Waking up 10 minutes before the alarm goes off is quite possibly one of the worst things in the world, it could have put Mother Teresa in a cranky mood. I tossed and turned in bed tangled in my covers, unable to find a comfortable position, and I peeked at the clock, 7:50 a.m. I stayed in bed, refusing to give in to this morning’s slap in the face, and listened to roommate no. 1 loudly blow dry her hair while roommate no. 2 clumsily shuffled about the kitchen. The familiar double buzz of my iPhone vibrated under my pillow and I forcibly dragged myself out of bed and checked my texts. A message from my best friend Taylor read, “Let’s go geocaching today after class.”
I could almost hear her squeaky little voice through the phone, as obnoxious as the brightness of my screen. Although I had never heard of geocaching before, I agreed to go knowing Taylor would convince me to try it eventually. Little did I know, later that afternoon, I would be having a blast. “I’m in,” I replied.
The rest of the day slothfully dragged on as I went from class to class unable to concentrate on aggregate supply, the slope of a curve or the volume of a water molecule, because my mind was focused on geocaching. I decided to Google it during my political science class and was instantly captivated as I read its description. Geocaching is like a worldwide treasure hunt providing players with longitude and latitude lines along with hints about a particular “treasure’s” location on the globe. There are more than 1.8 million geocaches around the world, including some in Antarctica and one at the International Space Station. People search for geocaches, which are hidden in public places and appear invisible to those who are not actively looking. Participants are supposed to be enigmatic and sneaky while foraging for such objects and once found, should sign their names on the papers provided in the vessel. Being voted “Most likely to join the CIA” in high school, I was automatically excited about acting mysterious and stealth- like in public and decided to leave class early in order to prepare.
Taylor was finally done with her classes and picked me up around 4 p.m. in her dirty old Honda Civic listening to country music. We got on Interstate 8 and made our way to La Jolla. We parked her car by La Jolla Cove and set out on our quest to find the geocache. Although there are other caches closer to campus, Taylor decided on this one in particular because of its three- star difficulty level and beautiful location. It was an absolutely stunning location. Perfectly manicured green grass spread across the vast park. Children laughed while playing on the playground; couples jogged and walked their dogs; the sound of the ocean splashed onto the shore; and the sun made its slow descent toward the horizon.
Taylor whipped out her iPhone and fired up the geocaching app, which told us we were about half of a mile away from our desired geocache. We began our journey across the park and Taylor read the hint aloud: “low hanging fruit.” We were both confused. She Googled the phrase and we came to the conclusion it represented some sort of metaphor used to imply doing the simplest or easiest task first. At this point, we had no idea what the hint meant, but we knew to keep it in the back of our minds. We got closer to a patch of evergreen trees and the app claimed we were 45 feet from our hidden treasure. My heart started to beat faster and my stomach dropped knowing we were almost there. We arrived at the trees and began searching under bushes, between brush, behind stumps and beneath rocks, but we were unable to find anything of substance. When I looked through the branches of the trees, I noticed an abnormal- looking mushroom and I mentioned its strangeness, but did not suspect anything. After about 30 minutes of thorough searching, frustration kicked in because we were not having any luck. We decided to scavenge the rest of the park and even walked down to the beach toward the water, but every time we left the tract of evergreens, the GPS on Taylor’s phone claimed we were only getting further from our target. We decided to take a break to reexamine our hint, the “low-hanging fruit,” and we finally stumbled across a website mentioning the word “mushroom.” Suddenly, it clicked. We ran back to the evergreen tree where I saw the odd mushroom earlier and when I grabbed the head of the mushroom, it popped off like a top. The mushroom was fake. In reality, it was a container disguised as a mushroom holding knick-knack trinkets like soldier figurines, coins from different countries, Pez dispensers and pieces from a chess set. A note inside the geocache read: “Congratulations! Whether you stumbled upon this by accident or you’ve been searching for hours, you have come across a geocache.”
It continued to explain the concept of geocaching and how it became a worldwide activity expanding to all continents. The letter instructed us to sign and date the log sheet, where many other geocachers previously signed. It also suggested us to take one treasure, but to replace it with something we brought. Taylor rummaged through her purse and found an old movie stub to put in the box, exchanging it for a peso from Mexico. We placed the “lid” back on the mushroom and walked back to the car trying not to show how excited we were about our findings. We could barely contain ourselves—so much for being sneaky—We were giggling like schoolgirls while bystanders gave us puzzled glares. As we walked back to the car, all I could think about was geocaching again in the near future.
Many people are skeptical about geocaching because it seems slightly juvenile, but after trying it once, most people agree it is a great experience. Whether you go spontaneously with a friend or on a planned trip with a group, geocaching provides contenders with an easy way to relive the youthful thrill of a good old-fashioned adventure.
