A Geo-what?

(Warning, this post contains spoilers for the SABBS cache in Fremont, California)

The year was 2009, it was a rare sunny day on January 26th when my coworkers and I decided to take a walk to the local Starbucks for an afternoon pick-me-up latte.

Today we had a much larger group than usual. Most of the time when we take our afternoon walks it's just a few of us, today, we had a group of 6. When we asked the owner of the studio (wavegroupwill) if he wanted to come along, he quickly chimed up and mentioned there was a geocache in that direction he needed to grab and would gladly come along. Almost in perfect harmony, the rest of us were asking him "A geo-what?!"

"Yeah, a geocache. There are these hidden containers everywhere and you find them using coordinates."

This still didn't register. Wavegroupwill went to grab his GPSr and out the door we went, probing him the entire way to try and understand exactly what it is was we were about to find. He did his best to explain, but it was one of those things none of us would understand until we actually found it.

I just didn't get it. First, I was so intrigued at the thought of there being all these hidden things, in plain view. And as part of a giant super-secret community (geocaching.com), people set out on this globe-wide scavenger hunt to find these things. What was the container? How big was it? How many ARE there? Do you keep anything? I had so many questions running through my mind.

Finally we approach the "general" area of the cache. Wavegroupwill turns on his GPSr and lets the coordinates settle on the device. While he's fiddling with the unit, the rest of us set out on foot, inspecting everything in site. Grabbing every rock, every tree branch, looking under and over and through things we would never care to give any attention to under any normal circumstance. This was different, we were on a mission to find something and we had absolutely no idea what that something was.

The cache is clearly visible in this picture, where is it?!

As wavegroupwill walks around with the GPSr, telling us "It's closer to here," quickly followed by "no, wait maybe it's over here." We followed him intently, thoroughly searching the areas he was roaming, continuing to ask him questions the entire time. He explained that the geocache could be a rock, or something camouflaged to look like it was part of the shrubbery, or tucked away just out of sight.

I found myself picking up every rock, thoroughly inspecting every bush, scanning every square inch of the picnic table that was nearby, I was determined. After about 20 minutes of searching, I hear one of my coworkers say "I... think I found it." I quickly turn around and found him standing next to one of the gas meters on the side of the building holding a small metal box with large magnets glued to the back of it.

He did, indeed, find it. It was right in front of us the entire time! A metal box, painted the same color as the PG&E meter, held on to the side of it by 4 large magnets. The lid to the container was also held on by magnets, so cachers could easily take the metal top off without having to tinker with any hinges or screws.

Inside the metal box we found a baggie with a long piece of paper inside of it, with a small pencil. There were misc. small items inside the cache, like a plastic frog, a fake spider, a small poker chip, some stamps.

Wavegroupwill quickly explained to us that the paper inside the bag was the log, and that we were all supposed to sign it. Then he explained that all of the small items were "trade items," trinkets or signature items that cachers leave behind or trade from cache to cache. Oooh, how exciting!

We all quickly scribbled our names into the log sheet, and left it up to my coworker that found the cache to put it back as he found it. We all watched in awe as he placed the box back onto the side of the PG&E meter, directly at eye level. Literally, we were staring at this thing the entire time, but none of us possibly thought that could be it.

How amazing was this?! And these things are EVERYWHERE?! I was hooked.

The cache we found that day was GCQFCR - SABBS, my first geocache. I was extremely excited at the time. I needed to learn more, to find more... how did I not know about Geocaching before? After placing the cache back, we made our way back to the studio talking the whole way about our shared adventure.

Shortly after this experience, I had to share this new thing with my soon-to-be-boyfriend. I nabbed my hand-me-down GPSr unit and took him out later that same week. Together we shared his first Geocaching experience, which he will share in his own words on this blog.

Little did I know at the time that I would become an avid geocacher, and I would actually end up hiding a handful of caches close to my work, home, and near our property in Tahoe. If you've never cached before, it is truly an exciting sport. Thanks to this warm day in January 2009, I've been able to share some absolutely unforgettable adventures with seanatron. What's great is that we have at least 1,323,750 more adventures to go until we run out. Kobatron has some work to do.

-kobidge