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How Did You Discover Geocaching?


Melancholy43920

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Sorry if there's another thread like this already but I thought it would be cool to start a topic for people to discuss how they first came across this game/sport/hobby.

 

For me it was about a week ago...I was watching a program called Modern Marvels on The History Channel. It was about 90's tech, things like Furbies and DVDs and digital cameras and a cellphones, etc. Anyone that's ever watched this program knows just before they go to commercial they show a little interesting factoid. Well this one was about a 'game' involving items called geocaches so, being the gaming nerd I am I actually got back out of bed to come look it up on the computer to see what it was about. I already had a car GPS unit (TomTom One) so I thought this sounded like a unique and fun idea. And now a week later I have 15 finds and I'm hooked!

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Sorry if there's another thread like this already but I thought it would be cool to start a topic for people to discuss how they first came across this game/sport/hobby.

 

For me it was about a week ago...I was watching a program called Modern Marvels on The History Channel. It was about 90's tech, things like Furbies and DVDs and digital cameras and a cellphones, etc. Anyone that's ever watched this program knows just before they go to commercial they show a little interesting factoid. Well this one was about a 'game' involving items called geocaches so, being the gaming nerd I am I actually got back out of bed to come look it up on the computer to see what it was about. I already had a car GPS unit (TomTom One) so I thought this sounded like a unique and fun idea. And now a week later I have 15 finds and I'm hooked!

 

My son and daughter-in-law told me about it from a friend , ten months ago. They have yet to cache but me, a bunch of my friends and hundreds of dollars ok if we add it all up- thousands of dollars later we are hooked. Oh the fun of it and we have only been hunting sence March. Thank you everyone for making this such an interesting adventure. The hunt is always on.

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We needed a map for our yearly Harley motorcycle vacation.

While searching the internet, we noticed the newest gadget... a gpsr.

We bought one, and put it on the bike.

Then while researching places to go, we noticed a link to a new high tech game.

Back then, in 2000,..... there were only one or two geocaches available to find, so we had to drive miles and miles away, and then hike to the caches. Thank goodness things have changed :anicute:

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about 2yrs ago, I belonged to a Japanese Slot machine forum, and someone had mentioned geocaching.com

 

I pretty much blew it off at the time then last month, I wanted to find a hobby that my wife would complain about me spending too much money on. Plus I needed something that got me off my lazy butt and out of the house.

 

Then I remembered the site and have been here since Sept. 2008

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I think this is a good topic . I had heard of it on and off over the passed few years. I have 2 Daughters that are both now big enuff to go hiking/walking in the woods. So I wanted something that would give us more reasons to be out in the woods and local parks . I looked this up about a month ago and trying to find stuff ever since. Need a gps unit yet , but that is what Christmas is for.

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About a year and a half ago I bought a GPSr in preparation for a photography trip into the canyonlands in Utah. I figured it would be helpful in that I had GPS routes from the BLM for a few places I wanted to get into. When I got my new GPSr, one of my students asked me if I had ever heard of geocaching. He explained it to me, and I decided to go try it (primarily as a way to practice using my new gadget). Less than two years later, I have over 1000 finds, have planted some caches, am active with the local caching group, and am totally addicted to this great activity!

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I think I had read about geocaching on the net maybe around 2002 or so as hand-held GPS technology was becoming more available to the common consumer. I was peripherally aware of the hobby for several years and then when I got my first auto GPS last year I started looking up more specifics. We cached a little bit while on vacation in Maine last summer and really enjoyed it, but with two small kids it wasn't all that feasible for us on a regular basis. My kids just turned 7 & 3 and so we gave it another try about a month ago to see how they would do with it. We've kept the searching to fairly easy terrain so far and we are starting to get more into it. The kids love the "treasure hunt" concept so we've done our best to stick with traditional caches so far. As they get older hopefully we can start doing some more elaborate hunting and start placing caches as well. I love that it's something that we can all do together and it gets us outside to do it! I just purchased a new Garmin hand-held and it should arrive this week so I'm looking forward to expanding this hobby. Thanks, Groundspeak and GC.com!

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I'd heard about it ages ago. Never did anything about it, even though I wanted to. Then I was bored one day and plugged "geocaching" into google and got the website. I didn't own a GPSr at all, but I'm fairly good with maps, so I searched within a mile of my home. Someplace I could walk, ya know? Turns out there was one very close to my house. I plugged the co-ords into google maps and figured about where it should be. Then it was only a matter of asking myself "Where would I hide it?" I left with a smiley, and have been hooked ever since. Hubby got me a simple GPSr and I've been out and about finding caches since I got it. Well, I have taken a couple weeks off since the birth of my #2 son, but I hope to be back at it full-force very soon.

