Geocaching
 

I think this belongs here, as it's a "leisure" activity.

One of my friends and I decided to try geocaching. I am on my way out the door to meet up with her and another friend's kids, who she is babysitting today.

We've looked up a couple possibilities that aren't too far from the other friend's house and we're going to give it a shot.

I am not terribly woods-wise. Every time I go camping I have to have someone identify poison ivy for me, since I have no idea what that shit looks like (yes I know the rhyme, but it doesn't help since every damn plant out there has leaves of three). I have to assume I'm not very sensitive to it, because on more than one occasion I've had it pointed out to me that I'm sitting in the middle of a large patch of it. I also don't like bugs. Or snakes.

She has a miserable sense of direction, and has gotten lost despite having a GPS unit in her car. She's a retired Naval officer. Thank goodness in her day they didn't let women on ships. In OCS she plotted beautiful courses ... that always went the wrong way.

I should probably arrange for someone to be our safety call ...

We managed to find one!

Whoo hoo, happy dance, and all that.

May not have if we hadn't had bunnygirl (one of the babysitees) with us ... she spotted the cache, and earned a dollar bribe as well as one of the items in the cache. She took a bakugon, which is one of the latest cute Japanese fighting monster toys that she knows all about and I never heard of.

We tried for a second one, were probably within 10 feet of it, but we had to cut the searching short because a thunderstorm was coming in and we JUST made it back to the car in time!

We'll be going back again to find that one.

Oh, and my friend, Wrong Way Corrigan? She programs the coordinates into her GPS and says, "Okay, it says go this way. The arrow points this way!"

"Uh, wrongway?"

"Yes?"

"The arrow points north. You follow the black line. See that squiggle? That's that big road over there."

"But the black line goes straight through those trees."

"And the path right ahead of you curves around and back toward where you want to go."

Another time she wanted to climb up a 70 degree incline (okay, it was more like a big pile of dirt, but it was hill like) hill to follow the black line when once again, the path curved toward where we wanted to go.

Heaven help me.

On Thursday I am going to Ricketts Glen with this woman.

I expect that we will get lost in the woods and that I will have to roast and eat her to survive.

I already told her she has to mark the parking spot with that GPS thingy. Although, it should be pretty straightforward ... we go downhill to leave.



"Right.

:lol: you are big heap crazy. Leave a trail of crumbs.

I have a degree in Geography. I can only hope that they haven't run out of the little maps at the trailhead.

I found my Ricketts Glen Trail Map from two years ago. It's probably still good. Or at least good enough.

We have been rained out, so instead, we're going to make popcorn and watch movies and pick a new date.

Don't watch 127 Hours. ;)

(Actually, do...it's good!)

I found a geocache once, and I wasn't even looking for one!

I was just out wandering about and noticed a rock in a hollow between some tree roots, that looked like it could not have got there naturally. A little investigation revealed a plastic box with a notebook and some freaky trinkets in it. It was kind of a WTF moment!

Boo?

I'm liking the popcorn and movie idea.
Now, if only I could find you....
Snaps to IM for Boo

So, movie night was cool, we watched Sherlock, the first episode of The Jewel in the Crown, and Steel Magnolias.

Yesterday, I had a very serious illustration of exactly how bad her sense of direction is.

We were driving back to her house on a major road that had pretty heavy traffic. I told her that we could easily get around some of the worst of it by turning right and then taking a parallel road.

Easy enough, yes?

No.

We come to a T intersection and she says ... "I should turn right here, right?"

"Uh, no. That's back the way we came. Your house it to the left."

I think I forgot to mention that we were at this restaurant once, for lunch. She left to run and errand and came back for dessert.

Except that about 15 minutes after she left, my phone rang.

I didn't even say hello. I just went straight to, "How did you get lost?"

She has an in-dash GPS. She had marked the restaurant.

I must admit that it's impressive. She is directionally tone deaf.

I feel her pain. I'm the same way.

Fortunately there are segments of my home county where I can get people unlost simply by asking "what do you see out your car window." There are a couple towns where I'm better at it than others.

On the ground I'm pretty good at just figuring it out based on some spooky sixth sense sort of thing.

I just have to big myself up here.
I still have terrible trouble with left and right, but I can read a map like nobody's business.

And I have a pretty damned good sense of direction. Unless it's snowing - I shamed myself utterly in Glasgow, being internally sure we needed to go one way, whereas the other ladies were confident we had to go the other. And they were right.

Don't challenge me on the Tube though.
I was astonished that Mum (going to Cardiff via Victoria and the Leicester Square for Much Ado) checked every single decision I made. Hello?!
And yes, of course I was right.
But then we were on the Metropolitan/ Bakerloo/ Central/ Victoria tangle at the very heart of London. Add the Jubilee to that and it was pretty much my commuting home for a couple of years.

Take me with you next time, Wolf.
There's plenty of me to eat.
But I swear I will haunt you if you try to satay me.