Sunday, January 2, 2011

Geocaching!

The big news this weekend is that Samuel found his first geocache. I read about geocaching at NYTimes.com about a month ago and shared the article with Samuel. Ever since then he's been anxious to try it.

You use a GPS app on your smartphone or iPad to locate hidden "caches" around the city (or world, wherever you happen to be). You start by going to geocaching.com and finding the coordinates to a geocache near you. We opted to search for one in Central Park near 100th Street. Then you simply follow the GPS coordinates until you're within a 30-foot radius, and start looking. There are one or two helpful clues for each one.

The "cache" is simply a small box containing a piece of paper with the names and dates of everyone who had previously found it, along with a small trinket. You're allowed to take the trinket if you replace it with something of similar value, which we did--a tiny ninja figure donated by Ethan.

So there you have it...yet another time-wasting location-based social media app designed to further isolate old people from society. Woo-hoo! Thumbs up!



1 comment:

  1. My sons would totally love this! I've never heard of it before but we are likely to get very involved. Thanks for the info!

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