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I had heard about goecaching off & on over the years on TV New programs such as 20/20 or Dateline. Well this past December, during my husbands company christmas party, one of his clients said that they just gotten into geocaching. They told us the adventure of trying to figure out where the caches might be, etc. So the next day I get on the web site, did my research on GPSr's, bought a Garmin 60CSx, and well the rest is history! By the way, the clients are now really good friends, and we go caching every now and again!

Edited by Team O-Zone
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My husband used to drive over the road. I wanted to get him a gps so he could route himself around accidents, or figure out how to really get the places he needed to be when he got bad directions. While I was trying to figure out which gps would do what he needed I stumbled across these forums.

 

When I gave him the gps, I said, "Oh yeah, there's this neat game people play with these things." I showed him the website, we went out and found a couple of caches near our home and we've been hooked ever since.

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I read an article in 'The Providence Journal' about Geocaching. The article mentioned someone using it for exercising their dogs, that peaked my interest. Six months or so later I tried to find my first with a Tom Tom One... then my Venture HC came in, now I'm hooked. So far I have been spending weekends searching out caches. Walked about six miles with the dog on Sunday looking for caches in a park I have ever been to, even though it is only thirty miles away.

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I was searching a GPS for my mom, and I started to read about all kinds of gps and then I saw something about Geocaching, so I kept reading... I sounded interesting, but I wasn't sure about participating, 'cause I just have some months left here and I thought that in Chile will not be any caches, but I decided to make and account to check, to my surprise, there are some caches, not a lot like here, but I'm already thinking on getting some friends on this when I go back, even my family, we love hiking, so it's great. Now I'm by myself doing this, but my mom knows that as soon as I arrive there she will be my partner!

 

BTW I started last week, and I'm having fun!

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I heard about it twice within a 2-week period but I cannot remember which was the first. One was a segment on a show about lost treasures on the Travel Channel. The other was a class at a program called Becoming and Outdoors Woman (BOW) which is a program sponsored by the DNR targeted toward women who would like to learn outdoors skills (kayaking, archery, skiing, survival, etc) in a non-competivie and stress-free environment. One of the courses was about using a GPS to mark a waypoint before going into the woods or hiking so you can find your way back out. They hid some things in the woods and gave out the coordinates for the women to find them and introduced the basics of geocaching. I didn't take that class but heard about it from some of the other ladies and that's when I decided to investigate it further. The rest, as they say, is history. :)

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We already had our GPSr for a few years, and used it a bunch for work and play. In May, was scrolling through the state wildlife and parks webpage, looking for fishing reports, and stumbled across a link to their statewide park geocache challenge. Complete a 2-stage multi at all 29 state parks by November 1, chance to win a free weekend camping. Since two of the parks are within 5 miles of the house, thought we'd give this game a try, and 4 ammo cans later, we're hooked! :D

 

What is it about ammo cans that's so addicting? :):D

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Last weekend my mom of all people was in British Columbia and got introduced to it by her brother.. she called me after her first find to ask if I had heard of it. Like others here.. off to google I ran. I found the site, and having had a GPS for a year or so decided to look one up. Took the whole family out for a find and now we are all hooked. Infact I get in trouble if I solo.. in the 8 days I have been geocaching I have 21 finds, and not looking to slow down. I LOVE this, I am a huge outdoor person so this is right up my alley.

 

Any one in the Edmonton area looking for a caching buddy (or buddies if the family is around) drop me a line.. always good to have more eyes finding the prize... generally stay around west end during weekday evenings, but weekends are fair game :)

 

 

Good hunting to all!!

 

Curt

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We were camping, in our Motor Home, on BLM land (January 2006) in Quartzsite, AZ with some "old" friends from California. A friend from the past said he had GPS coordinates to find a "hidden treasure" (a cache) and that if we could take the time to check it out, the hunt might be of interest to us. I plugged the settings into my Delorme map program, which we use for navigating the highways and byways, and set out (about 3 miles from our camp) to find this "treasure", (DNF), no handheld GPS and inexperience. We were unaware that it was Geocaching. After arriving home from the "California Trip", I read an interesting article in my RV magazine about Geocaching. I said," what the heck", typed in the geocaching.com web site and the rest is history.So far it has been a great journey. We just luv this game...

