Some PCT Hiking. And Introducing...Geocaching!

Some of you may have heard of geocaching before. Until I moved out here, I had not. And the way I learned about it was essentially by people telling me about their friends who were obsessed with geocaching and would plan entire vacations around it.

Geocaching is basically a "treasure hunting" game where you use a GPS to hide and seek containers with other participants. So people hide stuff and then post the coordinates online, and then you go look for it. Or you can hide stuff and other people can go look for it.

So, today, Chris and I both had nothing to do, so we met up to hike some of the Pacific Crest Trail and do some geocaching. For some reason, we were both sort of surprised that it was 102 degrees out, even though we were hiking in the desert in July.

My first geocache!

This one was hidden beneath a tree with a rock on top of it. There were some random things in there (like a cheap watch), and there is usually a logbook or piece of paper where you sign your name and write the date. If you take something from or leave something new in the container, you are supposed to go online and note it on the geocaching website. A fun thing to do is take something from one geocache and transfer it to another one that you find later on. 

I'd never been up so close to the wind turbines. They make a lot of noise!

As we were walking on the trail towards this area, we saw a herd of cows up ahead. I have to admit, I was actually sort of scared. (Yes. Of cows.) They were so big and I kept thinking that if they turned around and started coming at us, I wouldn't know what to do. But that didn't happen. Also, they were super good at climbing really steep terrain. It was crazy to watch. I don't know why I didn't take a picture.

Hey there!

My old friend Mt. San Jacinto :)

Chris returning from a failed attempt to find a geocache. They can't all be winners!

In conclusion: Geocaching is fun but I don't really understand how people do this all the time. The few hours we spent today were fun, and I could see myself doing more in the future, but only every once in a while. I think this would be a really cool thing to do with kids, more than anything.