It Was Just Under That Rock. Always Was. Traditional Cache

“Muggle Alert: Our Cover Is Blown”

for the brave and baffled geocacher

We left the van running,
threw snacks into fanny packs
like we were on some sort of survival show
but for suburban parents
with a questionable grip on Google Maps.

The GPS said “200 metres that way,”
which obviously meant
straight into a mosquito dimension.

We tromped through dandelions
like they owed us money,
past a squirrel giving side-eye
(that squirrel knows where the cache is,
and he’s not telling).

Traditional Cache? Too basic.
We needed adventure.
We picked a Mystery Cache
with a title like "ChronoCode Omega: The Final Cabbage."

It required us to:

• solve a cipher using moon phases and Morse code,

• decode a clue written in Klingon,

• and remember what we did in 2007.
  (No one remembers 2007.)

Our youngest threw a rock and yelled,
“I FOUND IT!”
(He didn’t.)
The eldest updated her will on Snapchat.

Eventually, we gave up.
Logged “DNF” with the solemnity of a lost sea voyage.
Treated ourselves to gas station slushies
as consolation.

Two weeks later, we tried a Multi-Cache.
The first stage was a plaque
with numbers weathered off by the Ice Age.
We guessed. We guessed wrong.
We ended up three kilometers west
at a swamp with attitude
and a sign that said
“You are off course.”
(So is my life, Karen.)

But we found Stage 2!
It was a stick that didn’t look like a stick
but was actually…
just a stick.

Stage 3 was gone.
Stage 4 might have been inside a crow.

We decided to go back to basics:
a nice Traditional.
Under a log.
In a friendly park.
We cracked it open and inside—

✨ one googly eye
✨ two melted crayons
✨ a friendship bracelet made of dental floss
✨ a sticky note that said “Don’t trust the mushrooms”

We loved it.

We logged our find with hearts and smiley faces.
Read old logs from 2009.
Someone had written:
“Found this with my boyfriend. He’s now my husband 💍💙.”
Someone else replied:
“Same! Except I lost the boyfriend, kept the coordinates.”

We added our own:
“First cache with the whole crew. No one cried. Much.”

And as we zipped the logbook back inside its baggie,
we heard a little voice say,
“Can we do another one?”

And just like that—
we were in love again.
With the trail.
With the game.
With the micro that made us laugh.
With the strange, brilliant world
of Tupperware in trees
and GPS-powered joy.

🧭 Happy 25 years, Geocaching.
Thanks for the logbooks.
The memories.
And the eye-rolls from our teens.
We’ll keep seeking
whatever you hide next.

—👟💚 The Slightly Lost Family