As the title states, I’ve said goodbye to 25 and hello to 26. That is, I turned 26 on Friday. 26. Twenty-six. Twenty-freaking-six. How did I get this old?¹ I vividly recall brushing my hair in front of my bathroom mirror one morning when I was fifteen, a few weeks before my sixteenth birthday. For some reason, I was convinced, absolutely sure, that I would die before I turned sixteen. I’m not sure why — maybe it was because I was going through one hell of a rebellious phase (though, so was my mom, but that’s neither here nor there), complete with drugs, alcohol, and a handful of other dangerous activities. Maybe it was just because I’ve always had an inkling that I’d die young.² Whatever the reason, I remember everything about that moment — the colour of the hair band I was putting in my hair, the sound of the complex maintenance people laughing outside our building, my mom’s voice complaining to my Aunt about something on the phone in the kitchen… it all seems like something that happened yesterday, not eleven freaking years ago.

TL;DR: I’m not really old, but I feel that way increasingly often. Boo.

In other non-news, I’m tinkering with a geocaching photoblog. It’s not really a project as such, but I tend to take photos of everything anyway, and I do love the idea of a photoblog, so it’s just kind of happening. I want to get a few more caches done before I put anything online, though. We’ve been having an unusual amount of rain lately, and I haven’t been able to do any hunting because of it. I could, of course, but the next few caches I plan to tackle are all in wooded areas that tend to become swamps after a good rainfall, so… no. I’d planned to hit a few caches yesterday (Saturday), but the day took a different turn when I first had to play tech support for an Aunt and was then basically kidnapped (adult-napped?) by my BFF.³

Where was I going with this? …Oh, right, geocaching, and my lack of it. It’s been raining lightly off and on all day today, but I trudged over to Heritage Park anyway, aiming to hit two caches (GCH94Q/”Critter Cache” and GCVHYV/final cache of the “Taylor Triad,” if you’re curious.) Both times, I knew where the cache was, roughly, but both caches are off the main trail — and completely swamped. I mean several-inches-of-water swamped. Given that I own neither hip boots nor waders, it was a solid no-go. I’d wanted to do both before the mosquitos took over the Heritage Park-WCCCD trails, but it looks like I’ll have to wait until we get some drier weather. Since weather is in the forecast for seven of the next ten days, and it usually takes the area a few days to dry out after the rain stops, it looks like it’ll be a week or two before I tackle any caches other than those of the PNG⁴ variety. Such is spring in Michigan.

Speaking of spring in Michigan, it’s interesting to see how different two spring seasons can be. Exactly three years ago today (1st May ’08) I took some photos along the same trails, and while not everything was in bloom, things were much further along: trees were greener, leaves were larger, and there was a sea of white trilliums and cutleaf toothwort, not to mention the apple blossoms, both white and pink (or cherry blossoms? I can never tell the difference unless I know for certain what the tree is). This year, things are barely green and swampy, though there are signs of progress here and there. Progress, though, is not enough to keep me from being just a bit bitter. I love rain and all, but I love green trees and flowers and grass more. I want spring, dammit, not winter with slightly warmer weather and some green spray paint on the ground. D:

Anyway, has spring actually sprung for anyone else? Anyone doing (or has done) anything for Beltane/May Day? I’ve had an interesting Beltane so far, but that’s another post entirely. Maybe tomorrow.

1. I know I’m not actually old; I just feel it sometimes. In a culture obsessed with youth, how can I not? [↩]
2. I still do. I don’t know why. [↩]
3. And then I was kidnapped again and ended up at Denny’s at 2am, which is quite weird when not drunk, let me tell you. [↩]
4. “Park and Grab” caches are those near parking areas, usually in city or suburban areas, that generally don’t involve much walking/hiking/etc. [↩]

I have quite a few friends¹ who partake in the sport/hobby/activity known as “Geocaching.” Geocaching for the uninitiated, is (according to its Wikipedia article), “an outdoor sporting activity in which the participants use a GPS receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called “geocaches” or “caches”, anywhere in the world.” In other words, it’s a high-tech game of hide-and-seek, in which a person (or persons) hide a small container of, well, almost anything, after which they post the GPS coordinates of said container, and others attempt to find said container. Over the past year or so, more and more of my Facebook and Twitter friends began posting and tweeting about finding caches (the containers themselves). I knew little of the activity, but as someone fond of hide-and-seek as a kid, I was intrigued — idly intrigued, that is, as I didn’t bother to really give much thought to the sport until early 2011.

Fast-forward to this week. Unable to sleep (yet again. Bloody insomnia!) one night, I Google’d² geocaching. I read its Wikipedia article and poked around on the official site for the activity, Geocaching.com. I searched for caches near me, and discovered one less than half a mile away, and several more nearby in Heritage Park. The closest one, I thought, would be a good “test cache.” If I dug finding the first one, I’d give a few in Heritage Park a try, and go from there. If I didn’t, then I wouldn’t have wasted much time. I bought the official Geocaching app (obviously, I wasn’t going to invest in a handheld GPS until I knew if geocaching was something I’d do more of or not), created an account at GC.com, downloaded another GPS/co-ordinate app (one can never have too many), jotted down some co-ordinates and other notes in a small notebook, and decided to give the thing a try.

