Geocaching adventure

Some of our Thanksgiving guests had smart phones that had GPS receivers, and they thought it would be fun to do a little geocaching around Rensselaer. (Geocaching, for anyone who does not know, involves searching for containers based on the GPS coordinates and also any hints that the hider provides. It is a bit like an Easter egg hunt for adults. If you do not have a GPS unit, and I do not think a car GPS unit is sufficient, you cannot take part in the fun. For more info, see the official geocaching site. A few clicks can get you to a map of geocaches in the Rensselaer area.)

Our first search did not  go well. There is supposed to be a small cache in Brookside Park, but when we got to the coordinates of the cache, we could not locate it even using the hints. Our search at second site, in Bicentennial Park, was successful. We found the cache, which is an old army ammo box. It had a register for people to sign and also junk. You can add to the junk if you wish, or you can trade your items for those in the box (unless the directions tell you something different.)

Anyone can register and set up a cache. The folks at the Rensselaer branch of the Jasper County Library have put a tiny cache on the library grounds. It you do not have the coordinates, I doubt that you would ever find it. Even with the coordinates, we looked at the hint before we located it.

A little digression: across the street the gazebo in Hal Gray Park has been decorated with lights and looks very nice at night. However, I had to laugh at the power cord for the lights, which crosses the sidewalk and connects to an outlet on the power pole.

Back to the hunt: we also found two caches that were south of Rensselaer, one on the Saint Joseph's College campus and another to the east of the college. The second one was in a really clever hiding spot--a place that is easily accessible but that will not be bothered or found by someone accidentally.

Have you ever done any geocaching? What did you think of it? My view of Easter egg hunts is that it is more fun to hide than find, and I think the same about geocaching.