The middle of April and we are living in a snow-globe. After playing inside for much of the day, Ben and I decided to head out for some geocaching despite the snow/rain/sleet/ice-pellets falling outside. A friend of ours recently hid one about 2 miles from our house so we headed out with gear and clothes appropriate to the day and activity...
The cache is hidden near the Jackrabbit Trail which wanders through a big chunk of wild country between some roads that run near our home. Some of the trail runs along a power-line and is pretty open, some runs through deep woods and is like a deer-path; all of it is beautiful and a great place to walk and see lots of wildlife...
Since this was the first time I had used my GPS since returning from the Southwest, I was getting some funky readings from the compass (it had acclimatized to the level of declination out there which is about 30 degrees different, so it was giving me erratic readings). The remedy for this is to calibrate the GPS and compass, which involves telling it to do so, and then turning slowly in circles until it tells you to stop. A minute later, I was getting a clean reading (it took me to within 3 feet of the geocache), and Ben was looking at me strangely...he was also looking in the woods worriedly as I had been whooping loudly, "Crazy Ivan, Crazy Ivan" while spinning...
The cache was exactly where my GPS said that it would be (3 feet is a perfect reading, given the vagaries of communication to and from satellites of my machine and the machine of the person hiding the cache), and Ben was excited to search it for goodies. This is a cache designed specfically with kids in mind, and is filled with toys. For the occasion, Ben had gone through his own toys and selected a couple of pristine toys that he was willing to trade (we like having him pick his own trade-items, and making fair trades)...
I did the obligatory "push-n-dash" photo, which in this case involved my balancing my camera on a fallen and snow-covered tree, setting the time, composing/focussing the shot, pushing the button, and running through the knee deep snow around to Ben in a couple of seconds without disturbing the camera in the slightest...it's an art form that ordinarily evokes larger smiles from the people I am posing with than Ben gave this time around...
On the way back, Ben navigated. I customarily mark a waypoint at my car, so that if I get turned around in the woods, I can use the GPS to get me back to it. I marked a point out of habit, even though this walk was very easy; and when I asked, Ben was eager to help us get back to the car. I helped him get through the screens on the GPS, and select the, cleverly name, "CAR" waypoint, and off we went. He did a great job, not looking at the screen the whole time, as many GPS-rookies tend to do, but just checking every so often to make sure that we were going in the right direction...Spring must come soon, despite the 20" of snow we are supposed to get tonight, and when it does, Ben will continue to take a more active role in our geocaching adventures...
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