Today we decided to try out "geocaching" as a family. For those of you who don't know what that is, I will explain. Basically, it is hiking on a glorified treasure hunt. There is a national "Geocache" website that you can go on and look at the area you live in based on GPS coordinates. Other people have gone out hiking and buried their own little treasures in small boxes ( you never know what you may find) but after they hide the box somewhere in the woods, they go home and enter the GPS coordinates on the computer of where they hid their box. Then, you can take your GPS out and hike exactly to where their box is buried. When you recover the "hidden treasure", you bring along a "treasure" of your own to hide in the box for the next person to find. Of course kids love treasure hunts, so they complain less about hiking because of the prize at the end. :)
Our girls picked out their treasure and we brought the camera and started on our way. About a mile into the hike I noticed a large black something standing perfectly still about 200 yards on the trail in front of us. It was perfectly still but didn't look like a stump. I said to Marc :"Hey, does that look like a bear?" Marc said " Oh, I am sure it is a tree", and keeps walking. I am thinking " Yah right, I don't think that is a tree!" And then the tree started moving! I yelled "It's a bear!" Maddie turned and ran in the other direction as fast as I have ever seen her run and Marc pulled out his pistol pretty quickly (I am glad we had it). After he yelled at the bear, it decided to turn around and head the other direction. We decided to turn around and not keep going in case it was a mama with cubs. All this to say, we were only about 500-600 yards from reaching our geocache. Bummer! Now we have to go back and see if we have better luck next time! The girls were a little freaked but did think it was cool to see one in the wild.
Needless to say, Marc will have his gun along when we hike from now on. :)
I got a couple pictures of the girls in the lupine that was all along the trail, it 
was beautiful!
was beautiful!
5 comments:
Good eye!!! Crazy close too! :)
I missed an important element from the story - how was it decided that a gun should accompany the geocaching trip? That was the best part of the story for me.
I can just imagine it :) I think your family token treasure should be a BLACK BEAR :) Or a stamp of a BEAR :) We love and miss you guys!! I've always wanted to do geocaching with our family :)
What a fun adventure- now that it is over! How cool to see a bear so close and still be totally safe- only you- "Bear magnet"!!!
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