Mindful Ramblings

I was doing a little blog surfing the other day, and came I across a homeschooling blog that included some great ideas for using fun technology resources.  Through the years, we have really enjoyed using educational  games for Nintendo DS, Wii, and now iPhone and iPad apps.  

Among this blogger’s ideas, many of which we have used at some point in our homeschooling journey, she listed one of her favorites as a Geocaching app for iPhone.  I was so excited! I’ve always wanted to try geocaching. 🙂  So I downloaded the free introductory app to give it a try, plugged in my current location (at home), and a list of three nearby caches popped up!!   One cache is even located on a road I frequently walk down on my morning walk.  It is peaceful there…you can hear the birds chirping and the frogs croaking, among other sounds…

This morning, I put on my walking shoes, grabbed my phone, fired up my new geocaching app, and headed for my prize.

I followed the red compass arrow to my targeted location and came to the spot in this picture.  The app informed me I had to go 43 feet west to get to the cache. Hmm….not sure I really want to venture off the road and into the ravine,  especially with no trail to follow. 

There are often noises down in the ravine when I walk by and today is no different.  One time, I even heard something that I think may have been a “Yetti.”  Not sure, but it sounded big.  Today it sounded like this:

So I stood there for awhile, thinking about what may lurk therein; certainly poisonous snakes and spiders, definitely large insects, and possibly large reptiles!  Just as I decided that the cache could not possibly be worth risking life and limb, a lady in a black pick up truck drove past.  She got half-way up the road, then her tail lights started glowing bright white!  She was definitely coming back for me!  She rolled down her window and gave me  some words of advise:

“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you, just last night there was a Copperhead right up in the middle of the road and they can be very agressive!”  I thanked her for her wisdom and headed home….without my priceless cache!

I guess if I’m going to take up Geocaching, I may need to purchase some good snake proof boots and maybe a shot gun!

 Hmmm….don’t you wonder what’s in that cache??