Geocacher or Muggle – Which are You?

Geocacher ~ Person who plays the worldwide game of hide and seek with a GPS (Global Positioning System) device.

Muggle~ A non-geocacher.  Based on “Muggle” from the Harry Potter series, which is a non-magical person.  Usually this term is used after a non-geocacher looks puzzled after befriending a geocacher searching for a cache, or when a non-geocacher accidentally finds a cache.

So which are you?  A geocacher or a muggle?

I’ve written here before about the outdoor activity of geocaching where participants hunt down treasure with their GPS.  People from around the world participate in this game and in doing so have lots of fun. Geocaches are hidden everywhere imaginable and often lead the geocacher to a nifty out of the way place they wouldn’t have discovered otherwise.  Ever since we started playing this game of hide and seek about a year ago, we’ve been doing the looking.  E has been wanting to do the hiding for awhile and we finally got around to that a couple of weekends ago.  Here’s her account of hiding the cache called “Magic Treehouse”.

“I had been wanting to hide our own cache. There were protests saying that we didn’t have a spot so my sister and I started planning. First of all, we had to think of a place.

Last spring, I was shown the ruins of an old tree house in Lawrence Park, one of Kalispell‘s 20+ city parks. It was decided that the ruins of the treehouse would be a good place to hide a geocache and that the ideal name for the cache should be “Magic Treehouse.”

A view of Lawrence Park

Now that I had a place and a name, I figured there should be no more excuses…..except for the one Mom came up with about families not wanting to go to our cache since it was up a steep hill. I really wasn’t concerned about that, so, when we were out doing a little shopping, it was suggested that we check out the site for our geocache.

We drove to the park, and my sister and I led the way toward the hill. My memory was not very clear about the exact place of the treehouse, but I knew the general direction. The slope was slippery, and I had to make my way up in flats. My sister began to complain, saying that it was too hard. I have always found the climb much easier than she, as I like steep inclines. She also became fussy because she was holding onto thorny branches. Just grab something else!


We came across a lean to which apparently had been a  hobo camp.  Because it was abandoned, we considered hiding the geocache there, but it was too easy to get to. Anyway, I wanted to go to the real place. I was sure that I would be able to find it.

An abandoned hobo camp.
I led the complaining family higher into the woods, nearing the fence which separated us from the Buffalo Hill Golf Club. I knew it was high up by the fence. There it was! A leaning giant of a tree was standing tall. There, high in its branches was a tree house. I searched for a place for the cache. A little cave in the roots would make an obvious but good hiding place.
This tree is humongous!
 As we scouted the area, Dad noticed a hummingbird flying around.  Realizing that he had scared it out of its nest, he waited for us to quiet down and hoped the bird would come back. We rushed over and watched what looked like lint in the pine branches. The hummingbird came back, and settled down into its nest. I had never seen a hummingbird in a nest before.  It was pretty interesting.
I had never seen a nesting hummingbird before, have you?
Everyone agreed on hiding a geocache, so we picked up a few groceries, and headed to Wal-Mart. There we bought a clear lock n’ lock container, which was perfect for a geocache. We then headed over to the Dollar Tree and bought a few things to fill the cache, making it ready for the first finder.
Geocache loot from the Dollar Store
We went home and printed out an “official geocache” label, and found out what kind of form we would have to fill out to report the new cache.

It was time to return, and place the geocache. We found out the coordinates, and placed the cache, hiding it with a little bark. When we were hiding it, a golf ball flew over the fence that could have hit us. This inspired the hint to searchers “Watch out for flying golf balls!”
E before heading into the woods to hide the cache.

   

We reported the geocache and waited for the official approval. Geocachers are now finding it and it’s a lot of fun to hear about it when they do!”

You never know what you will find even when you are the one doing the hiding.  The nesting hummingbird was the little treasure of the day.

Till next time,
Marlene

Evelyn, thanks for reminding us about the movie Tombstone!  It was great!

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