Coyote's Girl

I'd heard about it ages ago. Stumbled across some books at work, looked at gps prices, and decided to wait for gps units to come down in price. They just went up. So, I decided to try my luck using googlemaps and my intuition. I've been pretty lucky so far, but there's a few caches in a local nature park that are giving me trouble. I managed to find a great sale on a handheld GPS, and it should be here soon. It's been super fun, and only promises to get more fun as we wander out further and I'm not tromping through the woods 9 months pregnant. It'll be something me and #1 son can do together without the baby. Here's the rub, tho: My father was a programmer for the US Air Force, he worked on the program that made GPS possible. His partucular job was to keep track of airplanes, where they were and where they should have been. If he hadn't passed away all those years ago, we'd probably have 2 or 3 gps sitting about collecting dust.

I'd leave tennis balls, chew and squeek toys, a frisbee if there's room. That sort of thing. Last thing anyone wants to find in the cache is a wad of moldering old dog biscuits.

Well, I think it's both, and I've only been at it for a week. Places I can walk to, that sort of thing. I don't own a gps (yet, it's in the mail) but I'm fairly good with maps. For an old-timey challenge, get yourself a good (or lousy) topographic map and compass (both kinds, the magnetic and the math) and go at it without today's high-tech toys. All your gps does (if it can only talk to three satelites that is) is a simple triangulation of where you are vs. where you want to be using the satelites rather than landmarks like the old times. I mean look at columbus... He was right where he wanted to be, if he'd hapened to be on the other side of the world . Using the maps of his day, he was pretty well on target. We have a print of an antique map on the wall(dated 1617), and while it's not totally accurate for travel today, it'll still get you in the general area. Besides, on "pirate maps" what was "10 paces north?" Did they understand declination? How tall were Pirates anyway? What was the inseam of the man making the map??? There's lots to concider.