One of my new hobbies is called Geo caching.  It combines hiking, high tech gadgets and treasure hunts into one sport.  Lots of fun for Kris, the Dogs and I.

People all around the world hide small caches of treasure (usually small trinkets and collectables). They hide these items usually in wooded areas that are neat to see and sometimes hard to get to. They then use a GPS to get the location of the treasure. They then post their clues and the GPS locs of the treasure on this web page. http://www.geocaching.com Try going there sometime and putting in your zip code, you will be amazed how many treasure are hidden near your home and work.

We then go that web page and put in a zip code of where we will be traveling and it shows us Geocaches in that area.  We then try to find them.  So far I have found 20 some odd caches in the following states.  Illinois, Missouri, South Dakota, Arkansas, Pennsylvania

This sport requires a GPS to play.  

What is a GPS device?

A GPS unit is a electronic device that can determine your approximate location (within around 6-20 feet) on the planet. Coordinates are normally given in Longitude and Latitude. You can use the unit to navigate from your current location to another location. Some units have their own maps, built-in electronic compasses, voice navigation, depending on the complexity of the device.

You don't need to know all the technical mumbo jumbo about GPS units to play Geocaching. All you need to do is be able to enter what is called a "waypoint" where the geocache is hidden.

They range in cost from around 50 to hundreds of dollars. I recommend I use a Magellan sport trak map GPS which more info can be found here.  I use this one because it uses a receiver with 12 parallel channels. This helps me keep a signal under trees.  Also this one can download street maps to it which is nice in helping you get close to the park you are headed to cache at.

You can view the info about what caches I have done here 

Here

By the way Ted...My MULE RULZ U