What Got You Hooked (and we're all hooked)?

[+infiniteMPG]

The hook that snagged me into geocaching was my first experience with a TB. In doing family name searches for my parents I found a distant cousin living in Christchurch, New Zealand (we're in Florida). We communicated often and being an odd surname there's not a lot of us around. He has had his adventures and actually got married via a radio station contest down there. It's not as strange as it first sounds and their full story is online in case anyone wants the details as it's a cool story. I have two kids and when their son was born they named their son the same name as my son Mitch (who is now 20), so now there were two with the same name on opposite sides of the world. Since I was fairly new to GC at the time I took my son's old bike license tag with his name on it and attached it to a TB tag and sent it off to get delivered to my cousin's son M2M New Zealand Bound. I didn't expect miracles but a businessman picked it up and it quickly hopped to Colorado and then down under and after a few emails, it got hand delivered to my cousin's son in NZ. Not perfectly logged but it racked up over 9,300 miles really quick.

 

Totally got me hooked on geocaching.... so what got you hooked?

[+Buggheart]

It was the very first cache I found which was so amazingly creative and cool to me that I was instantly hooked.

[Skippermark]

We started off not finding very many, only 2 in our first 4 years, but then we got new bikes and did a couple along a deep woods gravel bike trail while testing out the new bikes. Our son was 6 at the time and thought it was the greatest. He was so excited because he found an old broken motorcycle in the cache, which he traded for. It's funny how kids love the things that we call junk.

 

We had to leave our bikes and walk up a super steep trail to the cache area, which was a rock ledge/cave area, and it was so much fun scrambling around to find it. The container was a big pretzel jar (a very old cache), and we were hooked. It was an instant family friendly fun thing that we could all together and be outside.

Edited September 10, 2008 by Skippermark

[+BlueDeuce]

... so what got you hooked?

 

Honestly? Just learning about it.

 

The bad part was that I had just finished having to visit different cities every month as part of my job. It would have been a Godsend from having to sit in my hotel room or restaurant every evening after work.

[Dinoprophet]

... so what got you hooked?

 

Honestly? Just learning about it.

Yeah, this is the sort of thing I always wished for, even as a kid. I was hooked before it existed.

[+infiniteMPG]

Yeah, this is the sort of thing I always wished for, even as a kid. I was hooked before it existed.

I can relate to that. I raised my kids on my own since '91 and my daughter is now 26 and my son 20 and somehow I found geocaching to be a creative outlet for my imagination and for my genetic disposition to entertain others which has been hungry for an outlet since my kids have grown up. Filled so many voids in my life not sure what I would of been doing without it!

[stryder717]

one day while i was at work i received a text message from my roommate and it said, " dude were going geocaching." so when i got back to the apartment we went and just the area the cache was in and the whole hunting experience itself was what got me into geocaching. And it is a great excuse to get out and explore.

[+Snoogans]

It was the very first cache I found which was so amazingly creative and cool to me that I was instantly hooked.

 

Me too and it was just a rubbermade container covered in camo tape. I had no idea camo tape existed. I thought it was wallpaper or sumthin'.

[+Star*Hopper]

Me too and it was just a rubbermade container covered in camo tape. I had no idea camo tape existed. I thought it was wallpaper or sumthin'.

Now that's just sick, Snoogy! "It's not about the numbers -- it's the unexplored frontiers of tape science!"

*LMAO*

 

For me, not so much what as whom. A ladyfriend did it....it came up in conversation....long story short she wound up mentoring me into the game. If there was a 'hooked' point, I'd guess it was a strange fascination with the numbers of 'em that there were, lurking all around me, that I, like other classic 'Muggles', didn't know existed!

 

One of my favorite 'lead-ins' when I get a chance to initiate others into the subject is - "As you're walking, traveling, moving around in your daily life, unknown to you there are literally hundreds, no, thousands & tens of thousands of objects hidden all around you." That seems to be a real attention getter....and it goes on from there.

 

~*

[+infiniteMPG]

For me, not so much what as whom. A ladyfriend did it....it came up in conversation....long story short she wound up mentoring me into the game. If there was a 'hooked' point, I'd guess it was a strange fascination with the numbers of 'em that there were, lurking all around me, that I, like other classic 'Muggles', didn't know existed!

My introduction came from my GF who had found 1 cache as someone introduced her to it just before we met. She had a Garmin eTrex Vista and we didn't have a clue as to how to use the dang thing (didn't think to RTFM). I can still remember the first cache we found together, we didn't even know how to do the "go to" function so we just walked thru the woods and watched how the numbers changed until we stumbled across it. Then we went to find the next one but had no clue how far away it was and wandered for hours until we gave up. Later we found it was miles away and across a river but at the time we were totally puzzled at how people did this

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

I ordered an eTrex Yellow out of the Marlboro catalog with the intent of marking fishing holes... mine and those of charter fishing boats that I saw fishing over theirs!

 

Then I promptly forgot about it.

 

In about four months it showed up in the mail.

 

I went online and searched for something to do with it and how to use it. Found geocaching.com. Huh. Interesting. Entered my zip code.

 

The closest cache was The Mountie Cache, and I could tell from the description right where it was... the site of my old high school.

