cost per use

When we first got Charli's backpack back in June, I suggested to Brian that maybe we could try geocaching as something that would make sure we don't use the backpack once and never again. Got to get that cost per use down! Unfortunately, you need some gear for geocaching - specifically, a GPS - so the idea kind of got tabled for a while.

Geocaching is a hobby where you get a set of coordinates for a cache, put it into your GPS, and then try to find the cache. The caches are various sizes, from so small that all that fits in them is a roll of paper for you to sign your name on, to big enough that people put all kinds of treasures in there (the rule is, if you take a treasure, leave a treasure of the same approximate value). They are also rated on how hard they are to find, once you get to the coordinates, and how hard the terrain is to get there. There are caches all around the world, in both cities and rural areas - and I don't mean just a few. There's probably at least a hundred in San Francisco, and thousands around the bay area.

Then at the beginning of August, cousin Cecily visited Fort Collins again, and it turns out she and Dustin are into geocaching. What a coincidence! They took Sam and went and found 3 caches, and Sam thought it was really fun. I guess she mentioned it to Kim and Brent, and they said they had left their GPS at our house with some of their gear, so Sam called us to tell us to send her Brent's GPS. Well, nothing doing! I said, "You mean we have a GPS here that we didn't know about, and you want us to send it to you for geocaching? Forget it! WE'RE going to use it for geocaching!" And so we did!

Our first geocaching outing was last weekend to Samuel P. Taylor state park, where it looked like there were about 8 easy caches along the main trail by the road (not that we would have time to find that many, it just gave us options). Daisy and her cousin Wayne came with us to try it out. Here it is, our very first geocache find ever! And our second (which had a little treasure in it)! We don't have pictures of the third, because Brian and Wayne found it by themselves while Daisy and I (and the camera) stood in the last shady part of the path up the hill, and Brian didn't think to use his iPhone. So we found 3 (well, 2 1/2), and it was fun, and we used the backpack, so that was good.

So, having decided it was fun, we got our own GPS. We would have continued using Brent's, except... well, it's really not good for geocaching. It's old, and it doesn't get signal under tree cover, and the UI for entering in coordinates to look for is about as bad as it can be. It's ok for figuring out what coordinates you're at, as long as you're not under trees or in a building or a car, but the trees thing makes it really hard for geocaching. New GPSs have high sensitivity antennas, so you get signal in canyons and forests (and even in our condo, although not in the garage), and the UI is somewhat improved. So we got the GPS on Friday, and we went geocaching on Saturday and Sunday!

On Saturday we went in the city, which was pretty fun, and which allowed us to get food and stop at a playground with Charli. Here she is with our smallest geocache find ever (which is not a very long time, of course). Someone also put a geocache right in Clarion Alley, just last week! Well, we had to get that one. We met a bunch of other parents at the playground, and Charli kept trying to put gross things in her mouth, and then she had the biggest blast ever once we finally got a free swing. Another dosa place, Udupi Palace, opened up a couple of months ago, about 3 doors away from the first dosa place, and it is AWESOME. It's actually a chain, and we used to go to one down by work for lunch every now and then, before our office moved. I'll never go to to Dosa again (not that I went that much in the first place). Dosa is a "nice" restaurant, which means you wait a long time for your food and the menu is limited - not what I want out for dosas! Udupi Palace is proper - several different types of dosas with several different types of fillings, plus other standard dosa place fare, like uttapam and, uh, that other stuff that I'm blanking on right now. Charli likes their mango lassi, and she figured out how the straw works (although it was very helpful that the lassi is so thick).

On Sunday we went to China Camp and looked for 3 geocaches there, but we only found 2. >:( But it was a gorgeous day, and we got to use the backpack again (the cost per use is plummeting!), and we had a lovely picnic. Here's an example of a nicely camouflaged cache, with some treasure (which, if it weren't hidden in a secret place, might also be known as "trash"). Flip the rock over, and it's invisible!

I guess I could send Brent's GPS to Sam now...