Geocaching on Thanksgiving with Family

My wife, ddkds, the kids and I traveled to Van Buren today to spend Thanksgiving Day with the family.

We had filled up on the usual holiday foods and was sitting around beginning to nod off. I had to get outside and get some fresh air to keep me awake. I needed to be able to sleep tonight so I could get up early for some Christmas shopping on Black Friday.

We invited ddkds' brother, nephew and his wife along to go find a few caches. Of course the first thing they did was ask what geocaching was.

We loaded up in the cachemobile and headed out. I began to explain to them what geocaching was all about on our way to our first cache.

We first went to a micro cache, actually it turned out to be a nano cache located in the old downtown part of Van Buren. The cache was W and C's Tiny Cache (GCRVRY). We had no problems finding the nano cache and the three family members that tagged along with us were amazed at the small size of the log sheet. We signed the log, and decided to go ahead and log them finding it with a handle of 3-Stooges. I just thought it up at the spur of the moment since there were three of them and I could put one handle on the small log for all of them.

Next we went to try and find Main St. Memorial (GCNFHA). This cache is located in a memorial park. I even remember when this tragic accident occurred. I also remember how at that time it even drew some national media coverage.

We looked around a short time for this cache when two men came out of a door of the upstairs portion of a building next door. They saw me with my GPSr and said "It's not there". They went on to explain that several people had been there to try and find it but it was gone. We just gave up, thinking they knew where the cache was suppose to be and knew that it was actually gone. When I went to log a DNF I noticed that someone had found the cacher earlier in the day! I then realized that the cache was probably still there and we had given up too soon based on some comments from two people who we thought knew what they were talking about.

Coming up empty handed didn't damper the excitement of our family members that were tagging along.

We then headed for the nearby virtual cache Train Trex #7 (Van Buren Depot) (GC607B). I then explained to our tag a longs what a virtual cache was. We found what we needed to be able to claim a find and then had to leave and drop off ddkds' brother to head out to pick up his kids.

My wife's nephew and his wife were not ready to stop caching so we thought we would head for a couple of caches that were located in Springhill Park.

We first attempted to find the Golden Eagle Trail (GCXMXG) cache located on a bike trail in the park. We were unable to find the cache and also noticed a recent log that was also a DNF. We did enjoy the much needed walk on the trail to work off some of that Thanksgiving Day food.

We then headed to the other side of the park to find the Springhill West (GCXMXB) cache. We had no problems find the cache and because of a different cache size that what we had already found I was able to explain the different cache sizes used in geocacing to my wife's nephew and his wife.

We were going to head back to the house, but my wife's nephew's wife had taken notice when we had mentioned earlier that there was a cache located in a cemetery near the old downtown part of Van Buren and wanted to go there and find the cache. We then made the drive back over to that area and went to find Steven's First Cache (GCNPZ0). I gave my GPSr to my wife's nephew's wife and let her lead us toward the cache.

On our way there we took note of an interesting grave with a plaque that said that legend had it that the grave was one of DeSoto's men. I took a photo of it and it is published with this post. This also allowed me to share with the others how geocaching has caused us to go places we would never have gone to if it had not been for geocaching and how we always run across interesting things while geocaching.

We then continued to the cache and found it pretty quick. I pulled two log sheets out of the cache container and showed them to ddkds' nephew and wife. We noticed that someone had already been there the same day! They were amazed at that and at the number of logs showing those who had found the cache in the past.

We left talking about geocaching all the way back to the house. It was a great day of caching with family and sharing our love of the sport with them.

They had never heard of geoaching before today and now they are talking about getting a GPSr to go caching themselves.

Another great geocaching adventure!