Ah-ha! A way to get Mark to go hiking with me! Geocaching: it's hide and seek for sport, you are given the coordinates of a hidden cache of treasure and with a GPS unit you go and seek it out. They are hidden, off the beaten path. Today's coordinates: N 40 35.070 W 79 46.848 site: Clifftop #2 (Pennsylvania) On the website, they give general information about the site, where to park, a good place to start. They mention things like, 'the cache is buried under a pile of rocks.' This particular cache was off of the Rachel Carson Trail, starting in at the trail head in Springdale. In seeking a treasure, you are asked to leave something in its place. We left behind a Ren and Stimpy key chain that still had a key attached to it. Mark believes this to be the key to his mailbox at one of his old apartments. In return, the treasure we took was a mini pocket kite. We recorded our visit in the log book, took a few pictures along the way, and headed back down the slope. Caches are hidden in over 162 countries. There are over 1000 cache sites in Pennsylvania alone. There are about 423 sites within 100 miles of our home. There will be NO shortage of new adventures for us, we can keep track of the number caches we locate or create on their website. This is not as obscure as one would think. We actually encountered another person in the woods doing the same thing. Mark noticed someone at the base of the hill pacing back and forth staring down at his hand in the same manner we were pacing staring at the GPS in our hand. Sure enough, he caught up to us while we had planted ourselves in the dirt to explore the canister of tiny treasures and record our visit in the log. We weren't even the first people to reach this cache today either, according to the log, someone else had searched and found it earlier in the day. We did not know what we were in for, this was a fairly challenging hike, since we were not on blazed trails for the majority of the hunt. Largely we were clambering up and down fairly steep slopes. Fortunately the substrate of mud, leaves and fragments of shale was fairly moist. This provided steady sure footholds as we circled around, back tracked and went up and down the hillside until we spotted a few large flat rocks to investigate. This would have been much more harrowing had we attempted this later in the season with dry, unstable slopes to slide down. Mark and Deb Geocaching in the Fall We were rewarded with some interesting views. Nearly high enough to reach out a grab a hawk as it glided by, we watched as it was enjoying the thermals and steady breeze. I generally keep my distance from cliff edges; I get intense sensations of vertigo where I feel strongly compelled to just jump off of the edge. Sometimes I find this feeling to be a bit overwhelming, that I will not be able to stop myself from taking a flying leap, plunging off the side of the cliff. I just skirt around at a safe distance, close enough to admire the view, take a quick glimpse over the edge and be on my merry way. For Mark, just going for a walk in the woods isn't enough of a reason to go hiking with me. With a goal in mind, a hunt for this hidden booty, having an objective to complete will draw Mark out with me. As we come across them, I'll continue to post our future Geocaching adventures and finds.