geocaching: part one.

As promised, I am finally getting around to posting about our Mother's Day geocaching adventure with my mom and family at Sweetwater Creek State Park in Lithia Springs. Now, I will have to admit, I had to do a little bit of research for this post. I, for sure, do not want to mislead anyone or give false information regarding geocaching and its sporting significance. I am definitely here to do it justice. (Because I, for one, had a lot of fun. So did my mom. But we may be the only ones.)

Here's the definition of geocaching straight from Wikipedia: Geocaching is an outdoor treasure-hunting game in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called "geocaches" or "caches") anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container (usually a tupperware or ammo box) containing a logbook and "treasure," usually toys or trinkets of little value. So in other words, it's an adult-version of a treasure hunt. You can find geocaches online at its official website www.geocaching.com, which is where my mom found the cache at Sweetwater. This particular cache is a multi-cache, which consists of three clues in which you must record what you find at each of the three checkpoints, and then combine the information to form the combination that is used to open the padlock on the cache at the final checkpoint. Sounds kind of dorky, huh? (Sorry, mom.) But it sure is dorky fun. I found myself feeling like a 9-year old kid again.

We geared up for our adventure by filling up on a good ole' KFC picnic by the lake, then we packed P in his off-road "geo-buggy" and set off into the woods in search of our hidden treasure.


Here's my wonderful husband sporting his "professional dad" shirt, complete with a paci keeper and toy pockets. He is a boy scout at heart. Always prepared.


The "geo-buggy" handled the terrain fairly well....


Up to a point....


Who would have known that the trail was this difficult? The geocaching website was fairly misleading. "You will walk about 2.5 miles on mostly level ground." Does "level" equal 20 flights of stairs and rocky ascents on the edge of a river? Hmmmm....I guess I don't quite understand the definition of "level". The boys, P and grampa stayed behind, while me, mom, and Jenny pushed forward to find the first clue.


We finally found it! Here's Jen and my mom (and Reilly) proudly posted up at our first checkpoint. Having fun yet?


Here's a picture of the mill ruins along the trail.


And here's my worst nightmare. Literally....


And Checkpoint #2. If you look very closely, the answer to Clue #2 was the last number in the length of the millrace.


And that's all folks. For now. We searched and searched for the third checkpoint, but to no avail. We were a little "geo-lost" and found ourselves "geo-loitering" on the grounds of a nearby police firing range. Not cool. And a rain shower moved in. So we decided to make this a two part, multi-cache (if there is such a thing) and call it quits for the day.

All in all, we had a great time on our treasure hunt and mom was just thrilled beyond words that we came along on her little Mother's Day adventure. Stay tuned for a part two post, because I promised mom that I would go back out there to find the last clue and the final cache jackpot. But next time, I will take baby P in the hiking pack. The geo-buggy just didn't quite cut it.