Recently the family and I took a vacation to Oregon. During the trip I had the divine privilege of visiting the holy site of the birthplace of Geocaching where I just happened to meet up with the Greek god of Geocaching himself. Who is that you ask? Why it turns out to be Hermes. Apparently there was no god assigned to the Geocache themes of hiding or camouflage so it fell upon him as the god of travelers. Made sense to me as, we all know, Geocaching is 95% about the journey. He was new to the assignment and was in Oregon getting himself up to speed on his new realm of management. He said after some careful consideration he had a few “directives” he wanted to institute, “decrees” if you will. In fact he had this list of ten “commandments” that he asked me to pass along to the rest of you.
#3 SOMEWHERE ELSE!
Hermes asked if I had found any of the following types of caches:
1) On a highway bridge
2) Near a dam
3) Government building
4) Next to a school
5) Military installation
6) At a hospital
7) At an airport
Other than the dam I had to admit I had found caches at all of these places at least once.
“That is disappointing because, as you should already know, they should never have been published because all of those locations are prohibited. I only hope my fellow Geocachers learn to be more selective about their placement because it is only a matter of time before some government or law enforcement official grows tired of hearing of suspicious looking items being uncovered near an elementary school or under a interstate bridge and begins to take steps to restrict our little activity.”
I had to agree that there are always alternative spots to hide a cache at and one does not have to look too hard to avoid any of these places. One of my most uncomfortable searches was near an elementary school playground where some nearby women began to question why I, a fully grown man, was crouching in the bushes and spying on playing children. Of course I wasn’t doing anything of the sort but they weren’t buying my explanation that I was looking for a bison tube in the bushes. And trust me, skulking around the airport or near a police station doesn’t give me any thrills either. Companied with the fact that if the caches were discovered by an unwitting janitor, or a security guard, my hobby might soon become outlawed is reason enough to hide it SOMEWHERE ELSE!