On Geocaching with the Fam—Updated!

During a brief moment of respite between what seemed an endless flow of patients, I searched online for something the family could do for fun over the weekend. I didn’t want to do yet another escape room, as we’ve already done almost all of the local ones, and it was always the same old “find the code, decipher the phrase” stuff—as cliche as “It’s not who you are, it’s who they think you are.” As old and tired as a balding octogenarian staring back at himself in a gilded mirror. Mirrors never mask the truth, do they?

Anyway, as I was brainstorming, a thought popped into my head. I pulled out my phone and opened a geocaching app. To my delight, the screen exploded with hundreds of green points, and a few blue and gold ones that signified a special cache.

Perfect! Well, perfect for me, but I still had to run it past Aidan and Joe. I knew James would be down for it, so no need to ask him.

As I suspected, they were down, too. As many of you probably know, “down” in young peoplese means “up for.”

So I searched for an interesting cache to focus on, and discovered the oldest cache in Florida is located in nearby Marco Island. That was perfect, and by the comments I read, could be exciting as well. Alligators, black bear, and panthers were all known to inhabit the area.

After church this morning, we set off. Once we arrived, we were gently reminded by several signs about the potential animal activity we might encounter, even though there’s never been an attack on the trail in its history.

Which reminds me—the history of the trail through the Collier Seminole State Park is incredible. It used to be a bustling “highway” in 1916. The kids couldn’t resist doing an imitation of about how fast cars traveled back then, and we all laughed.

We laughed a lot today.

Updated part: I had an updated blurb here, which descriptively told of how we came across two of the three main predators on our hike. But it seems to have disappeared. So I’ll just say we came across an alligator and bear poop. Lol.

About a half mile into our three mile journey, another green blip appeared on geocache app. Excited to intercept our first find, we sped towards a gnarled fallen tree that my imagination molded into a withered brown alien.

The cache, nestled in the tree’s massive roots, begged us for release, so we happily obliged.

Here’s Aidan being funny with the joke birding binoculars I bought her. I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but Aidan has become an avid and enthusiastic bird watcher. She takes at least one twelve mile hike per week to walk the Rookery Bird Watching trail near our house. It’s meditation for her, a balm for her soul.

As we strolled down the trail, Aidan kept us laughing, and it was really good to see her and Joe hanging together with smiles on their faces. A warmth spread through my entire being, and it wasn’t just from the pleasant sunlight through the trees. The weather was great—not too warm or cold, but just right.

The terrain was typical Florida pine forest, with pine needles covering white sand and dirt like a blanket that crunched under our feet. Every so often we’d see a splash of color—usually red or purple.

Or an extra tall lone palm.

Finally, we arrived at our destination—the famous “Christmas Cache.” It had some interesting stuff in it, but we decided to take a coin, and leave the following....Aidan made up and wrote the little poem on the spot. We put the items in a ziplock bag, and returned the cache where we found it.

On the hike back, I found a whole bunch of little bramble type things on my shirt. The kids thought it was funny that I called them “brambles.” So, Aidan quipped, “You’re the Bramble Mam.” Then proceeded to play “Black Betty” on her phone and substitute “bramble mam” for “bam-ba-lam.” I laughed pretty hard....we all did.

Here are a couple more pics: