Caching, the beginning....!

Funny, but the first time I heard of this I thought "What the heck is that about!" and "how could that be fun!". Well, having a few friends that do it, and being introduced to it didn't initially mean a thing to me. I figured that it was something I could say "oh ya, I have friends that do that!". What I didn't know was that a chance encounter with a Cache close to my house would lead to this, this whatever you want to call it. I don't call it an obsession, but something close to it.
What was it? It was a camo tape match safe that had a piece of paper in it. So how could that be anything that would get you interested? Dunno. I guess it was knowing there was more hidden stuff to find close by. I figured just a few things would be around and then I discovered a website called http://www.geocaching.com/
It had TONS of caches all over the area, most of which we could get to quickly.

I mention we, because myself and Char are both into this now. Yes, and we have taken the kids to the parks that have caches and let them play while we hunt. I guess you could say it gets us out of the house? LOL

The next thing was figuring out we had to have a GPS unit. Well, not really, but it makes it a lot easier to do the whole caching thing with one. The first few days out caching included a lot of guess work. We found a couple of caches just by good old luck and looking. But we decided quickly we had to have a GPS unit. My parents had a TomTom One XL and we borrowed it. We decided it would do for a few days and let us decide what to get in the meantime. So while we had it I started looking on the net for things that would help us better use the TomTom. Sure enough I found a few things and learned quickly how to use the TomTom to benefit us in our hunts. I found a feature that has actual coordinates like any other GPS unit and since its small enough we could take it out in the field. After 2 days of testing, we decided to purchase our own TomTom One XL and did so. Actually we have the XL-S version and really like it.
http://www.tomtom.com/products/product.php?ID=421&Category=0&Lid=4

So far it works great and fills the role of being both a navigation GPS and a caching GPS. So if your looking at a GPS to fill both roles, I suggest looking at this. However, if you plan on doing more hard core Caching, get a traditional GPS unit!
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The first few days......
They tended to be fun, we could go out and find one or two caches. Sometimes we thought it was far too easy, but then a cache would come along that well, would through us under the bus and leave us wondering if its really there. So never give up, because a few of them we have gone back and found.!