Yesterday at work I felt like a caged bird. My co-worker actually caught me "walking" or wandering around my 2x2 cubicle. I was going stir crazy. I had cabin fever. I normally don't feel an iota of a bit near this on a daily basis, but yesterday it was overwhelming. I wanted to get out of the house after work and not to run errands. I wanted to feel free. So I decided it was the day to finally figure out geocaching. I had done it years and years ago but went under the direction of another person. So I needed to learn to do it on my own. Plus I had different dynamics now, mainly my little minions. They aren't the most accustomed to wilderness wanderings. In the past with much much less natural encounters I have nearly lost it altogather dealing with the amount of complaining accompanying wilderness foray's. Setting out I was nervous.
Ella was all up for treasure hunting. She held the phone and tracked the coordinates in relation to where we were. The first one I had to toss in the towel. I am not afraid of much but after hearing again and again about Florida cotton mouth snakes and being kneed deep in brush and literally laying aside small trees to get to the location of the stash. I gave up . The quarter mile walk to where it was (or wasn't) was exactly what I needed. We were away. Could have been a million miles from fingerprints on windows, floors days over due of a sweep and laundry done and waiting to be put away for half a week now. We were treasure hunting.
The next nearest stash was at a park we go to almost daily. Econ park. My kids call it blue park because of the blue sun banner that covers the play ground from the harsh heat. The property also houses a senior center and our missions sent us behind the building which felt a little creepy but we did it. This time we were in a little forest, looking and looking for what I couldn't find yet again. I was beginning to feel like this was a bad idea. I asked Ella if she wanted to give up and she said "No way" so we went back in the bush and I found it. Inside there was a toy dinosaur, army men, earrings, a rock....it was just like finding treasure. It was so cool to spill out that booty on the forest floor like we were all alone in the world. We took the little dinosaur and Ezra could not be convinced to take army men instead of the smiley face rock he apparently had to have. He held onto that darned rock all night long even refusing other booty at another location because he apparently was satisfied with his rock.
We were on a high from finally finding some loot so we found one more site to go to within the park. Once I knew what I was looking for I found the second box very easily. The picture above was Ella after finding the stash at second site. It was getting dark, but we dumped out the little jar. Inside there was another dinosaur, a McDonals Hello kitty toy, some sort of transformrs ball doll for girls, some coupons. We took the transformers thing and left a giant plastic spider which I quite crewely invision someone mistaking as real. I left a note in the log book online that we had left a Halloween suprise.
We got outdoors, and encountered nature and we all survived. Ella was delighted. During the last treasure hunt Ella and I were a little more into it than Ezra. I realized at once that Ezra was eerily quiet. I turned to see him sprawling out in some tall grass like a little lion cub and loving it. I felt like a kid realizing that this place we play in every day held secrets. They were around us all along. Now I wonder where else hold secret treasures. We have been bitten by the geocaching bug!
No comments:
Post a Comment