I remember my first time geocaching. It was the summer of 2007 in Spokane Washington. My uncle was explaining how geocaching worked. "You have to put in the coordinates in a GPS and then you go find this little box of trinkets in the woods. You also can't tell anyone, it's a secret."
My eyes lit up. I was no way I was going tell anyone and ruin this This was a treasure hunt, and we were going to find the prize.
We picked a hard one to find. The whole family was searching in the bushes for a little box. High and low we looked for something we did not know the image of yet. It took us a good solid 20 minutes with all 10 of us searching. But we found the treasure. We signed our names on the little slip of paper and swapped out our tricket. That was it, I was hooked. Everywhere we went as a family that summer we just had to search for some more treasure.
After that summer ended so did the treasure hunt. Only my uncle had a GPS that could find the geocache. Then we grew up and other things became more important to us. And with that we all kinda forgot the hunt. That childlike wonder died a little bit, until years went by without even thinking about geocaches. Until spring of 2019.
It all happened because of a college level Geographic Informations Systems class (learning about making maps). I were required to read "Maphead" by Ken Jennings. The book was such a great book and I could not put it down. There were ideas in that book I would never have thought of in my life. But it was one chapter that rekindled my love for the treasure hunt. It was about how Jennings found geocaching and how he got addicted to it. After I read that chapter I told my friend we had to go geocaching, we just had to. He had an old GPS he used when he was younger to geocache. We were going to go out and find some new ones in Missoula. When we went to turn it on however, the screen was all messed up. But that did not stop us. So we went to Cabellas and he got a new GPS.
We just had to try out the new GPS that day. We plugged in our coordinates and took off to the park. We picked two different geocaches in the local park one near the south end and one at the north. The first one was an easy one, we found it in one of the trees and did not take that long to find. But the second one we went looking for we had to search for a while. While trying to find the second geocache we found a little snake sitting on the ground. We ended up searching high and low for this geocache and could not find it for the longest time. But we did not give up. We looked under rocks and looked in trees.
But there it was.
On the ground disguised as a rock.
At that point I was hooked. The treasure hunt was on again.
I know I love feeling that childlike curiosity while searching high and low through the woods and in parks. Being back in elementary school being pirates searching for treasure, and trying to be secretive while running through the woods.
That feeling of being in the forest on a mission. That feeling of accomplishment when you find it and get to add your name to the page. There is nothing like it. Whether you have a nice fancy GPS or just your phone, you too can join in the neverending hunt for treasure.