Geocaching By Daniel Gorbach April 12, 2002

Geocaching is a sport. Geocaching is like hide and go seek. You are the seeker and the geocache is what you find. Sometimes geocaches are in trees, under leaves, in stumps, under bridges, under water, or in caves.

The Global Positioning System is what I am going to tell you now. Radio signals travel as fast as the speed of light. The satellites are 11,000 miles up in the sky. There have to be three or more satellites connecting with you GPSR. If you are moving with your GPSR somewhere in a park where the trees are, your GPSR will go blank because of the trees. The radio signals actually go everywhere in the world. They go to Africa, Brazil, America and Russia--wherever!

Geocaching was created as a hobby and a sport. The prefix “geo” means, "Earth", and a cache is a safe place for hiding something. There are thousands of geocaches all over the world. They are hidden on public land or on private land. Some geocaches are hidden well, so people who aren’t geocaching can't find them. Geocachers put stuff into the container and find the place to put the container. Then they post the coordinates on the Goecaching.com web site. The stuff to put into the cache might cost two dollars or less. The general rule is if you take an item, you put an item in its place. All geocaches need to have a logbook in them for recording names and dates.

My class geocaches and so do I. We do it because it is fun. You could do it for fun to if you wanted to. If you don't have a GPSR you could get a GPSR at Amazon.com or R.E.I.

You usually try to go geocaching on a sunny day. One time there was this wet hill and we were looking for a cache and the way to get to the hill was a muddy road. I slipped on it five times and I got really dirty. So be careful!

It is an honor to be the first one to find a geocache. This stuff has to be in a geocache: a pencil, a notebook, and items to trade. The way to find a geocache is by satellites. The satellites give you coordinates if you have a GPSR. Geocaching.com tells you what geocaches are new. It only tells you the area where the cache is hidden. The coordinates could go anywhere in the world. Even in the ocean. Even some coordinates could go in the Bermuda triangle! There are 24 satellites in use usually. But there are extras for emergencies.

One time we went to Metal Bugs Mystery. It took a long time to find the geocache. Once we went past it then we came back. We eventually found it under branch. There was this tree and we climbed on it and jumped off. We all signed the logbook. I signed it second to last

We did an exchange with a different school. We had to drive north to be at the park. At first we parked at the wrong place. But then we had to circle around and we parked at the park's parking lot. There was some mud. It took us a long time to find the geocache. We found the geocache falling apart. It was open on the hill where they placed it. It mostly fell down the hill but not all the way. We were looking for a spot to place their geocache and we did. It's on the top of the hill that they placed it on. The way I feel about geocaching is great. I’ve never felt like this before. It feels better than before.