Our First Post - Our First First Find!

Let's begin at the beginning. I've heard it's a very good place to start.

Geocaching is an outdoor activity that uses modern technology to create treasure hunts. A box with trinkets and a log book of some sort is hidden, and the longitude and latitude are recorded. The cache is then logged by the hider at www.geocaching.com, which is online headquarters for the game.

People who wish to seek a cache use www.geocaching.com to search for one in the area they want to visit. They then take the coordinates for the cache and enter them into a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) receiver. The GPS then guides them to the location of the box. The seeker logs their visit in the log book, and will usually record the visit in their personal log book, too. They may bring along trinkets that they can exchange for one in the box.

When they get back home, they visit the geocaching website and log their visit on the page for the cache. Some share photos they took while there as well.

There's a low-tech version of the game as well. Letterboxing (www.letterboxing.org) has been around since Victorian times, especially in Great Britain. Letterboxing is similar to geocaching, except that the location of the box is revealed not by a GPS unit receiving a satellite signal, but by written clues and riddles that one must solve correctly. A letterbox will contain a log book and a rubber stamp unique to that box. Letterboxers will carry with them a log book and a rubber stamp that serves as their signature. When you find a letterbox, you stamp your book with their stamp, and vice-versa.

Gryphon and I got started geocaching after an article in a local newspaper called our attention to the sport. The Milford Cabinet did a good job of stirring up our excitement about it. We already owned a GPS unit, so we were ready to go.

Weather fought us for a while as we transitioned from late spring into summer, but we have now recorded 5 finds at www.geocaching.com. And we've already achieved one of the milestones that every geocacher hopes for - we were the very first people to find a newly-hidden box!

See, the reporter at the Milford Cabinet who wrote the geocaching article thought it would be fun to hide a box for the newspaper. Not having the technology for a geocache, he chose to create a letterbox instead. His 14-year old cousin wrote an excellent set of clues, and the printing museum at The Cabinet donated a wood block "b" that is an antique piece of headline press type to serve as the "rubber" stamp.

A brief mention in the newspaper invited people to visit the Cabinet's webpage for the clues necessary to find the box. (Go to www.cabinet.com and scroll down the page if you'll be in the Milford area and would like to try this for yourself.) I saw the item, visited the site, and the following Sunday Gryphon and I were off to find the treasure!

We were surprised and delighted when we located it to find that we were the first to locate the letterbox! The reporter had included a business card with his e-mail address, so we dropped him a note to let him know, and to thank him for hiding the box. If you visit the clue at the website, you'll find an item announcing us as "first finders" right below the riddle.

And so, briefly (sort of) that's how it all began. We've been to the top of Pack Monadnock, along the Contoocook River Trail in Hillsboro, and visited a huge collection of antique trucks, as well as taken some simple hikes through beautiful trails, all in the name of geocaching.

We feel as though being the first to find the letterbox hidden by the newspaper that started it all is a sign that we're doing something we BELONG doing. We find ourselves always eager for another opportunity to seek a geocache, and we're even beginning to work on ideas for places to hide one.

Keep a watch on this page, andI'll tell you the tales. I promise!