Geocaching (or, “How I will die this winter”)

If you’re looking for someone to blame, here’s a link: Geolizardo.

I was happily trying to learn PGP and some other encryption stuff, when he mentioned he had this hobby that had involved decoding messages. He then started talking to someone about treasure hunting, pixie dust, Easter eggs, something something… None of this sounded interesting to me until he mentioned it was called geocaching.

I had heard of geocaching. I think it was Mr Corley who mentioned it to us in Geography, back in Grade 10. I didn’t show any interest because cool kids are NEVER interested in what teachers have to say, and as you all know, I was the coolest kid ever.

Still, the seed had been planted, and when Geolizardo brought this up, I decided I should bombard him with questions. He said he loved this. He talked about going on trips and finding stuff. He talked about travel bugs, geocoins, hidden messages, and the excitement of finding something after looking for it for quite a while.

What really got to me was him talking about this being a family activity. Months later, he commented on one of my blog posts, and shamelessly advertised his blog. I clicked on it, and read the cleverly named “Lizard Droppings“. One of the posts talked about earning the right to complain (good read) and showed a picture of Mitch and him picking up garbage while geocaching. That was uber cool. I wanted to do this, so I started doing more research.

Eventually, I narrowed down my GPS options to a few models. Scott helped me with seeing the differences between must haves, nice to haves, and OMGdoesitreallydothatLOL features.

I got my GPSr last week, and loaded the waypoints for geocaches around our place. There is one called “Nice rack” that’s not too far from home, so I asked Bobbi to meet me there with a flashlight and warm clothes. We looked for it, and eventually saw it (not telling you where!). Bobbi didn’t say much, but I thought she was thinking “Is that it?”. We signed the log, and left.

We looked for another one that’s in our building’s backyard, but couldn’t find it. We were cold, so we went home. That weekend, we went to Brandon, and found another one there. Bobbi did a great job at pinpointing the right tree, and I’m sure she would have found it if she had looked for another minute or so.

Monday night, Shawnssica helped me look after we had some great apple cider and sandwiches at The Fyxx. I found a tiny one, and Shawnssica(XX) found a pretty big one. Shawnssica(YX) was hooked, and the next day, he had found three or four caches.

Now, weird things have been happening. I took the “wrong” bus yesterday, so I could go searching for a cache about a kilometer west of my house. I walked the way back and didn’t even feel the cold. Oh, and that cache by our building? Found. At lunch time, I went and found a nano by work. I suddenly have the desire to be outside. Weird.

I understand why Geolizardo geocaches now.

If I get lost, or get frostbite, you know who to blame now. Thanks dude.