I love this...

[+mousekakat]

I feel kind of silly saying this, but it's been on my mind a couple of days now.

 

Yes, we're relatively new to geocaching, but we've become totally hooked and have been going out almost every day looking for the elusive cache.

 

We've started getting exercise regularly caching, including discovering muscles we'd forgotten we had and getting up stiff after sitting down after getting home caching . I've learned that in spite of my s***e balance that I can climb up and down rocks, Hanna has learned the same, and that we can walk longer distances without dying, and that breathing heavy, skeeters fromthe underworld, aching backs, hearts feeling like they are going to jump out of our chests... none of that matters when you're at the top of a mountain somewhere, looking at a view that goes on for miles, watching the sunset, and seeing the smiles on everyone's face as we sit around a silly little plastic box, looking at goodies in it and reading the thoughts of people who had been there before us. That one, simple little goal, and reaching it, means so much and cancels out all the inconveniences and aches that you get when you're looking for it, and the pleasure you receive at finding it keeps you feeling happy all the way back to your car.

 

Our family used to consider it family time if hubby was on his puter gaming, I was on my laptop surfing, the baby was on the floor playing happily and the kidlet was playing with her sister or doing her own thing in the room with us.

 

Now we go out, we walk, we talk, we take the dog, we take long car rides to beautiful places, we laugh, we look and we learn a lot about our area and the history and beauty it holds.

 

I won't go so far as to say our family was in any kind of serious trouble, but we needed some definite improvement and I think that geocaching has given us that. We're all a lot happier and a lot closer now and we are doing things together more than we have in years.

 

And it feels really, really good!

 

Thanks geocaching.com for bring us together and thanks to the forum and the people here for sharing their experience, opinions, laughter and a few other strange things that we won't go into any further, hehehe...

 

Anyway, I just wanted to get that off of my chest and really say thank you to everyone involved...

 

Now... it's 5:15 p.m. here and time to get off my butt and get dressed and go look for find number 21 and see the sun setting from the top of the next mountain with my family....

 

 

Peace all!

[CacheNCarryMA]

 

Awesome post!

[+L Frank]

We know exactly how you feel! Geocaching appeals to us in a great variety of ways. We used to spend our free time playing PC adventure games on our home computer, but now we get the same thrills and satisfaction of solving difficult puzzles and locating hidden objects out in the real world. While our hobby has given us bites, bruises, scratches, rashes, and occasionally tested our patience with each other,

it has also given us hours of enjoyment, a sense of accomplishment, empowerment, improved our fitness, helped us bond with each other, and added a new sense of community with our fellow cachers. What other passtime can claim to do all that?

[+Renegade Knight]

Well Spoken.

[+Kealia]

Nice post to read first thing on a Friday morning here in the US.

 

Thanks for sharing. Sometimes I feel it has had the opposite affect for me - i tend to run off now on 10+ mile hikes on my own and leave the family behind! I say this partly tongue-in-cheek because I think it gives me clarity and some "alone time" that I don't normally get.

 

On the flip side, I wouldn't trade the family caching time for anything in the world.