March 9, 2008
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Geocaching
Geocaching is really interesting because people don’t know about it. They have no idea why you’re looking around that mesquite tree. You’re obviously staring at it for some reason. Do you play with denial? Do you try to project an aura of indifference to the mesquite tree? Or do you go ahead and look like a crazy person who is obsessed with regional plants?
Anyway. At a rest area, where there’s a geocache. And it’s in a mesquite tree. I’m poking around. I look up and the rest area attendant is there, and she’s looking at me with a grin on her face, and she says, “Are you on a scavenger hunt?”
Subsequent discussion covered that the highway people know about it and it’s cool, and that some people have silly hobbies like geocaching, while others have hobbies that involve public sex in the woods at rest areas, right next to where the geocache is located. Of course, she didn’t actually say ‘public sex,’ but it’s not hard to fill in the blanks.
She mentioned that she’d never seen what was inside the geocache, only that she knew where it was. So I invited her to look with me. And she did.
It’s a little plastic screw-top jar with cammo tape all over the outside. Inside were the normal trinkety sort of things, but there was one item which I could tell she really wanted. It was a tiny Holy Bible as a keychain, inside a tiny ziplock bag.
She asked, “Since I work here, it’s probably against the rules for me to take something out.. right?” I told her, “I don’t think anyone is really keeping track.” She expressed concerned that someone might be watching from the satellite. I tried to explain that no, no one was watching. The GPS satellites don’t work that way. It’s all just fun. She didn’t seem convinced. But she took the tiny Bible when I handed it to her.
We talked a little more about her job. She explained that she had some problems with her vision, which made it hard to see the trash to pick up sometimes… Talk like that. I’m probably the only person she connected with all day. Who knows. But then it was time for me to go. And this is when she said:
“Are you Christian?” And I said, “Not exactly. Or, really, not exclusively.”
And then she continued: “You know why I want that little Bible? It’s because like in Russia, when Hitler killed the Christians and the Jews… If something like that were to happen here, I’d have the word of God close to me, easy to keep secret. Like your scavenger hunt.” Then she beamed a huge smile, because she had been clever.
“Yes, a spiritual geocache,” I said, and she was very happy.
Then we wished each other well and parted ways.
Comments (9)
As I’ve never even heard of geocaching, I’d be one of those people looking at you and wondering what the heck is he doing?
I LOVE geocaching. I am a tag along though.. I don’t have the patience to do all of the loging myself and most of the time… I take pictures while everyone else is searching, It works for me.
Now i’ll have to keep my eyes open for tiny tiny bibles to put in the caches.
I love the twist at the end of this story.
Happy traveling! And congrats on getting a new-to-you car.
I say it every time: I love when you write.
hmmmmm
Was reading about geocaching…
all the varieties of it.
maybe you could develop a xangacaching game
hide….minis? i dunno. Maybe leave minis
That’s a little gem of a story… works on probably more levels than I’ve noticed yet.
I have read about geocaching, but never met anyone around here who actually does it. Seems like a challenging and utterly harmless pursuit.
That’s a really poignant story, and marvelously told. Thanks for taking the time to relate it.
New to me, but I liked it as you spun it. The encounter was the sort of thing I’d engage in.