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I got a TomTom this summer and was heavy into modifying it and kept noticing Geocaching mentioned. One day with the TomTom modified and tweaked I decided to see what this Geocaching was. I asked a question in a forum and a local guy responded. A few days later he invited us out to find a few. The next day after work I searched until I found a GPSr (76csx) in a local store. I grabbed it up and started caching.

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I have been a map nerd for years. Hunter for longer. I meticulously plan hunting trips with all of the usual tools online and off.

Got a GPS many years ago, but it was really basic and did not survive Y2K.

Have been using a Delorme LT-20 and laptop in my truck daily for work related routing for many years as a Home Inspector. Even carried the laptop in a backpack and taped the LT-20 to my hat to map around my hunting cabin. (My wife still makes fun of me for it).

Got my Delorme PN-20 for my birthday. Refused to try Geocaching. Thought it was just going to be "too nerdy". Then I made the mistake of describing it to my kids as "treasure hunting". The light in their eyes at the idea of finding hidden treasure was enough for me to try it as "practice for real GPSing."

Now I have taken my brother in law and nephew and getting really excited for the weekend.

My wife even likes it and was disappointed she was out of town for the weekend and missed the first nano find.

 

What a fun game, hobby, distraction, tool, exercise, passion, hike.....

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Was getting ready for our annual trip to Gettysburg. I have had my Garmin for about a year. I went to the Garmin web page to check on any updates that I could download, and came accross the Geocache icon 1 click and the rest is history. Explained how it worked to my wife and I think she was even more exicted then I was. Out 1st find was in Gettysburg that weekend.

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We were out on our usual Sunday afternoon drive on the Oregon Coast, stopped at the Coast Guard lookout as usual, which allows a great view of the ocean . While enjoying the view we noticed a white car pull in approximately 25 yards away and the driver bailed out and rushed into the near by woods. Must of had to go pretty badly we thought. He then reappears and came back to the car and was talking to whom we believed to be his wife. A few moments of chat and back into the woods he went. This strange activity peaked our curiousity. He reappeared and i spotted a handheld GPS in his hand, now what can he be doing. We finally had to approach the couple and inquire as to what they were doing with the GPS. It's Called "Geocaching" , they then explained to us what geocaching was and we followed him into the woods this time and joined in on the search for the elusive treasure box. we scoured the brush for anything that did not belong. "EUREKA", i found a white kitchen trash bag which had a Tupperware container wrapped inside. I handed it to Charlie of Charlie 'n' Sue and he opened it and removed the Log Book to sign and date his find. The box was full of small toys and items of various types, very interesting we thought. How many of these hides are there near here we asked, There are quite a few and they are hiden all around the world. Sue gave us an old printout of a hide so we would have the Websight information and could check it out online. That was over 2 years ago and 300 Finds and 85 Hides later, we do something Geocaching related almost everyday. We are Steve 'n' Nancy

Edited by Steve 'n' Nancy
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I read alot and watch alot of educational television. I have heard geocaching mentioned dozens of times through the years without paying it any attention. One day my brother in law came down for a visit and showed me his GPS unit. I am a gadget junkie and immediately wanted one too just because it was cool to see where you were and where you were going. I have always been keen on maps and this was a pretty cool virtual map. My sister gave me one of his old ones, a Magellan Explorist 300. Pretty basic stuff but I was still thrilled and took it everywhere. I desperately wanted something better but had to justify it to the wife. I thought of geocaching a few times and then of the mountain bike that I never use and the 30 pounds I have gained over the years. Suddenly it all clicked and I promised the wife that I would get off my butt and get out there and find something. I enlisted her help for my first few finds and now she is relentless. I had planned on going solo but is yet another great hobby, like snowboarding, that we love together.

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I got a GPS for Xmas six years ago. While researching for fun things to do with it I found Geocaching.com. I saw that there was a cache only 8 miles from my house. So my son, his friend and I headed out to find it and really enjoyed it. What a cool idea! So after that we started going almost every weekend and the rest is history. :(

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A fellow camper at a YMCA Family Camp set out three caches around the camp and lent us his GPSr to hunt for the caches. When I went home, I checked out geocaching.com and discovered there were 16 caches within a mile of our house. I bought a GPSr online and we were off ... . If I tell the junior cachers (aged 8 and 10) that we're going hiking they groan; if I say we're going caching, they cheer. It's a great way to keep the whole family interested while we're out in the woods.

