

West Texas Momma said...

the boys looks like they are having a blast!

Chris said...

My husband and I have been geocaching over three years now. We love it! The geocache is typically a camoflaged container to help it stay hidden. It can be any size from a film canister to a large box. We've found everything in between, including nanos which are the about an inch long.

Kelsy Hinton:) said...

Hey It's Kelsy! Ask me about the little hidden box down at Gazebo Park! It's pretty cool!