The Country Mice

There’s a different kind of hide-and-seek being played in the fields and backyards of your community. It’s a high-tech version of  hunting for hidden treasure, involving a computer (to download precise latitudes and longitudes) and a hand-held GPS (to locate said precise locations).

The activity is called Geo-Caching. Hiders place a cleverly concealed container in a secret spot, from tricky to scary to walk in the park. Seekers attempt to locate the container based on clues left on-line (after one has joined up, etc.) by the hider.

It’s tricky, challenging and an adventuresome way to discover some surprise locales in and around one’s comunity.

In this case, our friend Lori and her son took us on a dynamic excursion to a cemetery near Orangeville, about 40 minutes north-west of our place. A huge cemetery with stones dating back to the early 1800s.

After some circling and cruising and discussion about the shapes and challenges of headstones and family plots, we found this four-inch plastic pipe tucked in between the multiple trunks of a young cedar.

The clues Lori had printed out from her computer indicated we would need to fill the four-inch pipe with water from a nearby tap.

But first we would have to plug the hole in the bottom of the big pipe.

What??

My lad reached inside the big pipe, pulled out a smaller pipe. Inside that second pipe was a wrench and — aha! — a plug for the bottom of the first pipe.

It really was all a matter of following directions and thinking creatively.

We filled up the newly plugged big pipe and — aha again! — up floated another pipe. What a clever concealment!

And inside of that was all the usual congratulations, notebooks for signing in and little prizes (take one and then leave another for the next seeker).

When the finder returns home, she can log in on-line that the geo-cache has been located. And the hider can keep track of how many people have visited the site.

At the terminus of the adventure all containers must be returned to their hidden locales, in anticipation of the next seeker.

In this case we needed to let all the water out of that big pipe.

A great afternoon. Thanks, Lori!