Geocaching fun

Have you heard of geocaching? I had never heard of that term before until my cousin introduced me to it. It's this cool activity where you go on the internet via your computer or smartphone and you can type in your location and it will pull up all of the nearby hidden "caches" in your area. The really cool thing about it is that the hidden container may just have a slip of paper where you can sign that you found it, or it may also be large enough to contain some little trinkets to look at and trade with if you wish!
If you click on one of the nearby caches and you have the "cgeo" app on your phone, your phone can actually lead you to the gps coordinates with a compass that is surprisingly accurate! Then you look around the area...sometimes they are quite hard to find, and takes a bit of exploring!
I had been trying to brainstorm ideas of activities to do with the kids now that school is out. Then I remembered my cousin mentioning geocaching and decided to give it a whirl today. My husband and I headed out with the 3 middle kids and our neice and a pen and my phone. Our first find was quite near where we live, and we all hooted and hollered when we found that little bottle. The next few required us to head down a grassy and wooded trail. We had a lot of fun racing...until we started spotting woodticks! The ticks were out in full force, but we triumphed over them and found 3 more hidden caches. By the end, our lilly had pulled off over 14 ticks, brennan had 4, brielle had 2, and our neice had 5 or 6. Me and shannnon pulled off quite a bit too! I didn't mind. I like pulling off ticks..ha!
Our excursion ended with a much deserved trip to dairy queen.
Later, after supper, we headed out again, bitten by the addictive geocaching bug...this time with the whole gang. Our teenage daughter had a good time manning the "compass" on my smartphone.  We found 3 more before the babies started getting tired.
The best thing about geocaching? Its completely free! And the thing I love is that we can do it at our own pace, and find as many or as few as we like.
Another neat thing is it leads to to areas in your neighborhood that you might otherwise overlook. We found a ballpark 2 miles from our home that we never knew was there!
We are already planning on searching for geocaches when we go on our family vacation coming up.  As there are literally millions hidden all over the world, we can play "treasure hunt" everywhere we go!
So if you're looking for something unique to do as a family, look no further than your smartphone and your neighborhood. You may be surprised to find out you've been driving past geocaches for years!
Just go to geocaching.com to find out more. Happy hunting!