The other half and I have been geocaching now since 2019. If you don’t know what geocaching is, well, there is a blog post I wrote about that. But this is a post in what I will hope will be a series of posts about the lessons of life that I have learned while doing this hobby.
Adventure (noun): a. an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks; b. the encountering of risks; c. an exciting or remarkable experience
The other day, I opened up my own cache owner dashboard to find that several of my own geocaches had been marked as “did not find.” All four of these hides were among the easiest of my fifty some hides to find, so I was concerned. I reached out to the person who had marked them as did not finds to discover that it was a mom and pre-teen daughter duo who had no idea how to geocache. Instead of getting annoyed, I decided that I would spend a bit of time explaining the ins and outs of cache hiding and finding to them, including the recent photos I took of the hides in question showing them exactly where the caches would be.
I could have ignored the DNFs completely. Some in my circle do, especially since this duo had absolutely zero finds. But instead, I made sure that the caches were indeed where they were supposed to be (since one of them had already gone missing) and then made sure they knew how to find them. I hope that those tips will spark an adventure for them just as I once needed help with adventuring.
I often still do need help, especially with the harder caches. I often have to “phone a friend” for a clue or help. Then there is the reality that I just can’t even get certain caches without braver friends who can climb higher than I can or have the fancier tools I just don’t own to get the random caches. Those friends have made sure my adventures are stories worth telling.
“I’m going on an adventure!”
~Bilbo Baggins The Hobbit
If you had told me at the end of last July that I would have had a year full of geocaching adventures that would make my head spin, I would have told you that you were crazy. As late as the beginning of 2026, I didn’t even have a full “fizzy”… meaning the 81 squares of the difficulty/terrain grid that categorizes how easy or hard a geocache can be wasn’t even filled in. I had set a goal to get just a few of the harder difficulties and terrains that I had left filled in. As of this writing, not only have I filled in that grid, but I have done so THREE full times and am planning trips to do a fourth completion as I write.
Adventures have been had. Adventures still wait.
What adventures I have had too! I have found myself in some crazy situations in the past year that I didn’t think I would ever be able to do. I have waded in an ice cold creek looking for the final stage of a cache in a bridge that was put back “harder” than it had originally been hidden. I have climbed trees and rocks to reach containers in branches and crannies just over my head and wedged myself between ladders and trees for others to do the same. I have dragged my wagon down trails and threw the forests and plains to haul tools of the trade needed just to grab a single cache and bought many a piece of gear that I would never thought I would ever own (such as yaktracks and a uv light). I have slid down steep hills and bluffs overlooking bodies of water and hiked miles on joints that needed rest. I have done a bit of traveling too….. first to Pennsylvania and Delaware because of family obligations (and made some time for caches there) and then all over this swath of the Midwest with friends to grab what we can. I have endured hours in negative wind chills and 120 degree heat indexes looking for elusive finds. I have experienced car accidents and flat tires, plans that went awry, and countless bug bites because I forgot to apply bug spray. I have learned that pipe dreams become reality in more ways than one and have learned to plan for any eventuality and learned to just go with the flow.
I also even now own a kitten because of such an adventure named Carmen Sandiego.
These adventures aren’t without their risks though either. One of the flat tires? It happened three hundred miles from home. The joints that don’t like to work sometimes take months to feel better. The bug bites? A few were from ticks that I now have to monitor. The tree climbing? It could end in disaster if I am not careful. The heat and wind chills both could cause problems. The driving from cache to cache causes wear and tear on the vehicles. Stuff could happen. Stuff does happen. But all of it is worth it to be able to do a hobby that I love.
With each adventure, I have learned things about myself, my friends, the hobby in general and even the swath of the Midwest I have claimed as my home. I have becomes bolder, braver, stronger even. Much of what I have learned about myself from these adventures has then also translated into the everyday mundanity of life too. I stop more to watch a storm in wonder or ponder a view in silence. I am more apt to push myself further to do things that need doing. I am mesmerized by the moments of magic and light in the ordinary. Life just seems more adventurous and fuller. I’ve learned to set more goals and dream bigger and play more and live better. These adventures have shaped my life and my writings both….. and they continue. I have come to embrace the extraordinary as a result, even if that extra just seems mundane to others. It’s become part of the story I am writing of my own life even as bits of it are intertwined into the stories I also am creating in my mind.
Adventure… it awaits. But only if you learn to find it.
Stay magical, friends.
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K. S. Wood Writes 