HA-ZAA!

As some of you may know, Ryan and I have been trying to get into Geocaching. Thanks to a friend of mine who blogged about it, I heard about this wonderful activity. And since we have a GPS we decided to give it a try.

After the first time we went, I will admit that I was ready to throw in the towel on Geocaching. We looked for one at Decker Lake and couldn't find it, plus the GPS died. After we tried another near Gabe's daycare and even though the GPS said we were right on it, we couldn't find anything. In fact, the only thing we brought home was dirty laundry for me to wash because Ryan fell in a ditch trying to locate the cache.

So when Ryan suggested that we go "Treasure Hunting" tonight, I grumbled on the inside. I really did not want to go but it was such a nice evening. Not to mention that Gabe and I could use a little fresh air and walking. So I agreed to go and even plugged the coordinates into the GPS for Ryan.

We went to find our first cache and found nothing but a green gas station dinosaur statue that smelled like cat pee. (Don't ask!) Second one we tried to find, Ryan ended up jumping over a wall and disappearing for about 5 minutes so I thought he might have been dead. This was strike 2 for the night. Now all of Ryan's hopes hung on a cache supposedly located at Taylorsville Park.

We drove over to the park and got out of the car. We started walking towards our destination per the GPS. As we got closer I could not off-road the stroller with Gabe inside so Ryan headed into the bushes. I could see his red shirt through the sticks and was starting to get restless. I was already frustrated by our first 2 caches coming up empty.

But suddenly Ryan holds up a pipe with a sprinkler attached to it. I am about to yell at him for destroying public property when he comes running towards me with a HUGE smile on his face and sprinkler-pipe still in his hands. He twists off the lid to the sprinkler and it turns out, it isn't a sprinkler at all. Inside it a ziplock back with a small notebook and various little items. He then yells "HA-ZAA!" in victory. I had to admit my defeat at that point. From that cache we took a small soccer ball whistle and left a little green army man.

But we weren't done there. Oh no! Now Ryan had a taste for treasure. He knew that if we went went to the place where he had fallen in the ditch that he could find the other cache. That cache was his Unicorn or something. So we head back. And after getting busted by a security guard who, after we explained that we were "hunting treasure" (Who would honestly believe that?!?!?), pointed us right to the hidden cache. Where was that guy 4 weeks ago before Ryan ended up in the ditch? He explained that he had met a few Geocachers and knew that we meant no harm so he didn't kick us out, but instead helped us. From this cache we took a little pink plastic chip and left a small green army man.

But we still weren't done because now, I am into it. So we plug in one final set of coordinates. It is so close to our house we could walk there. We drive up to it and trying to be as stealthy as possible to avoid any "muggles." (What Geocachers call passersby who might catch us trying to get our treasures.) We looked under a pile of very large and heavy rocks to find a large old ammo box. SUCCESS!!! From this we took a small rubber snake and left yet another green army man. When it is all said and done, Ryan and I hope to have sleeper cells of little green army men hidden in caches all over Salt Lake Valley. BEWARE!!!

In the end I am glad the Ryan kept pushing this activity. It turned out to be a lot of fun. And hopefully the next time we have Sera we will be able to go again so that she can find some treasure for herself. I know that she would be just as into it, if not more, than we are.

Also for those of you who ONLY stop by to see pictures of the kids, here is a picture of Gabe after a long night of playing video games with Ryan. As you can see, his Mountain Dew high has clearly worn off and his hand are tired from all the "L2, R2, X,X,O...DAMN YOU! I SAID JUMP!"