Need Adventure? Try Geocaching, Mamas! "Pleasure Cache" NPR (88.1 WVPE) Radio Commentary with Michiana Chronicles

NOTE: You can hear this on MP3 HERE.
This is an overlooked oldie post.  Hope you geocachers & geocacher wannabees enjoy.  

Pleasure is a funny thing.   It can show up to stretch with a feline nonchalance  into unexpected moments. This morning I stretched before I got out of bed.  It was delicious.  I forget how much pleasure can be found in a slow leisurely full body stretch.  Later in this day, walking in winter sunshine with my friends was pure pleasure.  All three of us pushing our tiny people in strollers hoping they would doze in the sun and fresh air.  We had no agenda or particular destination until I suggested we go after a geocache. 

We are mothers.  We fill many of the stereotypes of the un-showered unkempt un-private bathroom time many people have of motherhood.  We struggle for alone time and live for naptime.  The baby’s nap, not ours.  Well usually not ours.  If we could dream and indulge in pleasures I think it would be us all alone and it would probably be quiet.  Or loud, it could be loud music that makes us smile, that makes us feel a little naughtier like when we were younger and more careless.  We would probably chat with a friend or make a craft. Most Mamas wouldn’t geocache.

Recently we cached at McCormick Creek without luck.

Geocaching is a worldwide treasure hunt for worthless things in surprising places.  I bet you there is a geocache within ten miles of your home right now.  In the Michiana area there are maybe several hundred alone.  Enough to keep you busy hunting.  They can be a puzzle where you gather information to solve it.  They can be a container as small as your fingertip or as big as a barrel hidden somewhere that cachers can find and re-hide again and again.   Geocaching.com is a great resource if you are curious and want to know more.

When I was single I would go geocaching constantly.  I would adventure out at night at all hours to be the first to find a new geocache.  I even went out in winter snow because it is easier to find something when you can follow other people’s tracks.  I spent entire days hunting for caches alone and with friends.  I found over two hundred and placed several of my own.  Now I do not geocache.  I have these two small people to lug in and out of the car.  I don’t drag my children through the woods or bushwack in brambles.   So I do not cache.  I miss it.

Until I got a smartphone I also had technological stumbles too.  But now.  OH!  Now I can turn my phone on when I have some time to kill and search out a nearby cache.  I have taken my husband and older daughter and shared the thrill of the find with them.  And today I took my mama friends geocaching.

Another post fete geocaching adventure with John:
how else would we find this random military 'museum' in Crown Point?

We pushed our strollers through mud.  We appointed one of us to watch all three strollers while the other two of us foraged.  We wandered.  We laughed.  And we found it.  A peanut butter jar geocache wrapped in camouflage tape with a log book inside to sign our names.  None of the trinkets interested us so we put it all back as we found it.  We smiled and laughed at ourselves and I think the two of them will look again for caches.  We enjoyed the unexpected fun of hidden treasure and instead of mamas with great responsibilities, we were kids again.  Kids playing in the mud, in the bushes.  The pleasure of a surprisingly warm day and a hidden treasure were ours.   And the small people in those strollers?  They were stretching and sleeping in the sun.