Monday, August 15, 2011

Abby and I go geocaching

I've been looking forward to trying to find a cache for months now. I was going to go in May but first it snowed, then it rained and then things just got busy... Today I decided that we were going to go no matter what. And then I realized why I hadn't gone before now as it got later and later in the day. When my little girl decided she was not going to nap this afternoon I seized the opportunity.
I wanted to try what looked like a nice easy cache for our first one and went to the picnic area at Net Lake. Believe it or not I have never stopped there before. I was surprised by how busy it was and I quickly wished I'd brought a little picnic for us to enjoy. We always went on picnics with my family and I have lots of great memories of enjoying the outdoors and family and great food. As Abby gets bigger I'm sure we'll head back here for a picnic or two.
I got out our little yellow Garmin Gecko 101 and Abby was immediately interested. Yellow is her favourite colour and there were buttons to push! As we followed the arrow to the cache I
discovered that the pipeline passes through the area and there is a well used ATV trail on it. We followed the trail until the GPS showed us that the cache was off the trail. Now this was something I was not prepared for. Carrying an eight month old baby and wandering through the bush was not an easy task. I was worried about the branches hitting her face so I was moving slowly. Unfortunately, our little Gecko needs movement in order to work properly and in the bush it just didn't go very well. Judging from the comments on Geocaching.com I spent a bit too
much time in the bush and overshot it. I know I was close. I could see where others had also searched for this cache. I probably almost stepped on it.
We did have a lot of fun. Abby discovered leaves
and needles and tree trunks and ferns. We also saw a family of almost grown grouse. I'm sure they thought we were chasing them as we went round and round looking for the cache. We had to give up because it was supper time and almost bedtime for a little girl who hadn't wanted to nap. Maybe when Abby is a bit bigger we'll try this one again when she can help me search for the cache and I don't have to worry about her so much. I can see this being a lot of fun with our little girl in a couple of years!

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