Introducing new cachers to the hobby.

Monday, February 8, 2010

This last Sunday we took our friends out geocaching, it was their first time going after hearing us talk about it so many times.  They always said they wanted to join us, and finally this weekend the stars aligned and we were able to make it happen.   With all of the hype we gave the hobby, I knew we would have to really do a great job introducing the hobby to them, and I think we did exactly that.  This was going to be a challenge for a couple of reasons.  First off, it is winter in Wisconsin, and there is a pretty good amount of snow on the ground.  Second off, they were bringing their one year old daughter and their three year old son. 
The best part of the whole equation is… all you have to tell a three year old boy(Bob) to get him motivated is that he is going to find treasure!  He was on-board, and we could not leave fast enough.   As for the one year old daughter(Kristin)…well that’s easy too, just make sure she is warm and not hungry and she is good to go as well.  The age of the children is not the issue, it is the burden they put on mom and dad.   The burden comes from having to carry Kristen wherever we needed to go,  and making sure Bob did not lose his focus, as 3 year olds have very short attention spans. 

The challenge for us was choosing caches that were not too much of a hike, not too much of a challenge, or in an area too public where we would draw allot of attention to our activities.  What sounds like the perfect cache type to you????? You guessed it…WSQ caches!!! That’s right, cemetery hides. 
It worked perfectly…we picked out ten caches,  six of which were cemeteries and the other four were ones we had also had done, and knew would work perfectly.    We even threw in a few puzzles just to expose them to as many aspects of the hobby as we could.  We even picked up a T.B. so they could see how that works as well. 

The real enjoyment of the day was watching Bob run around ground zero looking for the “treasure”.  We told him that if he took something he had to leave some treasure for the next person, he was surprisingly willing to trade items, instead of keeping it all for himself.   A great life lesson learned, and he had a smile on his face the whole time. 

All in all, the whole family really had a good time, and I know we will definitely have partners to come along on many of our caching excursions.  I do know for a fact that they will enjoy it more in the warmer months  when they can take the kids along without bundling them up and needing a sled to go anywhere of any distance.     The fact that they enjoyed themselves so much on the few cemetery caches that we did, it shows how much potential this hobby offers them as a family.  They can only go up from here, and we look forward to joining them. 

To sum it up, we were very happy to have introduced a family to a new pastime that they can all enjoy as a family.  A hobby that brings the whole family together, while at the same time introduces them to some great areas that they normally would have never seen…that’s what it’s all about.  Glad we were able to bring it to them.

This was our first time exposing complete rookies to geocaching, and we hope to be able to do it many, many times.  I am not sure who had more fun, us, or them!  Who cares, we all had a great day, and hopefully many more to come.  Stay tuned, and watch out for logs by the “TrollPatrol”, I love their caching name, which was inspired by Bob on their very first cache.  As he was crossing a small footbridge, I told him to watch out for the troll, and that’s when they became the TrollPatrol.