0wn3d by Geocaching

My geocaching skills have sadly not been up to par lately as the last two caches I attempted resulted in me driving home cranky, mosquito bitten, allergy laden & defeated. If you haven't heard of geocaching, don't let today's sour attitude deter you - it's awesome. There are "caches", usually small tupperware containers though sometimes much smaller (film canisters) or larger (army lockboxes), hidden all over the world at specific longitudes & langitudes. They're all listed at www.geocaching.com & using a GPS, some old-fashioned digging around & the clues they list for you, cachers basically go on treasure hunts using coordinates instead of a map. Each cache will contain a few different trinkets (pins, badges, little toys), sometimes set to a theme like hockey stuff or kids stuff. When you locate the cache, you sign the log book, take an item & leave an item. Then you return home & log your find on the website so the cache owner & anyone else searching for it knows that it is still active & hasn't been muggled by non-cachers who just happened to stumble upon it. Or in my case, you return home to post that you couldn't find it & leave a big pouty face. =P

The last one I was searching for had a toe ring theme, which is far cooler & more useful than the usual Canada pins & Pez dispensers (though I do love my Pez dispensers). Since the clues were all on the lines of "keep on your toes", I assumed it was referring to the theme of the cache. I rooted around in the leaves & poplar fluff for close to 30 minutes trying to discover the cache hidden underneath any one of dozens of fallen logs. As you can imagine, mosquitoes were out in full force & all that poplar fluff had my nose running like Ben Johnson after his shots. I kept thinking, "You're overthinking this. It's supposed to be an easy one...right under your toes." I finally gave up & came home, drowned my sorrows in ice cream & forgot about it until this morning when an email alert popped into my mailbox to let me know that someone else had found my cache. Ha ha! You couldn't find it, but this guy found it noooo problem. And he didn't even want a toe ring! Na na nana naaaa na!

After telling my computer to Shut Up!, I re-read the clue & realized I had overlooked a crucial word - on your toes, not under. It must be up high! I was so busy looking around under logs (a favorite cache hiding spot) it never even occurred to me to look up, look wayyyy up! I'm dousing myself with DEET & going back today & I will not return until I'm victorious!

Isn't that more fun than just going for a walk? You never get to come home victorious from a plain old walk!