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We already had our GPSr for a few years, and used it a bunch for work and play. In May, was scrolling through the state wildlife and parks webpage, looking for fishing reports, and stumbled across a link to their statewide park geocache challenge. Complete a 2-stage multi at all 29 state parks by November 1, chance to win a free weekend camping. Since two of the parks are within 5 miles of the house, thought we'd give this game a try, and 4 ammo cans later, we're hooked! ;)

 

What is it about ammo cans that's so addicting? :(:ninja:

 

So are you still working toward the challenge to win the camping weekend? Just wondering if you were actually trying to meet the challenge or are just having fun caching.

 

And I :ninja: ammo cans as well. There's just something about them that makes my day when I find one. Maybe it's because I still have problems opening them and feel like a dork trying to flip the thing open.

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Well I got started when I was shopping for a gps for the car. Well I had bought a Magellan for the car and when I was registering it they had a link talking about Geocaching. I thought it looked very cool and was going to try caching with the car gps but the Magellans do not have a way of entering coordinates into them. I ended up trying 5 different car gps finally ended up with a Nuvi 255W for the car found a couple with it found it to be not the greatest for offroad navigation so went and tryied out a Garmin Venture HC liked it but was limiting took it back and Bought the GPSMAP 60Csx. The rest is history.

 

I have had them for about 1.5 months and get out as much as I can to find Caches. I have found it a great way to get back out into the woods after years of not hunting this gives me a great way to take the camera with and do the new age of hunting. My kids have loved going out and caching also my oldest is 14 and is always asking when can we go out. He has been with me for 90% of my finds so far. After little over a month we are 72 finds in and can't wait to get back out and find some more. I am finding the Multi-Caches to be addicting. And sofar the caches I really like are the ones that are made out of everyday type camo. Like the last one I found was a Bolt that was very cool. Also the hollowed out rock and piece of wood. This makes them very unique and very cool to find in my opinion.

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Sorry if there's another thread like this already but I thought it would be cool to start a topic for people to discuss how they first came across this game/sport/hobby.

 

For me it was about a week ago...I was watching a program called Modern Marvels on The History Channel. It was about 90's tech, things like Furbies and DVDs and digital cameras and a cellphones, etc. Anyone that's ever watched this program knows just before they go to commercial they show a little interesting factoid. Well this one was about a 'game' involving items called geocaches so, being the gaming nerd I am I actually got back out of bed to come look it up on the computer to see what it was about. I already had a car GPS unit (TomTom One) so I thought this sounded like a unique and fun idea. And now a week later I have 15 finds and I'm hooked!

 

hey, i cought the same show, pretty much the same story for me...... looked it up and found a cache iterally right down the street from my house, bout 1000 yards from my livingroom!!!

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Heard about geocaching online about five years ago, but did pursue. We got our first GPSr a little over two years ago, and I got interested in geocaching. Joined the site, but never quite had the time or motivation to try caching until this past April. That's the thing though, isn't? Once you try it you're hooked!

 

Funny thing is that our son, now 13, was moaning about having to go for a walk on the beach (we life on Cape Cod). I suggested to my husband we try a geocache. He was game and we explained what it was to our son. DS was excited. You should have seen us trying to use Nuvi to navigate. We had no clue one could enter coordinates, so we just went to the satellite screen to follow the current coordinate around until we got near the cache coordinates. I'm really surpised we found the cache! We had fun anyway, and most importantly, our son didn't complain about the 2 or so miles we marched around trying to find the cache.

 

I've turned some friends and relatives on to geocachinig now. How cool is it that this hobby of ours brings us to places we've lived near forever and never explored!!

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Mrs Find It ® & I saw a program that had a quick piece on geocaching, must be about 6 or 7 years ago now. It looked like a real cool thing but seemed like it was mainly in the US and we didn't have the resources for a GPSr with a new family and such so it got kind of filed under cool but not happening.

Mrs Find It is notorious for getting lost so for Christmas last Santa brought her a Magellan Car GPSr and during a trip to Vancouver Island to stay with her folks we got to talking about it with the in-laws and found Geocaching.com.

Well that was it Now we have the Magellan and a 76CSx and are looking for a second hand unit so I can take it with me on trips and as a back up.

