Yesterday, Brad, Amanda, Chris and I went geocaching in points north of home. For those not in the know, geocaching is kind of like a treasure hunt, except you get to play with a GPS device. You’re given a set of coordinates, and a clue or two, and you try to find hidden caches. For more info see http://www.geocaching.com/.
We ventured out towards Santa Barbara around 10, stopped in Thousand Oaks for lunch, and continued onward. The first cache two caches were rather uneventful, but cache number three was really awesome. We circled around and around the coordinates for a good twenty minutes, unable to find anything. One of the clues read something like “should you look up or look down”, which would have been of more help had I not interpreted it to mean that it must clearly be hidden high up in a tree or lamppost, or low down on the underside of something.
And then it smacked me in the face just how much we take cars and all that they entail here in California. The nearby multilevel parking garage had a large windy staircase, leading up to the second and third levels. “up or down”! Of course! Guided by the second clue, one about Rapunzel (which at first I thought meant it must be near a barber shop - boy am I no good at this) led us to the metal balcony of the second level of the garage, looking out over the small back area in which we’d been looking.
Not to bore you further, but there was a last and final cache. While we weren’t able to find the cache, I was able to find out, at least in some small way, how I’ve changed over the last few weeks. I’ve been doing a lot of things that are good for *me* over the summer - a luxury I tend not to afford myself during the busy school year. I ditched my glasses for contacts, got rid of my old hairstyle, and lost 20 lbs. I cast off a lot of old things about myself, in exchange for some new things. While out searching for the third cache, I actually felt “good”. Not “it’s a nice day” good, but rather I *liked* myself. Those who know me know that that’s a big step for me. I’m not really sure what made me feel that way (a pity) - maybe it was that I was taking the lead (for a while), or perhaps that I wasn’t afraid to dig into the underbrush with my hands to search for things.
I don’t know what it was that made me feel special, but I hope I can keep up my positive outlook when I get back into the thick of things next semester.
Posted on Monday, July 18th, 2005 at 10:05 pm. Categories: Adventures, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can also leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
3 Responses to “Geocaching, and a good feelin’”
Chris W. Says:
July 29th, 2005 at 2:47 am
Muahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chris W. Says:
July 29th, 2005 at 2:49 am
Why didn’t the previous comment wrap?
Aaron Says:
July 29th, 2005 at 4:18 am
That’s a good question. Next time put a space somewhere
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