Tuesday afternoon, I walked over to Rotary Park, a fancy name for the baseball diamonds and sparse collection of playground equipment behind the Michigan State Police “Metro South” post, where the cache was hidden. We (myself and another) immediately approached where the cache should have been, judging by the given coordinates, the corresponding satellite map images, and aforementioned GPS app. Assuming we were looking for something fairly obvious (our first mistake), we looked along the fence surrounding the eastern baseball diamond, looking under and inside the yellow plastic that runs atop the fence, poking through leaves, and, at one point, even cautiously prodding a bag of what looked like (and was, as it turned out), a plastic bag of discarded chewing tobacco. I knew where the coordinates were pointing, but, I thought, it couldn’t be there. There was nothing there! Defeated, we went home. Once home, I read more of the posted/past logs left by others who found (and, in some cases, attempted but failed to find) the cache. Many praised the cache owner’s ingenuity. One person mentioned the great craftsmanship. Several said they’d been right near it, even touching it, before finding it. One mentioned needing pliers to “get it,” and another mentioned that it was magnetic and just out of reach. I even decoded the hint given, but could only come up with “URK,” which made no bloody sense.

Frustrated and annoyed at myself, I contacted the cache’s owner, asking for another hint. I explained (truthfully so) that the person I’d hunted with was also vaguely interested in geocaching, but was adamant that she was done with the activity if we couldn’t successfully locate the first cache we’d sought out. Said owner responded to my message that night, clarifying the hint — it wasn’t “URK,” it was “HEX” — and mentioning that pliers might be necessary if my fingers weren’t up to the task. (He also mentioned that we’d picked “a doozy” for a first cache. Story of my life, dude!) After a few minutes of “…Hex? What kind of hint is hex? Pliers? WHAT?!” it hit me — a true “Eureka!” moment. I explained my discovery to the person who’d accompanied me, but she doubted my guess. “It can’t be there; it must mean something else.” Fine, I said; I’d go the next morning and find it without her help.

That brings us to this afternoon. Just after noon, I (alone this time) headed back to the park. As I approached the fence, I noticed a man walking along the fence. Taking him for a (Geo-)Muggle (a term the community has adopted to describe a non-geocacher), I casually changed my path and sat on a nearby bench. I had my earbuds/headphones with me and proceeded to listen to a podcast (Buzz Out Loud) while exchanging Twitter DMs and texts and complaining about him on Twitter. He, in turn, approached the nearby swings, swung for a while, and walked back to his car. Thinking he’d left, I approached the fence. Seeing him near his car, I leaned over the fence, texting again, thinking he’d surely leave soon. He got a call and proceeded to yell into the phone for ten minutes. He got into his car and, feeling brave, I looked for what I thought was the cache, and touched it. Indeed, I was right! But with Muggles about, I couldn’t grab it. I walked back to the bench, resolved to wait him out.

A few minutes later, an older³ gentleman approached the fence. This one was a bit more conspicuous⁴: looking at his phone and then the area, poking through leaves on the fence, etc. I watched for a minute or two, unsure whether he was a geocacher or a strange Muggle, until he looked where the cache should be and back at his phone. Bingo! A fellow geocacher! I approached him, asked if he was looking for a geocache — a risk indeed, if he’d been a Muggle, but by then I was sure he wasn’t — and he confirmed that he was. I asked if he wanted me to show him where I thought it was, and he agreed. No longer caring much about the other fellow — by now, I figured, if he was indeed a non-geocacher, this new guy would have blown my cover — I retrieved the cache, no pliers needed. He opened it and we both signed it, replacing it. (And yes, I got the coordinates within it.) Looking back, I wish I’d gotten his name, as I may well run into him again, if he’s a local. Unfortunately, I’m off the Zoloft (need to see my primary to get a refill, and he’s too busy to get in immediately; appointment’s tomorrow), so what little interaction I initiated/was involved in was really all my SAD.

So, after a failed attempt, my first geocache search was a success. Looking back at the first man’s behaviour — the way he stopped as soon as he saw me, how he’d been walking along the fence when I approached, how he seemed to be waiting me out — I’m 80% certain now that he wasn’t a Muggle, and instead a geocacher who thought I was the Muggle. A secretive lot, geocachers, and for good reason. Still, there needs to be an international sign or signal that can be used to identity geocachers to each other. An article of clothing or a logo or something; something to avoid the mutual game of “I’ll just wait you out, you fun-time interloper” I think I was party to today.

All told, I think I could definitely get into geocaching. I want to get a few more caches under my belt before I invest in a handheld GPS⁵. As I said, there are a few caches hidden in Heritage Park, and I’ll give them a try this week. Given that my first cache was contained the longitude coordinates for another, larger cache, I think my next attempt will be with the second cache in the “Triad,” which contains the latitude. Maybe tomorrow?

TL;DR: Geocaching is fun.

1. Online, that is; I so far know no one “IRL” who enjoys the sport — insofar as I know, anyway [↩]
2. or, as Google would have me say, “did a Google search for” [↩]
3. Older in relation to my own age; maybe early 40s? [↩]
4. Or maybe just conspicuous to me, since he was in my line of sight and I was anxiously waiting for the first man to leave [↩]
5. Because I already have too many gadgets I don’t need [↩]