Geocaching fail

Ok it wasn't a complete fail but it was a rough day. I dropped off the two little ones at Nana's house to swim. Taylor and I took off to go treasure hunting. First, I thought I'd start off with how we got started. The app on my iPhone has a feature that you can search to the closest caches. It's pretty simple even for me who is a little bit of a techno-idiot. There are a few things on each listing that help to find the cache. First there is the title. One of the caches we found today was called "Bob's Sinkhole". What we would be looking for was a large sink hole right off of a nature trail not too far from our house. Another thing we use on the app is the GPS. It takes you within a few feet of where you are going. There are different types of maps and a compass to help navigate right to the cache. There is a rating system for level of difficulty to find and the difficulty of the terrain. It also tells how big the item is that you'll be looking for. Yesterday we found a film canister, a small plastic container and today we found a reusable water bottle. Each listing also has a description, a hint (sometimes) and the most recent date someone has found it. 

All together we attempted to find 6 today. Bob's Sinkhole was a success because how can we miss a gigantic hole in the ground that has a sign in front of it that says "Bob's Sink Hole". The nature trail we were on had several. Some as far as a half mile into the woods. I wasn't completely comfortable going that far in the woods not only because I'm a scaredy cat of creepy crawlies but also because it was just me, my 8 year old and my phone. There weren't any other cars in the parking lot when we got there so we were alone in the woods. Not my idea of fun. We agreed to go try a different location.

We moved on and didn't find anything at the next couple we went to.  Discouraged, we thought we'd try one more. It was at the park, near the water tower. Taylor decided to stay in the air conditioned car and I trekked in the little patch of woods to find a water bottle full of goodies. It had a note pad for us to sign in, a pencil, a few silly bands, a sticker and a little sparkly trinket box. We didn't take anything but left a stone from one of our camping gem mining adventures and placed the bottle back in it's place. So 2 out of 6 wasn't a complete failure but not what we had hoped for either. We'll be trying again soon. There are so many in our area.

Here's what I've learned so far...

• Take bug spray
• Wear sneakers (no flip flops)
• Long pants are probably best but who am I kidding? We're in the south and it's June!
• Take a pen
• Have your phone fully charged
• Take water
• Have anti-itch cream on hand at home
• Wear sunblock

I'm sure our list will get longer as we get more experienced. This was only our second trip out and there is a bunch to learn.

Until next time, Happy Hunting!

The lonely nature trail that Chicken Little and Chicken Big decided against.



Checking out the turtle in the sink hole.



At Bob's Sink Hole