Treasure Hunting in Pasadena

I grew up way out in the country.  It took almost an hour to get to school by bus.  My neighborhood offered wide, open fields and quiet country roads.  My parents had only one rule – do not go across the old tracks and into the woods.  So, where did I spend most of my days as a child?  Across the old tracks and in the woods of course. 

For me there was nothing better than playing in the woods.  Clambering over downed trees, pulling fallen branches together to create a fort and pretending I was miles from civilization were my favorite activities.

When I grew older and we moved into town, I still found myself searching out wooded areas. Even the worst days could be made better by a walk or run through the quiet of the woods.

Because of this, I find it difficult to believe it has taken me this long to find Geocaching.  I had heard of Geocaching. I knew it had something to do with using a handheld GPS and hunting through the woods for treasure. But I expected it to be more complicated.  I expected to have to join a group, schedule hunts, or spend an enormous amount of money for something I wasn’t even sure I was interested in. Plus, I expected to have to travel far and wide looking for a Geocache area.

Then last week one of my readers contacted me after reading my article on fun fitness activities for families in the College Park Patch.

“You should write about Geocaching,” Carol Pelosi said. “It is a great activity for anybody, but families really enjoy it.”

Carol went on to explain that Geocaches are all over the place.  She explained that I could sign up at the Geocaching website for free and as long as I had an iPhone or any phone with a GPS I didn’t even have to bother buying a separate GPS.  As Apple’s commercial’s say, “There’s an app for that.”   Plus, the Geocaches are much closer than you might expect.  There are three in my neighborhood alone.

Presented with an opportunity to head for the woods, I dropped everything and did just that. I had an hour before I had to pick my youngest son up from school so I went online, found a cache using the Hide and Seek-a-Cache tab and headed down the road to a local patch of woods marked as having a cache.

I learned my first lesson that first day.  Though experienced Geocachers can head out for a cache and find the treasure relatively quickly, beginners should expect to spend some time hunting.  I ran out of time on my first two attempts.

My third was today.  Today, using the app I have since downloaded to my phone I headed into a small patch of woods just off of Mountain Road with my 14 year old daughter. 

When Meg was a toddler I used to put her in the jog stroller and head out for long runs through the city.  No matter where we ran Meg would always find treasures.  She has an eye for finding items that others will overlook. If I was ever going to find a cache, it would be with Meg.  There were no time constraints today but we still picked what was labeled as an easy cache in relatively easy terrain. 

For two hours we used the GPS and the hints left on the log by Geocachers who had already located the site.  We climbed through brambles and over downed trees.  We looked high and low.  We hunted and laughed and played in the woods.  Finally, Meg went on one side of the stream while I covered the other side and just as I yelled, “Meg, I give up.  We need to go.” Meg yelled, “I found it.” 

It was with those three words that I understood the lure.  We found it.  It was more satisfying than I would have guessed.  We signed the log and left a note about it being our first find, and then we made our way back to the car. 

As we walked back to the car, we talked about our next adventure.  We are ready to give it another go. Not only was it great fun to play in the woods, but we discovered through our GPS, that we had walked a couple of miles in the process. Fun and fitness with my daughter? Now, that is a great combination.