Puzzle caching with the kids

The kids, the dog and I needed to be out of the house all day, to keep it clean and ready for showings... so we went caching of course. I had a bunch of puzzle caches that were high on my list to go after, and many of these promised to have good toys in them, so the kids were excited too.

Our first stop was at the new GPSmen puzzle cache, Feel Puzzle. Very straightforward, but I found reading the braille to be remarkably difficult, especially since you were forced to only use your fingertips. The cache was beautifully crafted, with a nice wooden box that had the entire Braille alphabet printed out in it's lid (guess i didn't need to bring that cheat sheet with me). The kdis were patient with me as I struggled to get the coords, but the desert here was friendly and they were soon playing around the creosote, and finding smooth arroyo pebbles to toss. Once I was happy that I had good coordinates, we traipsed back over to the car and drove a short ways before parking again and taking another short walk through the desert. I told Levin that he could make the find, and when we got close I was sure it was going to be under a lone scrubby tree. But it wasn't! It was close though, and camouflaged with great care. We really liked the execution, and the toys. Levin traded for the mini-cooper and Ada took a blue pebble. I left a funky magnetic clock that I've had at my desk at work for years.

Can you spot the cache?

Ada's blue pebble

On the walk back to the car, we finally wised up to the beauty around us. Funny how you can get blinded by geocaching and not see what is going on around you. Several hedgehog cacti we passed had fresh blooms. And there were massive flocks of sparrows singing up a storm. We would approach a flock and just stand nearby, quietly listening to the scores of voices trilling together.

We drove up into Soledad canyon next where I hoped to find a couple of different puzzle caches. What I didn't count on was the wind. I had not packed windbreakers or warm jackets for the kids, and after only 15 minutes of hiking they were both whining about the wind and cold. We got to the first puzzle cache I had solved, relatively close but up a steep hill, and were rewarded once again with nice toys. After making some more trades, we started off to the next solved puzzle, but the winds on the ridge-top were fierce and it was cold. We bailed about halfway to the next cache. It was too early in the day to have miserable kids. ON our way down we spotted a sheltered cave that looked just perfect for a lunch stop. It was difficult getting the kids to it, since it involved steep loose slopes, but when we finally got there it was perfect; completely sheltered from the wind, a nice flat pebbly area to relax, and interesting cave "drawings". Good thing the kids aren't savvy to graffiti yet.

Once we made it back to the car, I wasn't exactly sure where we should go next. So we ended up puttering around the campus of NMSU, finding a few of the new caches there (and not finding a bunch more). These caches weren't of much interest to the kids though, so once they started getting cranky, I called up our favorite Mexican restaurant and ordered lunch. We picnic'd on our front lawn.

IN the end, the house stayed clean, the kids got new toys, and I found 3 puzzle caches that were high on my list. Not too shabby.