Why a Geocaching Outing?

Well, it was a holiday for me and the weather was unbelievably nice, so what is a geocacher to do? Drag the entire Crew out for a geocaching outing at Enterprise South (some against their will). We decided to take it easy and just do the small loop sticking to the pavement except when we were close to a cache.

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzQuV3cLXLc[/embedyt]Cache #1

GC2P7NF – Spelling Test – Say What You Believe  was the first on the list. When we reached the closest point to the cache, I took the most direct to route straight up a steep bank.  I hear snickering from behind me as I struggled to get up the bank(it was difficult to get traction on all the fallen dried leaves). After climbing the bank, the rest of the way to ground zero was fairly level and easily traversed. I spotted the cache quickly, but almost missed it due to a small branch with similar colored leaves hanging from it. About this time. Shelby showed up with the camera (I guess she is the designated camera carrier today)

I was trying out my new backpack today so I packed everything in it, including my pen for signing the log.  It turned out the back pack is a little tight so Shelby got a good laugh when I tried taking it off(rotten children).  I did finally get it off and got my pen, signed the log and we worked our way back to the rest of the Crew who waited back on the road.

Cache #2

Once again, we stuck to the road until we neared the location of the next cache, GC2P7NH – Spelling Test – Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. We took a look at the nearby bunker as part of our geocaching outing.  It was interesting to see the replicas of all the explosives that were once stored in the bunkers throughout the Enterprise area (sometimes geocaching outings turn into homeschooling history lessons).

After the history lesson, three of us, myself, Shelby, and Dave, headed into the woods, while Laura and Nick remained behind on the road.  For some reason, we decided to climb to the top of the bunker before going on a more direct route to the cache or so I thought. I had just killed my phone earlier that morning and the new on was less than cooperative while I was trying to nail down the location. We must have wandered back and forth down the side of this hill for 30 minutes. We did finally find the cache, but it took much longer than it should have.

Cache #3

I think the approach to GC2P0HB – Thats a Lotta Granite! might have been better from the other road, but I apparently like doing things the hard way. After struggling with my new phone on this entire geocaching outing, I was about ready to through my new phone down the hill. My phone just kept changing the location of ground zero! We wandered back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

I have to admit, I was thrown off by the name, but after reading the description(what a novel idea) I realized I was not looking for the right thing. At that point, we were actually only about 20 feet away from the cache container. Now that I knew what to look for, it only took a second for me to spot the cache.

Finding this geocache had taken so long, a ranger had stopped to let my wife know that it was closing time. We decided this would be the last cache of the day and we would have to finish the loop on another day (I guess we had gotten enough exercise by this point anyway).

Tell Us About Your Geocaching Outing

Have you planned any outings for this year, yet?  Have you been on any geocaching outings this year?  Did it go as planned or did you have to scale it back, as we did?

Tell us in the comments below.