When we announced out activity for YM would be geocaching this week. One of the boys thought it was geodecaching to which he said we would go hunt for geodes. Ah, not quite.
In case you are unfamiliar with geocaching it is basically the sport where someone hides an object, could be large or small, and you try to find it using a gps device and your brain. As geocaching.com puts it "the sport where you are the search engine."
My friend Jared Covili introduced me a few years ago, he is much more into it than I am, but I have had a fun time with it. It is actually a great family activity. Instead of sitting around doing nothing you have to get up and move around and try and find the treasure, and you will usually end up at a park. There are some big caches that have toys and the kids can trade their own toys for a new one.(Although they seem to be mainly McDonalds toys--stuff like that--but it is still fun for them) One thing I like is by geocaching you get real familiar with your area and find out about neighborhoods you never knew about. I don't think there are many parks that don't have something hidden in them. BTW, I am talking across the US, this is a global activity. When I was in Boston last year I took my gps and found one at the nearest park from where we were staying.
Just so you understand how big this really is I did a search of geocaches from my home coordinates and within a 3 mile radius there were 65 caches hidden. Most people are unaware of this caching subculture, although it was the cover story for the latest scouting magazine. In fact while caching, when you run into people who are just around(all caches are hidden out where the public is) they are called muggles. Just like a non-magical person in the Harry Potter books.
So enough history here are a few observations from our night:
Before we departed from the ward house the bishop outlawed all electronic devices the kids use. No more cell phones or ipods. Its about time. A few weeks ago we had a combined activity. Many of the kids spent it texting. I am glad we are now officially not allowing the stuff.
We found 5 official caches and the 2 I hid to gear them up. 7 in about an hour and half. That's real good. Of course it doesn't hurt when you have 4 boys, 3 leaders, and a stow away(Tyson's daughter)
Tyson's brother Devon is hardcore. He brought two expensive units ($300 and $500) and had his laptop as well. (I got my gps for free for taking a class). He also finds one a day, at least he has since Jan 1st. I have found three since that time. He was great to have with us, we even found one that he had hidden.
Despite the no ipod rule, one of the boys pulled his out. As a compromise I plugged it into my car so we could all hear it.
Matt is a rather shy kid, that's putting it mildly. I was unsure how he would take to this event. Turns out he loved it. He ran from cache to cache trying to find it first. He was fully into it. That was real cool. There have a been a few times when he has found out what we were going to do and announced he had homework to do and then went home. Unfortunately he never was the first to find one. Guess we'll have to do it again.
In all I think everyone had a fun time. Being active and using your brain seem to be activities of the past. No one complained when we decided to find "just one more" even though the Jazz game had begun and it was getting late.
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