I’d known about the Geocaching hobby/sport for a couple of years, but didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on a handheld GPS to do the searching.  When I got a Blackberry, I found that there was free software for it (BlackStar) that could point you in the direction of a particular latitude and longitude, which you need to find these caches.  I got my family away from the computer games for a bit (yeah, including me) and got us in the outdoors for a really fun hobby.

“Geocaching” has been described as using multi-million dollar satellites to find Tupperware.  The main web site for this hobby/sport, Geocaching.com, describes it this way:

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment.

People hide them, give a lattitude & longitude, perhaps clue or two, and off you go, with either a hand-held GPS or free smartphone software.  We’re new to this, and it’s been a load of fun right from the start.

On the Geocaching.com website, our handle is “thepaytons“.  We started this adventure on December 27th, 2009, and this blog will chronicle our adventures in geocaching.