Treasure Hunters

We have a new hobby around here. A new hobby that we are obsessed with. It's called Geocaching (pronounced geo-cashing). It's a real world outdoor treasure hunting game using a GPS to find hidden treasures or containers - or a cache. It's an international hide and seek game, and who doesn't like a game of hide and seek? Or finding hidden treasures? I love the challenge (it's teaching me patience and not giving up so quickly!), that it gets us outdoors with a specific goal to accomplish, the family time hiking, biking and exploring; for Kayla its collecting treasures. It's also shown me that she's really excellent at navigating and interpreting maps. And she doesn't shy away from an adventure, even when I hesitate, that leads us deep in the woods or thick brush or steep ravines. In fact, she's been the 'first to find' caches in tight spaces, up in a tree, under logs, just as many times as I have!

See? Don't you think we make a great geocaching team?!

 Success! Found the hidden cache down by the water on the Blue Water River Walk

Another "easy" find in downtown Port Huron

A very very long chain hidden geocache. Good thing I have such good helpers. This was a fun unique find!

I originally got interested in geocaching almost 10 years ago, went out a few times, but didn't pursue it any further.... until Kristi came home in August and stayed with us for 2 weeks. She had recently gotten into geocaching and convinced us that we needed to go while she was home. So the four of us girls did. Again. And again. It was official, I was hooked (and Kayla too. Even Khloe says "When are we going geocaching? Haha!). After Kristi returned home, I continued geocaching. Caches rated with an easy terrain and difficulty I'd bring Kayla along, the more difficult ones I'd go find. Since I started in late August, I'm up to 22 finds so far!

This weekend Kristi was home for 3 days for her birthday and geocaching was at the top of our to-do list. It was a bonus that for Kristi's birthday weekend it was BEAUTIFUL and WARM and SUNNY the entire weekend. That's what makes geocaching an ideal outdoor activity - gets us outside moving and exercising when we might not otherwise! On Friday Kayla and I visited Goodells County Park and found TWO; Saturday the three of us headed out on bikes to the Fort Gratiot Trail and found FIVE (attempted six but couldn't find one); on Sunday we went hiking at several different places and found SEVEN. Woohoo, FOURTEEN in one weekend!

Happy birthday Kristi! Here's a little sampling of our weekend adventures. I look forward to more adventures, but soon we need to get Daddy in on it too! He would love the challenge and the competition!

 Found this cache right on I-94. 

At a minimum a cache always has a log in it to sign so I let Kayla sign her name and date on our behalf to every log. We mustn't forget our pen!

Khloe was with us too at this rock... somewhere off playing in the rocks

 This was a fun cache to find - a PVC pipe wrapped in birch bark. Clever!

 Mini-me's with their walking sticks at Woodsong County Park

 Another one along the Ft Gratiot Trail

 Off the trail at Woodsong County Park. I believe Kayla was in the midst of climbing this tree when she said "Hey, I found it!" Way to go Kayla!

 Riding the Ft Gratiot Trail off to find our first cache of the day

 First cache - see it in Kristi's hand? - along the trail

 This was a loooong interesting beautiful hike deep in the woods at Woodsong County Park where the trail wound over 100 feet down to the Black River. Another 1/2 mile hike along the river and several hundred feet off the trail, we found this:

 Kayla loves the bigger containers like this that have swag in them. Geocaching protocol says "take something, leave something", so we always do. Kayla took a calculator (score!) and we left some items too. This river hike came after a much more difficult hike at the same park that took Kayla and Kristi 75 feet off the trail down an extremely steep ravine. Neither shied away from the challenge and it was an experience for Kayla to learn how to navigate footing and balance on a steep climb down... and up. After an in-depth search of the ravine, they finally found it. Made the trip down and up worth it!