Geocaching with Grandparents

Silas made his second geocache find today. He found his first one last fall when he was on a hike with some friends, avid geocachers, who were up visiting from Glens Falls. There was a little toy elephant in the cache they found that day, so Silas was instantly taken by the idea. Not of searching for something, mind you, but of the thought that there are toys out there, and apparently, they’re free!

So for his birthday, we bought him a Geomate Jr. GPS. We took it along on the Round Pond hike, but didn’t have anything close enough to go look for. So the first real expedition happened this afternoon.

The occasion for giving it a first run today, despite temperatures in the low 20s, was the grandparents’ visit. There we are, sitting around in the living room after lunch, and the kid has given his piano recital. All well and good, but now he’s just banging out random notes and going a little stir crazy. And there’s no use telling him to stop because he’s going to find something else to bang on. And conversation’s difficult at best with the background noise.

So I say, “Let’s go geocaching and try out the new GPS!” And the grandparents say, “What’s that?” But very soon, over the plunking of random piano notes, it’s agreed that, “Yes, let’s go.”

The package proclaimed that this device is “so easy even an adult can use it.” Well, almost. If you read the directions sheet that came with it very carefully. The other requirement is that you keep the GPS fairly still and pointed face-up, which is doable for an adult, but not for an 8-year old. At least not this 8-year old. So we started out with a cache 815 feet in one direction, but every couple seconds moving wildly in some other direction, depending on whether the GPS had been turned over, or tossed in the air and caught, or what have you.

But once the GPS is in steadier hands, it points toward the Jay covered bridge just down the hill, and we’re on our way, with the dog pulling Grampa along across the ice. (Turns out the dog loves geocaching, too!) The cache had a matchbox car in it, which was great for the kid. We traded it out for a little rubber ball that we’d taken along for the occasion.

When we got back, the grandparents decided to head back to Vermont. Grampa said that they needed to get back before dark. But we suspect that they were also a little scared of what we might put them through next if they stayed around any longer.