Geocaching In The Rain

We have a new toy.  My parents gave us a GPS for our birthdays.  In between work and chores, Gene has been getting it charged, reading the instruction manual, and programming a few “favorite” places.  Today, we took it out for a test drive.

He found it!

For some time now, Gene has been talking about taking up a new hobby—geocaching.  Now that we have a GPS, he can pursue this new activity.  What better first run with the GPS than a first geocache?  He was able to find several on the geocaching website,  HYPERLINK "http://www.geocaching.com" www.geocaching.com.   He chose 5 which were located fairly close together and printed out the clues.  With clues in hand and our new GPS mounted on the windshield, we were off on a new adventure.  The GPS worked great.  Now Mr. Curp has someone else to tell him how to drive besides me and  I’m happy to share that responsibility.

James Buchanan House

Perhaps the kitchen behind the main house

Our first geocache was at the home of James Buchanan who built this 2-story log house about 1807.  The single story addition was built some years later to accommodate his growing family of 16 children.  Looks like it would have still been pretty crowded to me.  This was an easy geocache to find and only took us a few minutes.  After looking around this old homestead we went on to the next geocache.

The back door

Signing his first geocache

This one was at the American Legion in Donelson, a mere half mile from the Buchanan house.  It, however, was more difficult and, though we spent some time with the clues and looking in every nook of the tank, it still eluded us.  The raindrops were heavier and more frequent so we finally gave that one up for the time being.  Our third stop sounded like it would be very easy to find, and it was, but by that time it was really raining so we opted for coffee at McDonalds instead of continuing our searches.

Reading the clues

For our first experience with geocaching, we liked it even in the rain.  One stop we made was in the parking lot of a small strip mall.  I was especially uncomfortable roaming around the parking lot obviously looking for something.  It seemed like the kind of suspicious activity someone might call the police for.  We didn’t stay long there, but it did teach us that we want to stick to caches that are not in commercial areas.

It looks like the rain has set in for the rest of the day.   This seems to be a good time for a pot of soup for dinner. Oh, and cornbread.