Welcome!

Hello! Bonjour! Hola! Guten Tag!

This is the first of many posts on

our blog.

My name is Kevin!!!

And my name is James!

We are known in our area as The Vern Show, your probably wondering why. Well we are avid Geocachers! Geocaching (Not geocashing) is an outdoor activity that uses a gps (Global Positioning System) to help find hidden treasure. No...not like gold and buried treasure. What happens is people ALL over the world hide caches, which are a variety of containers with different trinkets inside. In this post we will go over how we got started into geocaching, how you can start geocaching, and how to find your first cache!!!

How We Got Started

We have been natives of Malvern, Pennsylvania all our lives. Or as we call it "The Vern" Our first meeting was in 3rd grade. We had the same teacher, and have been friends ever since. James has moved twice, and eventually settled down only a few houses away from Kevin which has only worked out in our benefit. Both of us were in the same boyscout troop. This opened up the entire outdoors for us. A couple years back we actually did an 80 mile hike through New Mexico. Another fascination of ours is travel! we love to travel, everywhere and anywhere. Whether it be by foot, bike, car or plane. Sometimes we will choose a point and take a straight path just to reach it! We don't really care whats in the way. Geocaching is something we started about 3 years back. Kevin's grandma, Wendy, was the one who shared with us what it was all about. She purchased our first GPS, and thats what spurred almost every adventure since than. So far we have Geocached in the following states:

• Pennsylvania
• New York
• New Jersey
• Maryland
• Delaware
• California
• Nevada
• Utah
• Arizona

One of our life goals is to find and hide a geocache in every state!!! even including Alaska and Hawaii! From here on out we will be sharing with you every geocache story we have ever encountered to ones that are happening right now at this moment. Even video footage will be soon available! Now we are going to explain to you how to geocache, if you are even slightly interested I highly suggest you try it!

To get started

Before you do anything you may wish to check out the geocaching homepage which can be found at www.geocaching.com. There you will find all the coordinates to the caches, but I will touch on this later. The FIRST thing you must do is create a free account on the site so you can access all the features. After this has been done it might be a good idea to purchase or rummage around to find the following:

• A good quality GPS, they can range anywhere from $150 to $1000s. The one I purchases was right around $200 and its perfect!!!
• Some hiking clothing that is meant for getting dirty and beaten up.
• Mode of transportation to get from one cache to another. Sometimes there are multiple caches in an area so you can just walk from one to another.
• A sense of adventure. Geocaching is all about finding new things, and becoming attached to the environment around you.

Finding A Cache

So now you have all the necessary gear to start looking for your treasure!!! Now i'll give some step by step instructions to start finding your first cache!

1. Log onto www.geocaching.com and once your signed into your account, click on find/hide a cache which is located on the left hand sidebar. Now there should be a box where you can type in the zip code for the area you will be geocaching in. Once that is done a list of caches close to your area should appear. The best way, or at least what we think is easier is to click on "Map it" in the top right corner bringing up a map of the area with cache symbols. Find a cache in the area you want to search in and click on it.
2. All the cache info should pop up, such as name of cache, ect. What you will want to do is read the description of the cache to find out more about it. If you are feeling adventurous I would suggest not looking at the hint or the pictures, but than again it might be a good idea for the first time.
3. At the top of the page there should be #s, or the coordinates of the cache. You will want to plug this into your GPS device. Once you have all this done, get into those hiking clothes, and jump in the car/bike/walking shoes! NOTE!!! if your going to take an item out of the cache bring small fun objects to put in.
4. Once at the site of the potential cache you will want to turn on the GPS and locate the satellites. Make sure you have a clear view of the sky at this point so the signal isn't being blocked by a ceiling or branches. This should only take a few minutes.
5. Now its time to find that treasure!!!
6. Hopefully you read the GPS manual because all GPS devices are different. With the one I have it has an arrow pointing in the direction of the cache and tells you how far away it is. In that case follow your device in the general direction of the cache. When your withing feet of the cache your ready for step #7!
7. Depending on whether you looked at the hint on the caches website determines where you will go from here. I suggest looking in the impossible spots too, if your after a multi stage cache, the next coordinates could be ANYWHERE! One cache we found, the coordinates were written on the side of a metal beam that was about 20 feet high. So look around! look everywhere. Possible cache containers can be anything from a plastic container to an old ammo box.
8. You found it!!! good job! now what you will want to do is open it up and see what it holds. Most caches have a log book so take that out and sign it. Also caches have trinkets or items inside which are open to anyone. What is required is if you take an object you have to replace one!! (If you didn't find it. You still put the effort forth to go outside and move around! We commend you for that! often a cache can be misplaced or lost. We have had this happen many a times)
9. Replace the cache EXACTLY where it was! So the next people can enjoy the same thing you just experienced.
10. Once back home you should log back onto www.geocaching.com and log your find!!!

Happy Hunting!!!!

Soon to come so Stay Tuned: Geocaching adventures of the Past and Future!!!