Day 100 - Go Geocaching

Date: April 16th, 2010

I had one of those surreal "how did I get here" moments about a week ago as I thought about hitting Day 100.  Its the first time since I started doing this that I felt like simply doing my new thing would be a real, honest-to-goodness accomplishment.  I think that's part of the reason I started to get nervous about it.  It seemed like I should really do something... epic.  My friends, bless their peer-pressure laden hearts, definitely added to that feeling.  I'm lucky to know such wonderful people.  Almost all of whom made a point to ask me if I was doing anything big or neat or special for Day 100.  I wish I could say I had a poetic response like "oh, my dear friends, every day is big and neat and special to me; these days are like my children, all of whom I love equally".  But I can't say that.  Because I'm not flaky.

Instead, I agreed with the general sentiment that I should try and make Day 100 something cooler than, you know, a flu shot or changing washer fluid in my car.  Luckily, Kari Brown is on the case.  There are some things you should know about Kari.  For one, she's one of the most honest people I've ever met.  Slightly more relevant to this particular endeavor is the fact that she has been a constant supporter of this project.  She has not only been a great person to talk to and bounce ideas off of, she's also presented me some of the coolest ideas I've had this whole time.  Remember SCUBA diving?  That was a Kari Brown original.

As for Day 100 - Kari was there with an infectious kind of enthusiasm that is impossible to be around not get excited.  A couple days before Day 100 hit, she and I started talking and she started throwing out ideas.  Very quickly, she came up with Geocaching.  I give full and complete credit to Kari for both the idea and the execution of Day 100's project.  Why, you might ask?  Well, here's the skinny.  Geocaching has been on my original list since day one, but it was in the long-shot category.

The main reason was my utter and complete lack of supplies and/or understanding of directions and coordinates.  Geocaching is based on latitude and longitude, rather than layman's directions.  Kari, who hadn't ever gone Geocaching before either, actually had the tools at her disposal.  When she recommended it and told me she had one of those handheld GPS bobbers, I got seriously excited.

Then it started raining.

After a nice lunch with Krista, Kari and I set off into Elizabeth Park looking for caches we had picked out online the night before.  No sooner did we park the car, but the rain started coming down.  Listen, sky, me and Kari are not going to be deterred that easily.  We've got umbrellas.  We've got shoes and pants.  We've got the stoic determination of women scorned, ya know, by the possibility of not finding caches.

Plus we had to set a good example for Carlos.

The first cache was harder to find than Waldo at a red-striped tee shirt convention.  Where is he?  You're not going to find him.  He like totally blends in and junk.  Actually, our biggest problem was getting our bearings.  Even with the right tools, a couple of amateurs teaching themselves how to read coordinates on a GPS is going to take a few minutes.  The whole process got a lot easier once we got our bearings though.

Kari Brown just went pro.

The first cache we looked for was described as being inside a medium sized ammo box and hidden under a fallen tree that forked like a Y.  The reason the description was so detailed is that the location was a royal pain in the GPS to get to.  We had to wander our way into the middle of the woods, way off the trail.  The brush was fairly thin, which was nice, but there was definitely some branch moving and scrub-stepping-over that had to happen.  

... but it totally paid off...

For the first one, Kari found the location and I found the actual cache.  You see that branch in the picture?  The cache was completely hidden under that branch.  As in not visible.  As in, no one could possibly see it from a distance.  As in... you get the point.  We started looking around when Kari found the spot on the GPS and agreed that the tree in the picture was probably the one in the clue so I started feeling around under it.  Were not for my deeply held belief and understanding that branches are not square and therefore do not have corners, we would never have gotten to the box.

Inside there were a ton of neat little things, all worth about $0.25-$1.00.  It felt like finding treasure.  It really did.  The relative worth of the items in the box completely ceased mattering in the face of the sense of accomplishment we got from finding the box.  Especially cause it had taken so long to get to the first one.  Kari told me the only other time she's felt that excited about something was when she realized she was SCUBA diving along for the first time.  If you're ever lucky enough to be with a friend when they have one of those moments - savor it with them.  Its pretty freakin' cool.

And I got a CSI kit out of it.

With the time we had left, we decided to take on a different Geocaching challenge.  One of the other caches that Kari, Krista and I found the night before was also in Elizabeth Park, but the site completely avoided describing it.  Unlike our ammo box adventure, this cache would be hard to find because we didn't know what we were looking for.  Based on the difficulty rating though, we were pretty sure it wouldn't be too hard to spot once we got going.

Having successfully navigated us to the first spot, Kari raised her streak to, ummm, two caches, by getting us to the next one.  We got there a lot quicker, what with understanding north, south, east and west this time.  The next cache was definitely in an easier spot, but still not something you'd ever spot from a walking trail.  This time, Kari was the one to find it.  I heard what can only be described as a joyful squeal from a bank of trees near where I was looking and I walked over to see her carefully removing it from its spot.  

Pictured: a neon cache.

The whole day was exactly what we hoped it would be - epic.  For me, it was something I didn't think I'd get to do this year, but definitely something I wanted to try.  For Kari, it was something she'd been wanting to do for a while.  The sense of accomplishment we both got from finding the caches was utterly fantastic.  We both walked away with the same sense - never has so much work, for a prize so small, felt so amazing.  It was like winning the cheapest lotto ever.

Can you really put a price on Carlos' happiness?