In the second part of this two-part series, I’ll introduce you to a handsome fellow named Mickey Tom. I’ll tell you where he started out, where he is now, how he got to where he is now, and where he’s headed.
But before I can do any of that, I need to provide some background for readers who might not be familiar with a particular, some would say peculiar… hmm… pastime? hobby? obsession? adventuring nerd’s side quest?
Any of those terms might suffice as a descriptor for the mysterious word geocaching.
If you’ve paid attention to car commercials in the last couple of years, you probably already know the phrase “GPS unit.” This is a small boxy electronic gizmo, typically mounted on the dashboard, which displays a real-time map of the route you’re currently driving. Sophisticated GPS units allow you to specify a destination, for which the machine will select an optimal route to follow; some of them even “talk,” instructing you audibly to (for instance) “Turn left here.”
The main technology which allows car GPS units to work is a network of satellites, collectively called the Global Positioning System. The idea is fairly simple; at root, it’s just geometry: If you know the positions of at least three objects, and can determine your distance from each of them, then you can determine your own position. As the GPS satellites circle the globe, they beam down to earth a signal reporting their current positions. Any device which can receive those transmissions thus can figure out — to a more or less accurate degree — the device’s own latitude and longitude.
That’s all you need to understand in order to “understand” how geocaching works. But that still doesn’t say much about geocaching itself, does it?
Read on.
