Geocaching with "thepaytons"

Indeed, there was more searching than finding, but it actually did pay off in the end, literally.

As we were touring historic downtown Savannah, we took a couple of breaks to see if we could find something.  We took a few shots at it, but came up empty.

Later that evening, we visited my daughter’s college.  I’d suggested she go caching on her own while she was away this year, but it didn’t happen.  So while we were there, we decided to chase one down, a multi-stage in nearby woods on the college property.  This area has some walking/jogging trails that my daughter was unaware of, so she got introduced to this wonderful area via caching.

The first two stages were business-card-sized laminated paper attached to trees.  As we found them, we punched in the new coordinates and continued on.

On the way, my youngest son saw a hole in a tree that looked like a good hiding place, and even though we weren’t near the coordinates, he took a peek in there anyway.  And what do you know, there was a cache there, but it was another letterbox, similar to one we’d found (again, accidentally) previously.

As we were looking for the third and final stage, my kids were bushwhacking through off the trail towards the coordinates.  My wife and I continued down the trail, and found that it turned toward the general area of target.  And just slightly off the trail, she, who isn’t really into the whole geocaching thing but is very encouraging of the hobby, found a place that seemed like a good hiding place, and got her first find.

We left our signature boondoggle and took a Chick-Fil-A coupon.

It was only good for a specific, local Chick-Fil-A location, and was expired, but we thought we’d give it a try at supper time.  Sure enough, they took it, and I described how we found it to the girl at the register.  I thought perhaps the store manager might know about geocaching, since the coupon would have had to have come from him, but I didn’t get a chance to see him.  Ah well. 

Still, who says geocaching doesn’t pay?