Geocaching

Surprise!! I bet you didn't know that we love to geocache, did ya? Funny thing....we didn't know we liked it either!  If you aren't familiar with geocaching, it's basically using gps coordinates and a map that gets you close to a hidden cache, or small container hidden in the area. Then you look around till you find it, and if you find it, you sign the log and take a small item that is in it if you want, leave an item if you want, and re-hide it for the next person.The night we did the Super Moon hike, a young dude we had with us took off with Emma and her friend Isabella and they were finding hidden treasure all over Briones.  Em was hooked! And then Brian was hooked....he may have even come home one day from work and the first thing he may have said was, "Emma, lets go find a cache."  Off they go, until a police man stopped and asked them why they were on the Cal State East Bay campus digging in the bushes. Oops. I'll try this link...it gives you a peek at just how many there are out there in our area...every nook and cranny of our neighborhood, Mt. Diablo, Briones....even the Bart parking lot and Safeway parking lot...there are caches everywhere!

Once we got the app, we realized Mt. Diablo is basically a huge treasure map. Yep...I've been running right by hidden caches for years with no clue they were there.

We've had a few caching adventures this summer, here's a few pictures for you-

 There was one in that cistern.

 There's still one hidden under one of those rocks, weran out of energy and gave up.

 This one was kinda tricky, had to hop a fence behind some houses and all the dogs in the neighborhood were not happy with us.

 You'd never know there was anything hiding on this hill, would you?

 BART parking structure....

 I spent a day on Diablo w/our friend Kyle and the kids...this was the first of 9 (?? I think it was 9) finds.

Above they know they are close, just have to hunt around for a while and ....

 Score! Found it.

 Boy, this one was super frustrating...the map had us right on it, within zero ft...meaning we were standing right on it, but we could not find it anywhere.

 Another find...about now I'm getting a little antsy to make a find myself, but I didn't have the app on my phone, so I was pretty much along for the adventure....

 We had a bunch of prizes left over from Myles party, so that's what we were leaving in the caches.

 Sneaky mama...We were getting really close to one and I spotted a slight trail to a rock...so I took of at a sprint thinking it had to be more than just a rock and I was finally going to find a cache myself. Stinkin kids....take that, bah, ha, ha : )  Above is what I found, and below is what it looks like hidden.

 And this tree, goodness.  The clue was something about bbq and a tree.  If you know the Mt...you know that means a trip down BBQ Terrace....which is really not fun on a hot day. There is not one ounce of shade. There was a cache hanging in this tree...see it?? It took us a while.

 But we did find it!

 We spent some time around Rock City, and we did find one, although I have no pictures of it, it was near the Alien rock...and that's all I can tell you.  Myles scored a little race car from that one.  Kyle had made 5 caches, he's hiding them in these pictures.

I'm so glad Kyle introduced us to this whole geocaching thing. It is really fun to be at the store and hear "mom, there's one within 150 ft of us, it must be out behind the store, lets go find it".....and off we go.  I'm all for free, fun adventure!!  There are a few rules, and etiquette to follow, so if you are interested, take a minute to give the site linked to above a read....and then go have some fun!