Geo-Caching 101 - Lessons Learned by Two New GeoCachers

We are blessed to get to spend time exploring some of the God's best wonders. It's not unusual to see us in the woods hiking. But today we have a different reason for spending time in these woods. We are geocaching. If you're not familiar with that term, it's a bit like an Easter-egg-hunt using GPS. We're pretty new to this form of entertainment, so we thought we would share the lessons learned by two new geocachers.

We downloaded the geocache app on Denisa's phone, and Mark used the web-version from the geocache web-site on his phone. This allowed us to see where caches are hidden in our area. Then it's our job to move the blue dot--that is us--towards that green dot that represents the geocache. This one is obviously in the forest.

Once we got close, we kept our eyes peeled for something unusual in this natural setting. We knew this was a good-sized cache, and Denisa found it camouflaged beneath a tree hidden by loose bark. Score one geocache find for Denisa!

Inside a cache, there is usually a piece of paper that geocachers can log their nickname. This one also includes a bag of trinkets. Geocachers can take a trinket if they bring something to trade. This makes it a fun activity for children as well.

We're still in the woods, but now at a different part of Garner State Park since we're looking for our second geocache. You'll have to look carefully to see the white tube sticking out of the leaves beside Mark. He found this one, so now the score is 1-1.

Geocaches can come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. This one is a 4-inch white PVC pipe, not a small thing to hide in the forest.

There are more geocaches inside the park, but they seem to be high up on Mount Baldy and the trails that we hiked a couple days ago. So we are heading outside the park to do more geocaches. This one took us to the highway bridge.

We really struggled with this one! We knew it was a micro-cache, so it would be tiny. You can get hints, and the hint was simply, "This one will drive you nuts." Does that mean it's in a nut tree, or one of the hundreds of bolts and nuts in this guard rail and bridge? It took us a considerable amount of time and we almost gave up several times. But Denisa finally found it! Score now 2-1 in Denisa's favor.

The bolt and nut that Denisa is pointing at in the picture above is the geocache! It's not part of the construction of the bridge or rail--it is held in place by a magnet.

That bolt has been hollowed out, and a tiny piece of paper has been rolled up inside for the geocache log. That's a very creative geocache container!

One of the best parts of geocaching is that they often take you to beautiful places that are often hidden. So we walked on down to the Frio River to get another nice view of this clear water river that flows through Garner State Park.

While geocachers can log their successes on the pieces of paper at each find, they can also be logged on the app on our phone. Those green geocache markers on the app become yellow smiley faces when we find them!

The next geocache was down the highway, at the old entrance to Garner State Park. It was an easy find, and Mark ties up the score, 2-2 when he found it in the old rock entrance wall.

Part of the game of geocaching is to be sneaky in your search, so that non-geocachers don't find the treasure and spoil the fun. Non-geocachers are called "muggles" and if they move or take the cache it is said to be "muggled." This brightly-colored cache warns muggles, "Do not remove!"

Another stop along the highway gave us the name of next geocache, "B3." What could that mean? Then we saw this unusual sign attached to a tree . . .

and Denisa saw the geocache with a green lid behind it. She again leads this geocache race 3-2.

Sometimes geocaches have stories of the history or the nature of the area. This geocache is named "It's that time of year!" Under the description in the app it reads, "For those of you familiar with tarantulas you may dread this time of year in the Hill Country. Tarantula mating season is May-October. I seem to have more of them around our house, and see them out and about mainly in September. If you don't threaten them, they won't hurt you. They are an important part of our ecosystem."

When Denisa found this large plastic spider hidden in a tree, we also found that it had a hidden compartment for the piece of paper to log the find. If you're keeping score with us, that means Denisa is ahead 4-2.

Our last geocache search of the day is named "Old Leakey Road." The description explains that this narrow road used to be the main highway before highway 83 was built. We normally wouldn't have turned down this road, but it was a great place to see more of the Frio River and more campgrounds that we didn't know existed. We also wouldn't have seen this low water crossing where the Frio River goes over Old Leakey Road.

As we drove the pickup through the water, we looked down the river to get a new view of the old cypress trees and clear water visible on both sides of us.

Mark spotted the geocache close to the road on a tree just on the other side of that barbed wire fence. That will mean our final score will be 4-3 in this new sport we are practicing. We're pretty proud that we found all seven of the caches we looked for today. This last geocache is called a "P&G" in geocache-speak. We found out that there are many acronyms in this new sport, and that one stands for "park and grab." We also learned about UPR (Unnatural Pile of Rocks) and TOTT (Tools of the trade)--it's a good thing to have a flashlight and a leatherman tool when you are geocaching.

The final acronym we learned is "TFTC." That means "Thanks for the Cache" and it's a good thing to say when you log another successful find in the app. The people that went to the effort to hide these caches and make them available for geocachers will see how many times they are found. So we wanted to thank them for their trouble. We end with a special acronym to our readers "TFWGWWU!" (Thanks for Wandering God's Wonders with us!)