While camping in the desert in Quartzsite, AZ last week, we decided to try our hand at Geocaching. It is a popular sport that used to require a dedicated handheld GPS unit, but now there are several apps that you can use to identify the location of small “caches” (often a film canister or pill bottle) that have been placed in out of the way places. You use GPS coordinates provided and your smartphone to find where the caches are located. Then, when you find one, you get to add your name to the log of people who have successfully found the cache. For some larger caches, there are small tokens or treasures that you will find and you can leave a new treasure for someone else to find.
We used an app called Geocaching that David downloaded to his iPhone – using just the free version – and were able to see that there were four small caches rated easy to find within a two-mile radius of where we were camped. We headed out with our friends Lisa and Jason Reich to find the treasures and were successful in locating all four that we were looking for.
It was a fun adventure and it was satisfying to have found all the ones we set out to look for. We entered our names on the log and placed the caches back for others to find. Next time we might venture out to find more challenging ones, but maybe not on a hot day in the dessert.
