Camping Post #5

Geocaching
The Travis Petersons hadn't ever done a geocache before, so Papa decided that they needed to, and looked up geocaches near where we were. He found one that he liked the sound of, and decided that we would do it.

We started out, following the GPS on Papa’s iPhone. We were pretty excited, because it sounded like a neat cache, and were also feeling quite adventurous (well, most of us were). However, we were feeling pretty tired by the time we came to some kind of road… and discovered that we were at the end of the part we were supposed to drive (if we happened to have a 4-wheel drive). Now was the beginning of the hike. There were a few people feeling slightly tired, but others were still full of energy. Knut was carrying Rosemary on his shoulders and still going strong! We kept on going. I took Rosemary for a while, but Knut was the one that carried her most of the time. We weren’t just on a hiking trail; we were jumping over fallen trees and rocks, skirting poison ivy, avoiding thorns, and climbing uphill all the way. And “all the way” was a really long way!

Finally, we got within 300 feet of where the GPS said the cache was… and just couldn’t find it! There was poison ivy all around (Papa seems to have some on his arms) and many people were tired out. Most of the little ones needed to use the restroom, everyone was tired, and Rosemary was past her limit and ready to throw a tantrum at every provocation. And we still couldn’t find it! Finally I and most of the others gave it up and sat down to wait for Papa and the boys to find it. They kept on looking and kept on looking, but they couldn’t find it anywhere! Papa wasn’t getting a very good signal on his iPhone, so his GPS wasn’t working properly. Finally Uncle Travis and Mom started calling him to say that the little ones were folding. (And the really big ones were too, but of course they weren’t admitting that ;)) At last, the boys and Papa gave it up. We met up with them again and were about to go back, when…

Papa’s iPhone (with the GPS on it) ran out of battery power.

So, we started heading back in the general direction of the campground. Once again, we were not on a hiking trail. And there were certain people who really needed to use the restroom. Almost everyone was exhausted, everyone was hungry, and Thor and I were excited. :D We were quite a bit ahead of everyone else, except for Sloan, Cecily, and Gloria, who kept up with us pretty well. Thor and I remembered quite a bit of the landmarks we had passed, but then we came to a place we didn’t remember. Everyone else caught up to us, and then we kept going in the same direction, when I called everyone over.

“It’s a path!”

It seemed to be a fairly wide hiking trail, big enough for an ATV. Thor and I started running up it, and after going a little ways, I called back on my radio, saying, “Hey guys, I think we’re headed back to civilization!” There was no answer, so I called again in a couple minutes, but once again, there was no answer. That’s when I noticed that my radio was turned off. Uh-oh, I thought, They’ve probably tried to call us on the radio before now, and we didn’t hear, and now we’re in trouble. I immediately turned it back on and tried calling them again, but there was still no answer. Thor, Gloria, Cecily, Sloan, and I stopped and waited while we kept trying to contact the rest of our group on the radio. They got to where we were at last, and found out that our radios were on different channels. Anyway, after we got that straightened out, we were persuaded by Uncle Travis to take a “short cut” and go off the path. We did so, and promptly got separated again. I guess some of us kept forgetting that the others were really tired, and so those of us who weren’t so tired wanted to keep going and see if we really were going the right way. Anyway, the people that weren’t so tired located the path again, and then stopped to wait for the other people. The other people called us on the radio awhile later and asked where we were… they had not found the path again. Anyway, we finally got the two groups together again, though the tired people were a little annoyed with the amazing people who had found the path because the amazing people had been getting too far ahead. Genius is never fully appreciated.

After that we all stayed together… we were almost back to the campground anyway.

At almost 4:00, we got back to the campground! Needless to say, everyone was starving and ready for lunch. And certain people were also ready for naps. ;)

There were only two bad parts of the adventure:
#1: We didn’t find the geocache. :(
#2: No one really appreciated Thor’s and my wonderful achievement of getting us back to the campground! I guess they were too tired. ;) And like I said earlier, Genius is never fully appreciated. :D


Later in the trip we tried two more geocaches, but couldn't find either one of them, either! Now Aunt Margaret is convinced that all geocaches are fakes. :D