I mentioned my new handheld GPS receiver in the post about Dutch's hunts, where it helped guide the hunters on a methodical, efficient path. It worked very well. A popular activity for people with these devices is called
Geocaching , (pronounced Geo-cashing). All over the world people have placed little boxes and packets of trinkets, and log books and other ephemera, in out of the way places. They then put the coordinates on geocaching websites.. which look something like
this, along with hints, and a little description of the location. Once armed with this knowledge, you grab your GPSr, (ours looks like
this), hop in your car, (or 4WD vehicle as the case may be), and head out for the cache location.
The Greenleaf Mine Rd Cache we were looking for yesterday looked to be an easy drive, about 8 miles outside of Deming, until-
It took a couple of minutes to make the herd move out of the way, and then we were on our way again.. our target was somewhere near that first low hill on the left side of the image, above.
We parked as close as we could, and began walking toward the coordinates... (geocachers apparently are easy to spot, as they're usually in the middle of nowhere, walking in little circles, and looking at their hands.. something like this)-
If you see them about to step off a cliff, or into the path of a speeding packmule train, give them a shout. We found the cache within about 5 minute of parking; there were fun goodies inside the little tin (about the size of a bandaid box). Having nothing to trade, we just signed the log, and returned the cache to its hiding place.
This was our 2nd find, and it's a lot of fun. You can see our log entry at the website referenced earlier. In the Deming zipcode alone, there are currently 472 caches, some of them accessible only by Jeep, and serious hiking boots. Others are right at the side of a busy highway. See what's hiding in your neighborhood.
Waiting for the rescue chopper. (See the speck... waaay up there)
Self Portrait, at 4800'.
That's the spot. No, not the big one on the left, that little "pimple" on the right. The northernmost point of the Florida Mountains. Yes, they put caches in out-of-the-way places.
The view from Nick's Dome Cache. Had to do some climbing to find this one. If you look on the righthand side, on the "road", you'll see the Escape, where Margaret and Rally were waiting. They served a valuable service waiting by the car, however. When we arrived, the GPSr was connected to the car- when I disconnected it, it went blank. The batteries were dead! Here I was, within a 10th of a mile from the cache, and in the middle of freakin' nowhere, with no tool to get to the goodies! Why I crashed out of the Boy Scouts. I decided to go looking anyway.
