Josh wasn’t too sure about going out in all of that very thick, knee high tall grass. I can’t say that I blame him, but he DID find the cache! We did really well tonight. We actually found TWO of them and couldn’t find two. One of them we’ve looked for a couple of other times without any luck either so I guess I’ll have to email the owner for a hint!

Nathan tried to use the GPS as a walki talki and later as a cell phone (LOL). I’m completely lost with the handheld GPS because it doesn’t TALK to me. I think Nathan heard me saying I wished that it would talk to me like the Street Pilot does and then he decided to use it as a walki talki and/or cell phone. I’ll post about my GPS & technical issues in the next blog entry (LOL).

We were near a lake and look what we found! YIKES! I’m thinking Zach’s mom and dad may never let him go geocaching with us again! He said it was a water snake. I wouldn’t know. He insisted it was and wanted to hold it for a picture! Someone else had been holding it before him and the adults around the other kid didn’t seem to mind so I figured it was ok. It had the same coloring as a snake we saw in this same area last year that scared me 1/2 to death (or 3/4 to death … lol… couldn’t help but remember Rhys from Karen’s blog saying that the other day) last year when we were geocaching with Karen and family.

I just emailed Zach’s mom so she can take a look at the blog and see what her son was up to tonight (LOL). Speaking of tonight. It looks like we were geocahing in the DARK in these next pictures. It really wasn’t dark although it WAS late when we finished up.

We came back to the trail head at 9:38 and had just enough time to get to DQ before the drive through closed at 10:00! DQ and geocaching seem to go hand in hand. It was about 10:20 by the time we left DQ and almost 11:00 by the time we got home. It was 92 degrees out, but the boys wanted the HEAT on… seems they got a little chilled eating their ice cream. It sure didn’t feel like it was 92 outside. It was a perfect evening for geocaching! No wind, patches of warm air followed by a few feet of very cool, moist air and very few bugs – we didn’t even have to put on any bug spray tonight.

I think it only looks this dark because we were way back in this tall grassy area and in the cover of a few low lying trees…. that and the flash came on making it look even darker behind the boys. We skipped one cache entirely because we had about 45 feet left to go on a trail that wound through grass way over Nathan’s head. I could just imagine what kinds of critters would be hiding out back there waiting to scare me. Besides, that cache is one we couldn’t find the last time we were there and we didn’t have much time left before it would be getting dark. We’ll have to go back there this fall after the ground is frozen and there aren’t any snakes out AND when we have a good length of time to spend looking for it.

Of course, the boys each found a walking stick. At first I thought Josh said he needed a “talking stick” and I wasn’t sure how he even knew that one should bring a talking stick when geocaching (LOL)… then I realized he said “walking” and I heard “talking” (LOL)… can you tell I had my mind on the fact that I had forgotten to bring a talking stick with us? Fortunately, both caches provided one! If you don’t know what a talking stick is click the link below about geocaching and you’ll find everything you need/want to know about this hobby.

We saw two deer. These pictures didn’t turn out very good.. we won’t say who took them (LOL). This one was crossing the main trail we were on. Later we veered from this trail into a barely visible one and saw this same deer again plus another one. We must have scared them because they took off running! Notice the “white tail.” Nathan calls them “white butts” (LOL).

All in all it was a GREAT night of geocaching… truth be known….. ANY night is a good night for us if we actually FIND one! We’ve gone several times when we’ve been skunked. We have 3-4 more to find in this same area and then we’ll venture out into another locale where we started to search last year.

For those who aren’t familiar with this hobby, click this link to learn about geocaching.