5th of July

This year, with our annual REI rebate, we purchased a GPS unit. I thought geocaching would be a fun thing to do with the kids this summer, and perhaps it would be a good motivation to get outside more often. (Last summer, when I was back working at "that park" I noticed that there were geocaches at a lot of the really cool, secret spots).

It has taken me a while to figure out how it works. But, today was the day. It was tempting to stay at home and clean the house, but "Kit" was insistent that we needed to go for a hike.

First, I got carsick trying to program it on the way up the mountain. Then, we couldn't find the first simple geocache we were attempting to locate, so we went on to the complicated multi-cache. After we ran into a ranger, and even he couldn't help us, I thought we might be doomed, but we finally found the wonderful trail along the ditch and flume.

Kit was frustrated, because we never located a single cache, but I figured the GPS unit did its job-- it helped us locate a trail I never would have found on my own (and the forest service websites haven't been much of a help).

The Boy, indulging in his recently acquired herring-addiction, had brought along 4 cans of tinned fish. He accidentally dropped one into the ditch, and had to go in after it (and a second one he lost trying to catch the first). We apprehended the two cans, but he decided it was so much fun to hike in the ditch, that' s just what he did the rest of the hike. Made for slow going upstream. (I have to wonder why people don't bring tubes and use the ditch as a flume ride, its perfect for it.)

Then he and Lulu stopped for a herring snack (she likes the leftovers). Kit and Dad had to backtrack to make sure that we hadn't missed the clues somehow.

We never did find any of the caches there, but we found some great trails, a really awesome small campground right on the river, and some nice swimming holes.

On the way out, we were able to locate the first geocache we had attempted, so we got an idea of how it is supposed to work. We'll be doing more of this! It had an amazing way of keeping the kids focused on the hike, in anticipation of finding the treasure. Fun!

(I just noticed he's wearing the same shirt on the 4th and 5th. That's the way it is these days. I understand they grow out of it eventually. . .)