When I’m feeling dumpy, I have a couple of standby cure-alls that I immediately try.
Pajama Day is always a good one. Eating Something Completely Decadent is another. I know- food is not the answer- but if it works? I’m willing to try it. Shopping is my number one stand by.
Hey lookie what I bought this week!
But when none of those options work, I’m left with the only no-fail solution: Get the hell out of Dodge. Or the Ranch, as is the case here. Since I have plans to Get the Hell Out of Dodge next weekend, I needed a one day solution.
It just so happens we’re blessed with a couple of large mountains and a GPS. Which means Geocaching up the side of a mountain is possible and makes a nice Get the Hell Out of Dodge adventure. We haven’t been Geocaching in a while. It’s not easy getting three kids in and out of car seats a kabillion times, so we stopped. Now that that two out of three kids are able to deal with their own seat belts, car trips are easier. Much easier.
We started with lunch in Smallville. Geocaching is hard work. You need to carbo-load first.
Then we promptly got lost. This river isn’t supposed to be here. The cache is 210 yards on the other side.
Okay- I guess it’s supposed to be here. It was probably here first. But there is supposed to be a bridge or something to help us out. There is no way I’m going in. That water is scary cold. We tried again, starting from a different approach. We got within 50 feet of the cache and couldn’t go any farther because the path was blocked by 70 tons of foliage that looked suspiciously like poison oak. Poison oak and I don’t get along.
It was a long walk just to be forced to turn around again.
This is a big part of geocaching. You must be prepared for dissappointment. Our hit rate is about 50%. We only find about half of the caches we attempt. Partly because we have kids that just can’t get to some of the caches, and partly because of things like this:
Snow. It was 80 degrees at our house. We weren’t exactly prepared for snow.
I didn’t look closely at the map, so I didn’t realize this particular cache was at the crest of the mountain where there is still plenty of snow. It didn’t stop us from trying. We hiked out into a snowy meadow in shorts and tshirts and dug through the snow to locate our cache.
It just wasn’t going to happen. But it was a beautiful place, quiet and calm. The kids pretty much decided it was heaven.
That’s the best part of geocaching. It takes you to places you would probably never see on your own. I live within an hour drive of this place, but I had no idea it existed. At other caches, I saw streams running wild and deer with no fear wandering around us.
And yes- we actually found a cache or three that wasn’t covered in snow.
It was a good day.
