What is Geocaching?

The geocaching website provides the following definition:

 Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for gps users. Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a gps unit. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache.

The Midwest Gamblers Geocaching Team

I ran across an article about Geocaching in a magazine, so I checked up on it.  I had previously purchased a handheld GPS for navigating in the car, so I was familiar with using the GPS.  Geocaching sounded like a fun game, so we checked out the website in August, 2001, and found a number of caches were hidden not too far away.   The Journal page gives some of the highlights.  I want to include some pictures from some of our 'finds'.  We also hid our own cache, the Henny-Penny cache, near Geneseo, Illinois.  Visitor leave notes in the log book.  

Cameron Woods and Watchtower Caches

Our first geocaching expedition was to a park in Moline, Il., but we were unable to locate the cache using the Garmin Emap.  With no built in compass it was easy to lose track of which direction to go while moving slowly in the woods.  I did some research and found that the Garmin Etrex Summit has a built in compass (and altimeter) and would probably work better for hiking in the woods.  

I bought an Etrex Summit on Ebay, and we went to the Cameron Woods cache to try it out.  It worked great!  The compass worked beautifully.  We were easily able to navigate within a few feet of the cache.   The picture at the right shows Tracey finding the cache.  

Continuing on, we went to the Watchtower cache,  near Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  We found the spot where the cache was supposed to be, but someone had absconded with the loot.  The placers of the cache confirmed that it was missing.  I took a picture of the place we thought the cache probably should have been.  There was a teepee of sticks that looked man made.