Day Fifteen

So that's another one off the list! Today we accomplished Item #21 (learn to Geocache with the kids). We registered at www.geocaching.com months ago, after my daughter read a Boxcar Children book that used the hobby as a key plot point. It seemed simple enough, and it is: The website lists Geocaches in or near your zip code and the exact coordinates of the cache location, which you then use a GPS to locate. Once you've found it, you sign and date the logbook in the cache, replace it as it was, and then go home and log your visit on the website. I'd heard from friends that it's a wonderful way to get some fresh air, get the kids off the couch, and see parts of your city that you never even knew were there.

The reason it took us half a year to get started was the discovery that it cost somewhere around $200 to get a GPS system that would serve the purpose, and I forgot about it until I made this list. This weekend it just seemed like a good time to give it a try, and it turned out that a friend had one he was willing to lend us for a few weeks. The first one was less than a mile away, and we very nearly missed it. We parked by the side of the road and wandered over the uneven ground at the edge of the field, reading aloud the numbers on the GPS and triple-checking against the coordinates we'd gotten from the website. When the numbers finally matched up, I found myself nose to pole with a deer crossing sign. (Those are a lot bigger than they look from the road, oddly enough.) I said to my daughter, "Well, if this is right, I'm standing right on it."

After ten minutes of searching, it turned out I very nearly had been. It turned out to be a thin strip of paper (the cache log) sealed in a zip-lock plastic bag, rolled up and stuffed into a hole drilled in the bottom of a rock at the base of the sign. Mary found it and was absolutely ecstatic. We signed and dated the log, returned everything to the way it had been, and eagerly drove to our next location, the Joryville County Park.

We had a lovely walk on a dirt trail through the woods. Then we realized we'd gone the wrong way, and had a lovely walk back. Then we had a lovely walk up the other trail, which became somewhat less lovely the farther we had to climb. Then we had a lovely walk around the woods at the top of the hill. Then we walked through spiderwebs, brambles, and something that leaves tiny stickery burrs on socks. Then we spent forty-five minutes stumbling through a dark grove of trees, up to our knees in scratchy undergrowth, trying unsuccessfully to find a cache that (as we later found out) was a good eighty feet away from the coordinates listed on the website. Disappointed, we trudged back down the hill and drove home.

In the car on the way back, I resisted the urge to pick burrs out of my socks while driving, and thought about the way our minds pick and choose their memories on a day like this. If we had found the cache, we would have gone home triumphant, talking excitedly of the extraordinary beauty of the woods, the thrill of the hunt, the horse we heard on a nearby trail, and the warmth of the sunshine. As it was, all I could think of was how very long that hill seemed to go on, how my son's complaints grated on my ears, and how frustrating the fruitless hunt had been. It seemed like the failure made the bits of grass that had migrated into my clothes itch worse.

We had the same experience, regardless of the last five minutes of it, and as it turned out, there was really no way we could have found it with the incorrect coordinates listed on the site. Even without finding the cache, we had still seen a sunlit meadow, breathed the fresh clean air, explored the green woods, and stopped to admire the tiniest spider (living on a web so fragile as to be nearly invisible) we had ever seen. We still would have been scratched and dirty, even if we'd found it. I tried to adjust my emotions with that knowledge in mind, but I couldn't quite pull it off, even though I recognized that it would be a healthy mental habit to cultivate.

I'm not quite to the level of Zen mastery required to simply enjoy the good memories and let go of the frustration, so I'll take a page from my dad's book of engaging in outdoor activities. I will go back there, soon, with the correct coordinates in hand, and I will Conquer The Hike, even if I come home with grass down my socks and spiders in my hair. A positive mental attitude is a great life goal, but for now I think I'll just take my inherent stubbornness and run with it.