Yesterday at lunchtime I had read something about geocaching. I guess I must be the last person on earth to have heard about this. Perhaps it was my well documented annoyance with the concept of using a GPS that kept this in my peripheral vision as thus far i've not really been impressed with them in action. Walking with Kenny's old handheld yesterday seemed to have better results though. You can of course forego the gps if you are a good map/topo reader. GPS is not required.

What's that? You never heard of it either? Well, my cave-dwelling bretheren for all intents and purposes its like a treasure hunt. You log on to geocaching.com, plug in your zipcode and a listing of local hidden caches willl be returned. The cache listings will have descriptions of what and where the cache is perhaps the person who hid the cache has a purpose like having you exposed to a wonderful natural setting, a cool surrounding or rock formation or something. There will be geocodes listed that you can plug in to the gps and tips for finding the hidden cache as well as tips on the terrain, whether its safe for kids, if its on private or public land and that sort of thing. 

Folks who set up the caches take weatherproof containers and put items inside with a logbook. It could be just cute trinkets, CDs, patches, trackable devices or coins... whatever. If you take an item from the cache, you should put something else back in. This is of course based on the honor system, so the key is to be honorable. Safely stowe the cache back where you found it taking care to hide it as well as it was hidden previously and making sure not to call attention to what you are doing if onlookers who might be encouraged to disturb it are around.

Everything you want to know can be found here on geocaching.com.

I found it really amazing just how many hidden caches are right here in a 5 mile radius of where I live! So with that, we picked one that sounded like it might show us something we've never seen before in our own backyard and we set out walking. We chose a bridge that was hidden in the woods on some mountain bike trails a few miles from the house.

It was indeed cool to find this bridge tucked away.

After a couple minutes of looking, I found the cache and opened it up. We perused its contents and we read and signed the log book. I took an orange rubber frog out of it and left a lightup Guinness shamrock necklace in its place then carefully packed everything back up and re-hid it as I had found it. Though I already have a lovely case of poison ivy, I'm pretty sure I may have picked up some more for my collection :D

I came away from the experience feeling extra itchy but delighted. It was fun to go rummaging around in the woods looking for treasure. Of course now I think I want to set up a motorcycle themed cache for other riders to ride to and find and share. Do stay tuned

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On Tuesday night, Kenny and I headed in to NYC to see what was going on at The Ear. Same stuff, different year. Motorcycles, drinks (a $2.50 fountain Diet Pepsi  ) and chatting amongst our peers. You always end up meeting someone nice there.

While we were standing around, I saw this sticker proudly placed on someone's helmet:

I don't think I've ever met anyone who has been to the Isle of Man. Lucky bugger. Though I guess luck doesn't have too much to do with it. Planning and a credit card go a long way , I suppose. Tick one more down for the "To Do" column for me, please.

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