Next to coffee this is my biggest addiction, although I can quit anytime I want. :ph34r:

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A co-worker had his Garmin at work one day, and in the conversation, he explained about geocaching, and showed me the web page. I thought it was a great idea and mentioned it to my wife and that was as far as it went until almost a year later we were going to visit some friends near Toronto. We always go for some sort of hike when we are at their house, and this time MsKitty suggests that we do the "Treasure hunt thing" Jeff told us about. I knew that our friends have a hand-held GPSr so I do some fumbling on geocaching.com and print out a few pages to show them. Well, we did 2 or 3 caches that day, came home got extremely frustrated trying to go caching with a dash-board GPSr, and within a week had our own handheld GPSr and have never looked back.

MsKitty is the searcher of the team (I'm dead meat if I try to go solo) and I'm the hider. I love the creative aspects of planning a hide that will give some challenge and variety, and really look forward to the comments on the logs.

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I was reading a newspaper at work and saw an article about geocaching. It looked interesting, so I saved the article. I registered on the site and thought that this might be a fun thing to try. Then I forgot about it. For 15 months! I checked an older email account and saw a message from Groundspeak and remembered the article. My husband was gone to basic, so I figured this might give me something to do while he was gone. One was around the corner from where I worked, so I went and found that one, and a couple more nearby. It was GREAT!! After a week or so hunting without a gps, I talked to my husband and bought the cheapest one I could find a Walmart...a Magellan eXplorist 200. I've been a cacher since.

 

~ynomrah~

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A couple years ago I was working when my boss posted a memo that one of the maintenance guys at the hospital had placed a geocache in front of our ambulance station. I became a member and spent the next 4 hours looking for it with the old Garmin 72 that we use for establishing helicopter landing zones. He was called in that night to fix a water leak so I drug him out to show me where it was. Been doing it off and on since then.

 

LCAS-271

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So are you still working toward the challenge to win the camping weekend? Just wondering if you were actually trying to meet the challenge or are just having fun caching.

 

Nope, we finished Oct. 9, 29 State Parks, 58 ammo cans, right at 4 months and about 2500 miles :) Haven't heard if we're in the winnings yet, but we are planning our Spring trip. :rolleyes:

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My youngest son was in Beaver Scouts last year and at the first meeting I went to with him one of the Scout Masters was talking about Geocaching and had set up a fake one for the kids to find. In it they received patches for the find. He had some other co/ords in his gps and found that there was another site near by, so off we went, it was a really good box that was drilled in underneath a set of stairs that over looked the ocean, I was hooked after that. Less than a week later I bought my own gps. Only did a few finds before winter and then kind of forgot about it. Had renewed interest lately and am obsessed haha

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One of the many skills that a Scoutmaster discovers during his job. My first cache was at a park, before I was geocaching. I was watching one of the most thrilling soccer games in the history of 10 year old soccer, and I started to wander around and found an ammo can in the weeds.

 

Then as a scoutmaster I remembered it...and the rest is history.

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Heard about it from a TV Program over a yr ago - decided it was a great new spring/summer hobby to go with my camping. Came out here, asked lot's of questions - ok I learned you never ask outright which one should you get (50million replies later) - I went out & got my Garmin, and the rest is history as they say. I joke that it went from a hobby, to a passion, to an obsession - everything I do, I see if I can plan to pick one up or cache along a route. My family is so grouchy that I am generally rolling in late - but I explain I do have my priorities. :unsure:

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I hadn't even heard of geocaching when my sister mentioned it in an e-mail last July. She described it and how her and her daughter were both very involved, and loved it. She sent me a link and I checked out the website and read a few logs. It sounded like fun, but before I took the plunge, I decided to actually try it out before investing in a GPSr.

 

She visited in August when our youngest son got married. She and my other sister arrived on a Thursday and the wedding was Saturday, so we had two days to hunt a few caches she had identified ahead of time. She brought a travel bug with, along with her GPSr.

 

My first "find" was actually found by her, but I was with, along with my other sister who doesn't geocache. It was a lamppost skirt lift "small" magnetic. On the way back, we stopped off for a multi. The first stage was my actual "first" find. It was a small plastic disc with a magnet glued on the back. Written on it were the coordinates for the second stage. I reached up inside a steel outdoor sculpture and felt it there. I was very excited when I produced it for her approval.

 

At that point I was hopelessly hooked :unsure:

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I bought an '88 Jeep Wrangler, joined up over on JeepForum.com, stumbled across a thread titled "Jeeocaching-Jeeping+Geocaching", and the rest is history. I've had my Jeep for a little over a week, and I'm trying to come up with the money to buy a decent handheld GPSr so I can really get involved. That's how I discovered geocaching, and I think I'm hooked now.

 

Now if only that Wrangler got better gas mileage so I could afford to drive farther to find caches. . . lol

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