About Geocaching

The girls and I have discovered one very important fact about geocaching: this is definitely not an activity that is appropriate for anyone with an irrational fear of bugs.

It's a known fact that I am terrified of bugs. Flying, crawling, squirming, I don't care, I don't like them. I know most of them can't hurt me. I don't care. I don't want to be anywhere near a bug, thankyouverymuch. Over the past few years Chloe has developed a similar sentiment. In fact, she has perfected my signature move, which involves shrieking, flapping one's hands with arms half extended and running in any direction. Unfortunately, this fear does not help in facilitating the finding of hidden caches, which are usually in bug-friendly areas people like us should generally just avoid.

We gave up on our first cache attempt, at least for now. I found coordinates for another one in a park so we thought we'd give it a try. We packed a picnic lunch and headed out. We actually had a very nice time, aside from not finding our hidden treasure. It was really windy out, so I folded down the back seats in the van and we had a little 'indoor' picnic. Chloe thought that was cool. Then we set out with our GPS, a bag of useful stuff and trade items, and some crackers for the ducks. We found point 0 very easily, that was no problem. Unfortunately, it was in the middle of a wooded area that involved climbing around on rocks. I can't do that very well with a baby in the sling (my excuse for being too chicken to brave the bugs!) and Chloe had no problem telling me in no uncertain terms that she was NOT going up there by herself. So we sat there, looked around, saw nothing (not surprising) and gave up. We're sissies. We decided we'll take Andrew back with us. He's much tougher than we are. ;o)

So we walked back in the direction of the ducks and tossed them some crackers, all the while dodging random flies, bees, gnats and such. Oh! not to mention this:

Yes, that is a snake. I almost stepped on it. Ew. Upon seeing the snake, Chloe informed me that she would like one as a pet. Lovely.

We walked along the path, over a bridge, through a tunnel, looking at things along the way and randomly shrieking and flinging our arms about as needed to scare away any bugs. It's sort of like a tiny bit of nature right in the middle of town, which was neat. When we got back to the parking area I let Chloe play on the little play things while Cora sat on the grass and let the wind blow in her face, something she really enjoys. Silly girl.




All in all, it was a nice little afternoon activity. Andrew's home now, I think we'll drag him out with us and see if he can help us find it!