Chris & I are itching to do some good geocaching, but it seems that mother nature is making that darn near impossible. The past 2 weeks have been really crappy weather, with the exception of 1 day and we both worked and didn't have the time to go.

Rain, rain..GO AWAY!!!!

I'd rather have snow, because at least I can geocache in snow. I can't geocache in rainy, freezing temps in grass mud. (Well I could, but that'd be highly unpleasant!)

As soon as the weather is geocache'able (yep..totally just made that word up..), and work permits, we'll get out & hit up those caches!! :D

There's a cache that's just over a mile away from us that we've been wanting to do for a few weeks now. It involves climbing a huge tree. This tree, to be exact:

(Pic from listing on Geocaching.com)

Chris is the climber in this family, I don't do heights. ;) lol  But I like the hunt!! Hoping to get this cache checked off of our wish list very, very soon!!

Stay tuned...

I guess everyone has their own "dream" vacation...Vegas, Poconos, Hawaii. But for us, ours is Iowa! Whenever people ask us "Iowa? What's in Iowa?!" and they give us a confused look, we always respond happily with "NOTHING!! And that's the point!" lol For us, a great vacation is a get-the-hell-away trip. There's a lot of land, peace & quiet, and stunning scenic views in Iowa.

So it's only fitting that our dream vacation is just a short 4 hours away. We haven't been there in nearly 2 years (wow..it's been that long already?!), but we're anxious to go!! This year (2012) has been extrememly hard on us, espeically finanically. Frankly, it's been the worst year of my life. It started getting crappy in January, and as of 2 days ago, my streak of horrible luck is still going strong.

We moved from one horrible apartment to another (the lack of management here is unreal), we've had to deal with psycho neighbors, I lost my grandfather to cancer, watched my grandmother sink into sadness that I've never seen & broke my heart (she seems to be A LOT better now though!, thank god!), I was in/out of the hospital for over a month (ER visits for 10-12 hrs at a time, stayed overnight twice) for something they couldn't diagnose at first...turned out that I tore every muscle in my left adominal wall from playing raquetteball and they felt like mini charlie horses in my stomach..very painful.) Oh, and then my car broke down about 5 times in the span of 2 months...shelled out my savings to fix it, and as of 2 days ago, it broke down again. (I'm currently trying to sell it). Sooooo...now we're down to 1 car for at least another year. Oyyy. *head-desk*

Oh, and cap all of that off with taking my dog...my "daughter" (we're pet parents) to the vet ER the other week for a mystery deep gash wound that Chris found in her arm pit. So once again, what little savings I had, was depleted just so that I could pay the vet bill.

Looking to the future...

With 2013 coming up, I just wanna focus on a NEW YEAR with positivity and hope!! :) Chris & I are in dire need of a vacation, and with Iowa being our favorite spot, that's where our dream geocaching vacation spot would be!

And of course, Bella would love it too!! (She loves geocaching!!)



Anyways, we're trying to work as much as we can to save up for the trip in the Spring/Summer. We figure we'll need about $420 for gas, food, & hotel for 2-3 days. If you'd like to throw a couple bucks towards our trip, we'd be so appreciative!!! :)

We'll be taking videos and pictures of journey from start to finish! Worst case scenario, we save up enough money to do an overnight trip somewhere closer to home. Either way, we'll definitley do a getaway trip!

Stay tuned...

Hey guys! Since I made a tutorial about how to get going geocaching with using your smart phone, I figured I'd do a quick post about what's in my geocaching backpack. So I dug everything out of my backpack and took some pics for y'all:

My backpack I got at Spencers at the mall on sale. 

 Contents of my geocaching backpack:
*Batteries
*Flashlights (2 LED, 1 old school, 1 headlight with red or white light option)
* Kleenex
*gloves (you'll want more heavy-duty gloves for thorns & such.)
*hand santizer
*multi-utility tool
*pen
*lighter
*first aid kit
*mini notebook
*treasures we got from inside geocaches we've found (we swap item-for an-item)

 ...and ladies, take note of this....
a red solo cup with the bottom cut out & in a ziplock bag in case nature calls and you're MILES away from any kind of restroom. (My bestie still calls me a genius for this one. lol) Dispose of it when you get home, and pack a new one for just-in-case situations. You'll thank me later.

Geocaching Update:
Chris and I still haven't had the chance to geocaching just yet mainly due to the weather. Last night it thunder-stormed here...in December...in Wisconsin. Weird! And now it's super cold and muddy outside, which are probably the worst conditions to geocache in. I can deal with either, but not both. lol

So that's it for now! I'll update in the next week regardless if we went 'caching or not.

Stay tuned...

Hey guys! Even though this is/will be a blog about Chris & I's geocaching adventures, I figured I'd do just one post on how y'all can join in on the fun!! This will be the only "how to" post on the blog, so I'll pin this somewhere on the blog in case you decide to do geocaching on your own at some point in the future. It's a great step-by-step tutorial on how to geocache.

