Go Treasure Hunting with YDKJ

by Alice Magdziak • May 23, 2011 • Entertainment • Comments (0) • 1656

It should be obvious by now that we’re BIG fans of New Jersey, right?

Well, did you also know that we really love a game called Geocaching, too?

Did you ever want to be Indiana Jones, visiting all sorts of cool places, finding rare and exciting artifacts? Well chances are that will never happen. But you can still enjoy the thrill of the hunt and sense of accomplishment when you find a geocache. To geocache, you use a handheld GPS or a smartphone app and look for places where people have hidden little boxes, cans, magnetic key holders, bags (or just about anything else you can imagine hiding something in) using GPS coordinates they have provided. We have found them in tree stumps, under the bases of street lamps and in traffic guardrails. We’ve even found one 30 feet up a tree.

The main site that lists all of these hides is geocaching.com. The caches range in size from a nano which might be a cache not much bigger than a pencil eraser holding only a small roll of paper to sign all the way up to a 5 gallon pail. Most caches are about the size of a small Tupperware container. There is usually a log to sign and some small items. If you leave something in a cache you can take something, usually coins, stickers, small toys, etc.

Now there are geocaches all over the world. Of course we decided it would be fun to roll up two of our favorite things and make a geocache series that will take you all over our wonderful state. We’re using the ABC method, so first up is a hide called “A is for Avon by the Sea.”

Can you guess the general location of where this first hide might be?

You wouldn’t be too far off if you thought it was in Ocean County.

Here’s a link to the cache’s entry on Geocaching.com.

There are three others so far, B is for Bloomfield, C is for Cape May and D is for Denville!

And, it’s a way off, but can you guess what “X is for…” will be? There aren’t any NJ towns that start with X so you’re going to have to think outside the box on this one.