Intro to Geocaching

Venice, Florida:  My wife recently read an article that spotlighted the hobby of Geocaching.  I have several friends that enjoy it, but I have never tried or really had much interest in it.  But after reading the article, we decided to give it a try.

We downloaded an app for the Iphone and set out on our way to try and find a cache.  To get out feet wet, we searched for easy ones nearby our house.

The first one we punched in was called "Uncle Salty Don't Live Here No Mo" and was located within the Manasota Scrub Preserve.  We hit the trails and tried to find our first cache.  We traveled down the park trails and came to within 100 feet of the the cache but ran out of trail.  My son and I began hiking through the thick scrubby brush and it didn't seem like we were making any headway.  After tearing ourselves up on the saw palmettos and the jaggers, we decided to call it quits.

I was really discouraged after our first attempt.  But my wife insisted that we try again somewhere else.  So she found one called "Nibbles Pond" and was located within Lemon Bay Preserve.  We headed over towards there and tried again.

The description of this one reported that it was an easy on for beginners and was located within a short walk from parking.  When we got there, the phone almost immediately reported we were within 30 feet of the cache and to start looking harder.  Finally, we were close.

We split up and started looking closely and then finally my wife waved us over and pointed to where she thought it was.  Sure enough she was right, we found it, our first cache.  We opened it up, spent some time exploring the contents of the cache before returning it to the same spot we found it from.

The feel of success pushed us to try another one.  This time she took us to "The Oasis" a cache hidden along the trail at the South Venice Ferry.  Once again, this one was an easier one for beginners but it was a bit tougher than the last one as the cache on this hunt was much smaller.  After searching for it a bit, I finally found it.

Two for three, that is not a bad way to get started with Geocaching.  I'm glad my wife convinced me to not give up and to try again.   I really enjoyed it once I started to understand the concept.  I can't wait to go again, there are tons of caches out there just waiting to be discovered.


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