Do you geocache?
Geocaching is like a modern day treasure hunt! People hide “caches” and record the locations according to their GPS coordinates or other clues, and log them in online. Then other people go hunt out the caches, based on the coordinates and clues.
Most geocaches include a logbook so “finders” can sign-in and date their discovery of the cache, but some also have tiny treasures for you to share. Most of the ones with treasures operate on a take-a-treasure/leave-a-treasure principle.
Geocaching is very family-friendly, and the whole family can participate. According to www.geocaching.com, there are over a million caches hidden all over the world!
Last summer, our family went geocaching while we were camping in Moreau State Park near Lake George, NY. We had brought a “trackable frog” that we had purchased online – you buy the frog, put him in a cache, then log the information online. When someone else finds the cache and the frog, they can take him and then move him to the next cache they find. Everyone who finds him, logs in online, and enters the frog’s code and says where they moved him to.
We were hoping that our frog would travel around the world, and he really did! He started his trip when we left him in a cache called, “Where the Wild Things Grow,” on that camping trip last summer.
Since then, he’s moved around the New York and Massachusetts area to about 10 different caches. But then we got a notification this August that he had been moved to a cache in Israel! A man had picked him up in NY, and then left him in an Israeli cache when he was visiting family there.
He left the frog at the “Footsteps of Jesus – Mount Precipice” cache near Nazareth, Israel. Just a few days later, we received another email that our frog was found by the Saada family – they sent us a picture of them with the frog, and then moved him to another cache near the Sea of Galilee near the Golan Heights, Israel.
We can’t wait to see who will discover him next and where he’ll go!
Geocaching is lots of fun for all ages, and very inexpensive to do. The geocaching account online is free and you just need a handheld GPS unit or app on your cell phone.
You can also do this as a MOMS Club activity – plant a MOMS Club message and see who might find it and where it might travel! Or race trackable items to see whose can move the furthest in a set amount of time, or visit the most states, or something else your chapter thinks would be fun.
Submitted by Trista
International MOMS Club E-List Coordinator