Outdoors

There's a sport called geocaching that has been gaining momentum in the past few years. Basically, somebody hides a cache and then posts GPS coordinates to it on a web site. Then, the geocacher can go find the coordinates of the caches nearby. Once you find a cache, you usually sign the logbook inside it, and take something from it, and leave something in it. Caches can be just about anywhere, but are most commonly found in parks. They can be very easy or extremely hard to find. Some are even hard to reach.

My wife and I went for our first geocaching hunt yesterday. It was a lot of fun. We found four of the five caches we set out to find. We didn't really gather anything of value, but we did enjoy finding new places and reading about the caching trips others have taken (in the logbook).

The most prominent site for geocaching is geocaching.com. It seems there has been an explosion of caches within the last year or two. Last time I checked over there, there were only 2 caches within 30 miles of us. Now there are dozens.

It's a lot of fun whether you're normally the "outdoors" type or not. If you haven't geocached yet, you should give it a try.

Here are some useful geocaching links:

• Geocaching Policy in the USA