Geocaching

At the beginning of each year, I write up a list of things we should do during the year. So far, I've just been doing this with my 7-year-old son, but I'm really looking forward to doing the same thing when my daughter gets a little older. It's kind of scary--they say that a father has a lot of influence over his daughter's self-esteem in particular--not sure if I completely but that it has a different level of significance, but why take chances?

When the opportunity arises, I make plans to check things off the list--I'm still trying to get a horseback riding trip and more archery (they closed the public range near our house). Sometimes we do spontaneous stuff like a few weeks ago when we teamed up and dominated at laser tag (no, I wasn't the oldest one in the game..but I did get, ahem, 2nd place in overall scoring).

Anyway, I've had "geocaching" on my list for over a year now as something that might be fun for Ryan and I to do. For those who may not know what that is, it is a kind of treasure hunt that is done with a GPS receiver--people hide a small box with a log book and provide exact coordinates to the location, along with perhaps some clues to help you find it when you get close. There may even be some trinkets or something to take as a souvenir--you leave something in return. It's kind of a fad thing, I guess. Okay, maybe it's a nerd thing...

I can see that it will be fun--a quick search of www.geocaching.com showed me that there are about 100 small caches just in my immediate area. I thought it might be fun to find 10 or so--I saw where some people found over 60 in one day...

If it's lame, I'll let you know. I'm trying to find caches that have reports of still being there--seems that they get pilfered occasionally--one was hidden in an ammo box and the bomb squad detonated it. I want to do some easy stuff with Ryan so he doesn't get discouraged. Oh, and I guess I'm going to have to figure out how to make this GPS receiver work--I borrowed it from a friend.