It seems like this is a timely topic to introduce.

These are extraordinary times.  With the shutdown of so many businesses and social gatherings, it has affected the way we geocache, indeed the way we live.  But it hasn’t stopped us from participating in our favorite game.

Kim and I are currently avoiding social gatherings, unless they’re online.  We videochat with various friends and family pretty much every day, geocachers and muggles alike.  There’s a great article about the best videochat apps to use at  https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/23/the-best-video-chat-apps-to-turn-social-distancing-into-distant-socializing/

We mainly use Zoom, Facebook messenger videochat, or Apple Facetime video apps to visually and audio chat with 2 or more people, depending on the group.

As for geocaching, we still go out almost every day, but not necessarily to find new caches.  We have been on a kick to visit and maintain our own caches lately, now at over 100 active caches.  I’m glad we’re doing so.  Many times we’ve encountered almost-full logs, or ripped baggies, and in one case a missing container.  In most cases we drop off as much swag as the container can handle.  We’ve also have been exploring areas that are worthy of having geocaches placed, and have marked lots of coordinates for those future cache placements.

For the WGA Campout near Beaver Dam, scheduled for May 15-17, we have marked final coordinates for cache placements for one park, and still have to visit another area for final coords in that park, but are holding off until we have a clearer picture if the campout is going to be allowed given whatever status the parks and geocaching have in the coming months.

We’re still finding caches as well, but seem to have shifted a bit more toward hiding caches and maintaining caches lately.  For us the more important thing is just getting out, together, and enjoying the walks while practicing social distancing, whether it means taking walks without caching, placing caches, finding caches, maintaining caches, toward the goal of fresh air and exercise (10,000 steps/day = 4.5 miles),  We’re really enjoying our walks.  We’re not sure is we’ll attend upcoming geocaching events, at least for March/April, and we’ll see how this plays out for May and beyond.  We wear gloves when finding and maintaining geocaches.

What’s in store for us, geocaching-wise,  for the future?  God willing, we’ll likely find some, place some, and work on a whole bunch of puzzles, which I haven’t had time for until recently.  Geocaching is a great activity to practice during these “social distancing” times, and taking walks through green spaces is the cheapest form of therapy!  🙂 🙂