Let's dive right on in, shall we?! :D

If you wanna test out the waters of geocaching but don't really wanna shell out money for anything just yet, then this is the post for you! ...if you have a smart phone. ;) lol

You're gonna need 3 things to get started, besides a fully charged battery:

On your smart phone....
1) Download Locus Free
2) Download the Geocaching Add-On for Locus
3) Sign up for a free account at Geocaching.com

After you download Locus Free & the Geocaching 4 Locus add-on, then go to the Geocaching 4 Locus app on your phone and click on it. (Here comes the tutorial for y'all...)

This is what you'll see.

All you have to do is hit the "Download to Locus" button.

**NOTE: If you wanna change the amount of caches the program finds, simply click on the white compass to the left of the X at the top. Scroll down to "Count of Cache".You'll then see this..

Slide the bar to the desired amount of caches you want it to find around you.
(TIP: If your battery is low, just do the nearest five caches so it doesn't drain your battery looking for a lot of geocaches.)

Click OK, hit the back button, then click on "Download to Locus".
You'll then see a screen with geocaches all around you! :)

Click on a cache you wanna find, and you'll see a screen like this:

It'll tell you on a scale of 1-5, how difficult the terrain is and how big the actual cache container you're looking for is. (1-Nano is TINY, 2-Mirco is very small, then there's 3-small, 4-medium, 5-large.)

What I love about this app, other than it's free, is that it's paperless. No need to print out the page from Geocaching.com's website, which includes comments from others who have found the cache before (which you definitley wanna read, because if you can't find the cache, others will give you clues and hints to better find it..such as letting you know if the GPS signal bounces around and it's 20 feet away from where it's suppose to be, etc.)


You can look at the listing, logs (aka comments from other geocachers who found it), and attributes...all right there on your phone.

Question: "What are attributes?"
Answer: Well, let's say you wanna go geocaching in the Winter but there's snow on the ground. You can look up caches near you by clicking on the attribute "Snow Friendly".

Here's a full Attributes list from Geocaching.com:


So just pick a cache that pops up around you, click  the "go to geocache" button...


...and you're on your way to finding your very first geocache! :D

Okay, that'll be it as far tutorials go. So from here on out, y'all are on your own. ;) lol I figured I'd get ya started if you're interested.

If you don't have a smartphone, or prefer not to use it (..which is a good idea because you WILL end up dropping your phone at one point or another, and probably in water...), then you get can get a cheapo Handheld GPS unit for around $100'ish bucks and they're water proof, not to mention that the battery life on those things are far more superior than a phones. (I had to buy an extended battery for my phone.)

Here's a couple of decent starter GPS's to pick from:

Under $100, this one is your best bet:
Or if you'd prefer a touchscreen GPS,, you can get this one:

Alrighty, that's it for now! Chris and I are set to do some geocaching in the next few days in between our work schedules, so keep checking back! :)

Stay tuned...

Hello, everybody! Welcome!! :) I am Jamie, a blogger who has about a million blogs and can't seem to focus on just one topic. lol And my partner in crime is my awesome boyfriend, Chris.

Years ago, I learned about geocaching and was instantly intrigued once I learned more. So...what is geocaching? Well, it's basically treasure hunting! It's a free, or as-costly-as-you-want-it-be type of hobby. It can be as easy or challenging as you make it. Your choice. Besides finding cool "treasure" in the geocaches that you find (including money for some "FTF" caches, aka "First to Finds"), you can also find stuff from fun little toys, coins, trackables (which are really cool), and just about everything family-friendly you can think of. Before you know it, you'll find yourself incorporating your new love for treasure hunting while on bike rides, hikes, walks in parks, shopping, or even on your lunch break from work just to get away from it all and have some "me time".

Anyways, back to how I got involved..

I brought up the idea to Chris in the Fall of 2011, he was intrested, we geocached & found our first cache, and we've been hooked ever since! To date, we have found over 30 geocaches. (I currently have 31 logged, but I know we found more than that. I really should pay attention to logging them more frequently!)

So, where are geocaches hidden?? EVERYWHERE!!! Parks, cemeteries, private property, hiking trails, woods, etc. As a matter of fact, if you searched around your home, odds are you have a few within a mile from ya!

What do they look like? Well, they vary all the time! From micro (size of battery watches), to HUGE containers, and everything in between! Here are just a few we've found...

If you'd like to know more, than bookmark this blog & follow us as we venture out on future geocaching adventures. From climbing 30 ft trees, to damn-near falling into water to get a cache, we'll be there..documenting with pictures and sometimes even with videos to show you how much fun and challenging geocaching can be! :)

In my next post, I'll show ya how you can get started on your phone (if you have a smart phone) for free, with screenshots and instructions to get you out hunting for your very first cache!

Stay tuned...