Team Edwards here, reporting on a great way to spend a day with your family, and it's free and it's EVERYWHERE! Geocaching is a treasure hunt that is being played all over the world. There are currently 1,283,905 active caches and 4-5 millions people searching. They are in your community, I promise.
So, what is a cache? It's a hidden treasure that someone has made, and tagged with GPS coordinates. It will come with a notepad, pen or pencil, so you can log in and take a trinket. The only rule is, if you take something, you must leave something in return.
High Water Trail is a Cache that we made years ago. We filled a Tupperware container with really cool stuff. (Bracelets for kids, a few McDonald toys, band aids, batteries, compass, shoelaces..sunglasses...you get the idea) 
Then we put a Travel bug in there. TRAVEL BUG??? What's that!? 
Travelbug: A Travel bug is an item you put in a cache with instructions on where you want it to go and what you want it to do when it gets there. As you pick up a treasure, you find the Travel bug, read their directions and if you choose to help them along, you take them and log into the computer that you have them. (they will have a dogtag on them with a serial #-once logged into the computer, you are given much more information on their story). Let's say you know you are flying to Tennessee and your Travel bug wants to get to Florida. You would take them to Tennessee with you and do a cache in Tennessee and drop them off for someone else to pick up. I had one Travel bug leave Tennessee and end up in Chelsea Michigan at my sister's Restaurant, asking to fill out a job application. It was a little Barbie doll and the person who ended up with her, brought her in the restaurant, asked for Karen or Sean (owners) and said she wanted to fill out a job application. Mission accomplished, My sister bought the deliverer a pizza!
My Travel bug "Hawkeyes" was in a race to go to 6 Big Ten football games and have his picture taken at each one and upload on geocache site. He was in a race against all the other "Big Ten" travel bugs. This bug has traveled to date, 7253 miles and is currently in Sacramento California. (started in Tennessee).
If you go to the Geocaching.comsite and put in your zip code, you will be surprised at how many treasures there are in your area. And it's FREE. A fabulous outing to do with children, or adults. When ever we go on vacation, we pull up all the caches in the area and go treasure hunting!
Let me know if you have done this, or if you went and pulled up your area. What did you discover???
Have a BLAST!
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