Sunday Funday

Jake and I are sinful non-churchgoers. Our Sundays are usually spent lounging around in our underpants, doing homework, and cleaning up the mess that was developed over the previous week so we have a fresh house to mess up during the next week.

We recently decided that we "never do anything." OK, I decided that. Jake seemed to agree. He didn't disagree, in any case.

When I was in high school, I participated in a sport called orienteering. Basically, you use a compass and a map to find locations on a course. Courses vary in difficulty. The best time wins. That's it in a nutshell.

I enjoyed it a lot, mostly because I'm a giant nerd. But it came in really handy when I went to SERE school. I think I was the only person in my group who didn't get lost while navigating. I rule.

I heard about geocaching when I lived in England. A few people in my unit did it practically every weekend, and I was mildly interested. Not interested enough to go buy a GPS and actually do it. I hated England, especially being outside in England. If you've never been to England, the only time it doesn't suck hard is in the summer. Fall, winter, spring... are all horrible.

It's been about 4 years since I escaped from England. I would think about geocaching now and again every few months, but I never seriously considered doing it. About a month ago, though, something changed and I decided I wanted to do it.

I think it will be good to get into. Jake and I both like hiking and being outside, and I like finding treasure. Geocaching gives us a destination when we go out hiking. When Camille gets older, I think it will be a fun activity for her to do, plus it will get her outside and moving around. No fat kids!

Today for our first geocaching experience, we went to a nearby park where there were several caches listed (to find local geocaches near you, go to www.geocaching.com, make an account, and enter in your zip code). It's a nice walk, and it's a nice day, so we figured there's no better time to get started.

We couldn't really get our GPS to work (or maybe it was working fine and we just couldn't figure out how to use it), but fortunately I have an iPhone and it has a compass feature and also a geocaching app. The first cache we tried to find is located in a pine tree that's currently being used as a homeless person's house. Wait... that means they wouldn't be homeless anymore. OK, it's the dwelling of a hobo. That sounds less contrary. Anyway, I didn't actually find and log that cache because I'm afraid of homeless people.

The next cache we did find, and fairly easily. Here's proof!

The next one we tried to find wasn't at the coordinates it was supposed to be at. Or maybe it was and I just couldn't find it. My iPhone told me that it was located in someone's front yard, and I'm not into trespassing.

Camille was pretty done with being carted around by this point, and she was growing cranky. We had lunch at a diner down the road from our house (which turned out to be pretty tasty), and then we came home. Now we're watching the A-Team TV show on Netflix, and one of us is blogging.