The Midwest: Part II

Still in the great city of Muncie (Indiana), the home of Ball State University (which is David Letterman's alma mater). My bro-in-law got me hooked on this game\sport called geocaching. It basically involves you, a GPS receiver, and some form of transportation (car, bicycle, walking, etc.) to find these hidden caches, which usually consist of a logbook (to note that you've found the cache) and sometimes various other little souvenirs in said cache that you may take and leave. A better explanation comes from the official geocaching web site (http://www.geocaching.com/faq), which states:

Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for gps users. Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a gps unit. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache.

Admittedly, I was skeptical at first. It seemed a little silly driving around on some dorky treasure hunt with a GPS. But to be honest, it was actually fun. Since the weather is spectacular here, that made it even more enjoyable. Plus, you get to see the sites of the surrounding area that you normally wouldn't otherwise pay attention to, and it's great exercise due to some of the walking involved.

As soon as I get back to Texas, I'm totally buying a GPS. Furthermore, geocaching is world wide. Hence, I'll be doing some geocaching of my own when I leave for Europe next month.

Good times!