Today was all about one thing: geocaching. My goal on this trip is to find caches in every place we stay along the way. For those who don’t know, geocaching is a sort of high-tech scavenger hunt using GPS technology and the Internet to find little boxes hidden in the woods (or even in the middle of the city). These boxes usually contain a logbook and a few little trinkets. You find the box, sign the log, take a trinket, leave a trinket, and then log your find on geocaching.com.
The thrill is in the hunt and the find. It can be a competitive activity, but I don’t really do it that way. I just like going out, discovering new places, and logging caches. Plus, it’s giving me something to do while Lex is at work during the days on our trip.
I set out around 10:30 or so this morning and got back at 4:00. During the course of the day, I hit 12 caches sites, only seven of which I found. Of the five I didn’t find, I only made an earnest effort to find three of them. By the end of the afternoon, it was 93 degrees out, I was tired, and lacked the necessary patience for a proper hunt. On those last two, I sort of got out of the truck, glanced around, said “screw it,” and then got back in the truck and left.
I did find some clever caches like the one near the roller rink where the person who hid the cache created a fake drain pipe and planted it in the ground. As someone who hides caches myself, I appreciate an interesting cache container. Here’s a shot of me at that particular site.
Seven is not a bad total for the day, though. This area is really cache-dense. Some of the cache sites were only slightly over the minimum of .1 of a mile apart. There are at least 20 caches within a one-mile radius of the park where we are staying.
When I got home, I discovered four little urchins hanging out at our site and on the empty sides immediately adjacent to ours. These are some of the same kids I mentioned in a recent post plus a few of their friends. It’s summer, and this park doesn’t have much besides a pool to keep kids busy. Apparently, they occupy themselves by wandering around, hollering, and hitting bushes with sticks. Great. Of course they were standing practically right outside the door when I took the dogs out for an evening walk, so I had to stop and let everyone pet the two of them. Fortunately, they were unusually well behaved (the dogs, that is) and stood nicely while they were given attention.
We went out for dinner to a little Jamaican place just across the road. I have to say that I’ve never had Caribbean food out before. I had curried goat, rice and peas, fried plantains, and stewed cabbage. To drink, I got a sorrel. I have to say, that was foul. I was under the impression it was just hibiscus tea. I LOVE hibiscus tea. I know hibiscus tea. That was not it! Nearly made me gag. The rest of the meal was pretty decent. The cabbage was kind of bland, but the curried goat was tasty as was the rice. We both ate for less than $30, so I’m not going to complain.
Then it was off to the grocery store for a milk run. While there, we grabbed a Redbox movie, She’s Out of Your League, which is currently in progress. Totally cringeworthy. I haven’t screamed in disgust and horror this much since Superbad.
I’m having to find things to do on the cheap right now because the well is running dry, and payday isn’t until Friday. As a result, I thought I might venture out tomorrow and check out either the nearest yarn shop or the nearby game ranch. Just heard thunder outside, though, so we may have storms for the next several days. May just have to play it by ear.
Tags: Geocaching, Georgia, Travel
