Treasure Hunting Corleys

We are officially "treasure hunters" thanks to Angel. She told me about this thing called Geocaching. Apparently, if you have a GPS device, you can participate in this really cool, world-wide treasure hunt. You simply punch in the coordinates (Latitude / Longitude) of the location, and go!

We started this adventure last weekend. I am always looking for ways to get out of the house, but it seems like every time we go anywhere, we spend money. Now, we just go.

We have officially found two and have not found two others. The first one that we went on was right near our house. We strapped on the Snugli and hiked through Indian Mounds State Park. The GPS took us right to the treasure. I bought the kids each a compass, and they were thrilled. They moved the camouflage (sticks and moss) off of the box and opened it up. Inside were several different items to look at. Typically, there is a journal that you can log your GeoCaching Username in, the story of GeoCaching, and some items to trade. The kids brought along a toy that they could trade. Sam traded a piece of his play money for a beach ball, and Rachel traded a necklace charm for a key chain. They were so excited! Of course, I forgot my camera for this trip.

This past weekend, we took Beth and Joey along with us (and the camera) on our treasure hunt! I'd told Joey about our last adventure, and he wanted to come along this time. The more the merrier!

We set out for three locations. We had the GPS and walkie talkies in hand and we were off!

The first stop was a find that we looked all over for last weekend, but couldn't find. I emailed the hiders, and asked them if it was a joke because we couldn't find it ANYWHERE! I guess that's gonna happen from time to time. We looked everywhere, and we still didn't find that one!

The second stop on our treasure hunt was called "McGinnis Landing Micro" (micro means that the container is a 35mm film container). McGinnis Landing was a boat launch to Lake Jackson back before the sink hole got to Lake Jackson and took all of the water out of it. Lake Jackson is getting better, but it's not back to where it was before the sinkhole formed. We looked EVERYWHERE, but didn't find this one either. We found an animal skull on the information board that I thought was the hiding place, and Rusty found a pretty clever hiding place, but we didn't find any treasure. It looked like it had been moved. We did, however, find a few weird things. I found an animal bone, and Joey found a minnow skeleton.

The third stop was really cool. This one was called "2nd Verse, Same as the 1st". The location was right on the edge of the other side of Lake Jackson (the Richy rich side). This one was a small Tupperware container with a green lid that was hidden in a tree that was right off of the edge of the park. These were just any ole' set of trees though. It was a place that I know I would have played in when I was a kid. The trees were smooth, big, and well separated, but was still extremely well hidden from the "outside" world. This container had a small frog, a dragonfly hair clip, and a guitar pick along with the journal log. One of the local churches had hidden this one! We didn't trade anything because the container was so small.

Hopefully, there are several more treasure hunts to come! When I go on the website, there are 700 locations that come up for my zip code alone! I think we're gonna have a blast with this!