Searching, in the long forgotten reaches of special drawers, revealed a piece of technology painfully stored when expectations of its use had not been achieved .
Rediscoverying this artifact, surfaced many memories. With a compass, map, and an outfitter's reassurance, Leigh Ann and I wandered the wilderness of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, found trails to vistas in The Great Smokey Mountains that only the locals seem to know, and times we were not lost, just confused.
This global positioning satelite reciever, once more in my hands, whose appeal of leading us out the way we went in was thwarted by needs of national security. Imposed accuracy restrictions did not meet our needs. I can easily get us that far off the track without needing batteries.
Remembering a radio interview about high tech treasure hunting, involving these gadgets and the internet, I started searching for more information. At geocaching.com, it was revealed the accuracy restrictions were lifted. It was possible to be led within 9 feet of destinations and they had over 80000 suggestions. Finding one close by, I proceeded to sell my understanding of this redemptive use of our 6 year old gadget to Leigh Ann. Minutes later we were parking the Jeep outside a local park only seconds from where the gadget had led us and looking at a rock wall lined with pine trees. Then decoding an encrypted hint (Of course! treasure hunting has to have cryptic clues) we were assured of being in the right place and no longer needed to fear our gadget friend. The cache was ferreted out of its hiding place. In the tradition of those preceding us we traded items of treasure, made our entry into the log, and placed the cache back where found.
We now have 400+ more memories.
[This entry was edited by Geode Hunters and The Little Dog Tue on Monday, August 09, 2004 at 4:25:50 PM.]