So, last week, Easter sunday, I went geocaching again.
There was a small family get-together thing at my aunt and uncle's house, right down the street from me, and my mom was in town for it (Hi Mom!) so of course I attended.
After hanging out there for a while I asked my two cousins (actually I think they're technically my third cousins) if they wanted to go find some boxes. I'd described the concept of Geocaching to them last year, but this was the first time I'd had the opportunity to take them.
They were all over the idea, and we had some time before the food would be ready, so we headed to the park to find something.
Jeff was also there, it being his parent's house and all, and since he's my favorite non-mom relative, I checked to see if he wanted to come along too.
He did, and with his son bringing the size of the group up to 'smallish mob' size, we took his vehicle.
Once at the park, we fiddled around with my pad for a while before finally getting the geocaching app to work, but eventually we were wandering up and down the trails, and then picking our way carefully through the trees and briars.
This was NOT an easy one to find--it was a smallish box, very well-hidden, but after a few minutes of casting about the area the app was showing, the kids went NUTS.
They'd found it--hidden in a hole at the base of a tree, nearly arm's length deep in there, without any help from me or Jeff.
Being the sort of brothers they are, there was a LOT of argument about just who had seen it first, but they were incredibly pleased and excited all the same.
The only thing that bugged them was not being able to take any of the little goodies that were in the box--the rule is that in order to take something you have to leave something in trade, and they didn't have anything handy. They still got to sign the log book, of course, and by then it was time to go eat, so he went back to the house.
They very, very much wanted to go and find some more caches, and there are a dozen or more of them hidden in that park, so after the eating and such was done (and I got in some more time with Mom before she headed home), Jeff and I took them all out AGAIN.
The pad's GPS was working better this time around, and we spent an hour or so rambling around, and successfully located another three caches (and failed to find another one, sigh).
Despite the metric crapload of poison ivy and/or poison oak, none of us were zapped, and everyone had a good time (Damien and Sebastian were out and out ecstatic, to be honest).
I really enjoyed myself too--it's rare that I have a chance to do something like that... vanishingly rare, really.
Overall, quite a wonderful time.