+davetherocketguy Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 So I get home from work and tell the kiddos, "get up off yer butt, we're going caching." And I hear, "Dad...really? We have to?" After spending a lot of time looking for a fairly hard one we finally found it. My daughter was excited: http://img.geocaching.com/cache/log/large/ade3544d-f928-4b7b-9741-f3a0ecdab42b.jpg A little while later we saw a couple walking a dog going the other direction. After they passed by I looked at the kids and quietly said, "MUGGLES!" and we giggled about it quite a bit. A little while later on a different part of the path we see the same couple - doubling back while we were traipsing around looking for another cache. Trying not to give away what exactly what we were doing (they are, after all, muggles) I said something dumb like, "Oh hey, there's the path over there. Let's go thatta way." I am sure the couple walking past were quite puzzled as to what me and the kiddos were actually doing. What ensued was finding 3 caches and my face hurting from all the laughing we did reliving the adventure. My daughter and I posted silliness back and forth on Facebook about the experience while her buddies are scratching their heads wondering what she and I were talking about. And I haven't stopped smiling. If that isn't a good reason to geocache, I don't what is. -Dave Quote Link to comment
+briansnat Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 (edited) Great story! On one of the first caches I ever placed an early finder wrote in his log "Thanks for the bonding experience with my daughters". I thought that wow, if the simple act of hiding some Tupperware in the woods can have that effect, I'm in. I've since hidden a few hundred largely due to that log. Edited January 31, 2012 by briansnat Quote Link to comment
+Croesgadwr Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 Hi, and welcome to the world of Geocaching. It's supposed to be fun so go out and enjoy it... Croesgadwr North Wales UK. Quote Link to comment
+luvvinbird Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 I'm at work catching up on what's new in the geocaching forums...(er, I mean going through the overnight parts delivery, lol) when I came across your terrific story. What a great way to start the day! I often geocache alone but I have even more fun, and certainly more laughs, when I hook up with my buddy. I really enjoy this activity and I hope more people, especially families, will recognize it as a great opportunity for family fun. Quote Link to comment
+oobnuker Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 (edited) I ran out last evening to go to Walgreens to pick up a prescription or two. Our youngest son was being a monster as he was over tired but just wouldn't admit it - he's almost 16 months. So I commandeered one of my older sons to come along for the ride with the baby so that I could leave them in the car and run in to the store without having to lug the inevitably sleeping baby in... We got done with that and found that we had a half an hour to wait before picking up one of my daughters from school and I didn't want to sit around in the car so I figured, "let's go grab a cache". My older son is generally always up for an adventure, and since I have become interested in geocaching, I have basically obsessed about it so I knew there was one within a mile of the school that was supposed to be not too tough but not quick enough for me to have already grabbed on my way home from work. We get to the parking spot and I figure I'd send my boy in to grab it, but looking at the satellite image on my phone, he decided that it was too far into the woods (about 250') and he didn't want to go it alone. I of course didn't want to leave them in the car while I went in - so the solution was to grab sleeping cranky-pants, carrying him like a football, and head off into the woods. He naturally woke up but was excited to be free from the bonds of his car seat and out of the house. So off we went a couple hundred feet into the woods from a little known industrial cul-de-sac to find his 15th cache and my 50th! The cache was a nice big ammo can embedded in a fallen tree stump, covered in sticks. It was great, chilly, impromptu fun in a time period that we would have otherwise just sat in the car tapping away at our phones... Instead of sitting on my butt eating greasy food from the cafeteria at work, I run out at lunch time and try and grab a cache or two - sometimes resulting in mile's walk or more. I end up grabbing a salad from the little kiosk by the parking garage instead of the cafeteria food. My point is - geocaching is fun and has positively influenced my life, and that has trickled down to my children's lives as well. (Long story short, I'd rather lug the sleeping baby into the woods to grab a geocache then take the sleeping baby into Walgreens to pick up a prescription - hahahaha!) Edited January 31, 2012 by oobnuker Quote Link to comment
+ThePetersTrio Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Reading this thread made me smile. Great stories! Quote Link to comment
+popokiiti Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 And caching is great for adults to bond too! I love bumping into kids caching with their folks, especially when their keen eyes spot a micro waaaay up in a tree that all us grown ups missed. The laughter of that 5 year old as her Daddy climbed the tree was priceless! Quote Link to comment
+TechnoTrekker Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 My children and I set off on our first adventure together. This was also my first time out so we didn't have a clue what to expect. I put two caches into my gps and we headed out to give it a try. So here's how it went. We arrived at the location, parked the car and read the info about the cache on my gps. Then off we went to the location of the cache. Once we were in the general area we used the hints and our brains and began our search. I picked easy finds for our first time out. After about 5 minutes of searching we found our first cache. We opened it up and read the logbook, signed it and re-hid the cache. Immediately my children asked me "Daddy, do you have any more places in your gps that we can find??" I only had one more, and we found that one. My kids asked me if I could put more into my gps, so we went back home and loaded more caches in my gps. Certainly a successful first adventure and one we all love. Quote Link to comment
+Totem Clan Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 When we first started the kids were young enough to get into the 'hidden treasure' part of caching. Now they're old enough to cache for themselves. My oldest doesn't like urban caches much at all. It has to be someplace special or she won't even think about it. The longer the hike the better for her. My youngest wants to find as many different types caches as he can and to hide them too. He loves the cool containers and tough hides. The middle child just loves to go. I don't think she likes caching as much as just going to new places. It's so nice to see them start to cache on their terms for their own reasons. Quote Link to comment
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