We’ve been talking about trying geocaching for a while.  Geocaching is a GPS-aided search for small containers hidden put there by other people for you to find.  It is basically a crowdsourced outdoor exploration around town, in your neighborhood, or further out in nature.  If this doesn’t make sense, see wikipedia.

Anyways, we didn’t know how to get started with geocaching.  Kit saw that McKinney Falls State Park was offering a Geocaching 101 class, so we signed up.  This would give us reason to check out this state park on the Southeast edge of town.  A park ranger met us at the park and literally walked us through geocaching.  She had four caches hidden and ready and gave us GPS units.  She found the first one with us, and then set us out to find the others.

It was great wandering around the park looking for hidden containers.  The girls enjoyed it, although they got tired by cache #4.  We got to see Onion Creek, site of some serious floods a couple of years ago, and the upper McKinney Falls, which was flowing rapidly due to recent heavy rains.  The open swim area had turned into a whitewater gusher.  Kit and Claire were afraid of one of us falling in and drowning, but we kept our distance.

Anyways, here are some pics.