February 2, 2012 was when I officially joined the geocaching bandwagon and registered a user name at the geocaching website. The first family hike for geocaching was at the local Vasona park and while the record suggests that this was our first cache, I think we only found this one on our second attempt.
At this point, you are probably wondering what a geocache is? A geocache is usually a container of some sort containing at least a piece of paper that we call a log. Object of the exercise is to find this container which is usually hidden in plain sight and sign the log to get credit for the find. Of course, containers come in all shapes and sizes and some are really devious. The cache owner posts the GPS location of the hide on the geocaching website and folks can download these coordinates onto their smart phones or GPS devices.
The really hard to find containers are the little itty bitty ones called nanos. These are very small and really blend in with the surroundings and therefore requires careful searching often with your finger tips. Now the kids dont particulary like the nanos since they only contain a log. There are lots of geocaches out there that are considerably bigger than the nano and contain trade items - goodies for the kids to exchange. I thought this was a brilliant idea because we no longer have to convince the kids to come for the hike - they volunteer for the hike because they want to find these treasures!
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