1,000 Geocaches!

I finally hit a huge geocaching milestone this afternoon: 1,000 cache finds. I had gotten to 998 a couple weekends ago, and promised Grace that I would wait to get this with her. She then decided last weekend that she was having too much fun playing and doing other things to go with me, and the weather was not great, so one thing led to another and I didn't get out at all.

I figured I would give it one last chance to do this with the family today before going out by myself tomorrow. As it turns out, we had an Easter Egg hunt event for the girls with Julia's social group, and would be driving right past the community park that I had picked out for caches 999 and 1000.

I had looked at caches in the area wondering whether there was something special that I should do for this milestone; something difficult, or a puzzle, or something that I had looked for before and been unable to find. In the end, only one thing made sense for me to do...something that would represent what all those caches have meant to me. And so I dragged the family to Bonsall Park, not that far from home, and the three of us found two caches while my wife looked on in amusement (and took our picture). It seems fitting that this milestone should be a cache in a community park with the kids.

It has been a lot of fun, and I am grateful to the many people in this hobby who take the time to hide and maintain these caches. Geocaching has taken me to many new places, and shown me many things I would not have otherwise seen. Hopefully the next 1,000 will be as much fun as the first thousand were.