 

The description mentioned a hole in the fence. I knew that hole well... back then when we weren't in class it was permitted to walk through that hole off of school property to smoke. I spent a lot of time at that hole! So I was curious; would this GPS-thingie navigate me ten miles across town to that hole as if I didn't know where it was? It in fact did. Put me right through the hole and on the cache. Now that's cool!

 

A few caches later I found Pig Iron, a cache that took me to a park very close to where I grew up that I had never heard of. I learned of Civil War activity in the area that my schools did not mention, the beginning of the iron ore mining that Birmingham would be based on, even where the school my kids went to got its name. Now I was seriously impressed with the game.

 

Then a few of us geocachers got together for a picnic, at which we decided to start a state geocaching association and website. The Alabama Geocachers Association would rapidly grow to 1000+ members with activities and events all over the state. For whatever reason I liked everyone I met at these events, many of us started caching in groups. That hooked me! The people of this game are what made me know that I had found a life-long pursuit.

[+bnpkidz]

We bought a GPSr for use plotting some land in Canada in 2004. Then it sat idle for a few months until a coworker and I were talking about GPS satellites one day. He asked if I had ever heard of geocaching and I told him I had not. We spent the rest of the afternoon at work researching caches.

 

That night at home, the wife and I pulled up the site and looked for caches close to home. We grabbed the GPSr, loaded the coordinates, and hit the door. As soon as we found the camo'd container with the cool swag we were hooked.

 

I took the GPSr to work and over the next few weeks and the coworker and I went out on several excursions at lunch.

 

What a rush!

 

That is how we became hooked.

[+ladyleo191]

I'm not hooked...well, I'm not! I can quit anytime. But, I think I'll wait til next week. We're going to the coast this weekend and I already have my route planned.

 

But, after that...no, wait I have that series planned for evenings after my training classes at work next week. But I'm not hooked. I can quit.

[+Kohavis]

I was hooked as a small child long before GPS was dreamed up. My dad used to hide about ten clues for us kids to solve in order to track down our Easter baskets. The first clue would be on each kid's nightstand.

 

The clues would go something like this:

 

Real young - "I spin and churn and things come out cleaner" (Washing machine)

 

Older - "I was the 16th, and one of the 6 best, but sadly, I didn't live to see '66" (Paper mache' bust of Abraham Lincoln one of us kids did for school. The next clue was under his hat)

 

We'd get about 10 clues to solve before we'd find the goodies.

 

Geocaching = A grown-up's Easter Basket hunt for me

[+Packanack]

Locally, we have very few who I would consider "hooked" they drop in and drop out. Put it aside for months to do other things and return a few months later. I see folks who are involved in a lot of other things, like Scouts, Coaching, Hiking . Biking, Canoeing and Volunteering in many areas and they come and go , put it aside ( or incorporate it) for a few weeks or months and come back and repeat the cycle. I see a certain level of joie de vivre amongst the locals I have encountered that extends beyond the singular pursuit of caches. When we cache on a group hike, the depth of the interest really become apparent as individuals talk of their other activities and engagements. I came to know that one regular is an athiest, who is married to a Sunday School Teacher and teaches ethics on the side. Another has run marathons. Several have been involved in archeological digs. They are balanced and engaging people, none of whom I would describe as "hooked"

Edited September 11, 2008 by Packanack

[sdarken]

I think I was hooked on the idea of geocaching before I even found my first cache. The idea of finding hidden things just appealed to me. I think my family had already had enough of the game before we even successfully found the first cache. (It took a few trips).

 

I'm interested in geocaching for a whole lot of different reasons these days and I'm not nearly obsessed about it. (I only visit the GC website about a dozen times per day now).

[+infiniteMPG]

I was hooked as a small child long before GPS was dreamed up. My dad used to hide about ten clues for us kids to solve in order to track down our Easter baskets. The first clue would be on each kid's nightstand.

That is totally cool! My kids are grown and I still do for them what I did when they were little. The last Christmas present would be an envelope on the tree with a single card in it with some location in or around the house, like "UNDER THE 1996 SOCCER TROPHY" or "INSIDE THE BOX OF CORN FLAKES" and there they would find the next clue. I spend some time putting them out the night before and usually there would be several dozen of them. It was kind of like placing a multi-cache. The kids would race like mad to try to find the next hint and at the end was their primary gifts. They still love it but it's pretty close to geocaching (which neither of them have any interest in.... yet).

 

Always loved that stuff and I guess GC was just a new outlet for it since the kids are grown. Never really related those together until I saw your message. Thanks!

[+Proud Soccer Mom]

I got curious in 2006 when kaon and 0ccam kept posting about it in their livejournals. I bought a Garmin eTrex and went out to find a cache. When I found my first one, I was so happy!!! This was something I could do! And, really, that's all it takes for me. If I can do it, I want to keep doing it. I was hooked.

 

- Elle

[+Kohavis]

Always loved that stuff and I guess GC was just a new outlet for it since the kids are grown. Never really related those together until I saw your message. Thanks!

I did the same on Easter for our two sons. It never occurred to me to do that Christmas morning too. Oh well, they're a little old to start that now

 

When I checked out geocaching, I had this niggling feeling that there was something familiar about it. After I saw a few listings for puzzle caches, it dawned on me. I suppose it's my way of reliving a childhood joy, only with farther distances