This is a bit of a personal story but also an inspiration! We had friends up this past weekend (glorious weather!) and they were into geocaching. Not really understanding much of it ourselves, they explained to our family how you download an app that shows you a treasure hunt of spots where people have hidden a log book and treasure for you to find. Admittedly, I love a good treasure hunt so I was bound to be hooked, but what was more interesting to hear from them, was how it had taken them to explore places in their travels they may not have otherwise have explored.
The father of this family had already looked up Oxtongue Lake, and lo and behold, there was one just a 100 feet from our dock! Kids went off immediately in search of it and were successful right off the bat. Later in the day, while taking our first time visitors to Ragged Falls, after all our fun around the falls, we went in search of another one. This one was rated as having difficult terrain, and that was not incorrect! Each spot has a rating of how difficult it is to get to, how difficult it is to find once you get there, and the size of what you are looking for (some are as big as tuperware, while others the size of a magnet or film canister). While I can’t say this particular cache took me to an area of Ragged Falls I needed to see again, the idea was still inspiring – seeing parts of our lake with new eyes, a story and a purpose. It was inspiring indeed because before the weekend was over we had searched 3 others and still more to find. It wasn’t that geocaching was our only goal: we were tubing, canoeing or going to a store anyway, and adding to the fun was finding a treasure along the way with an added bonus that our guests were seeing Oxtongue from a different perspective. And for those that are fans of the TV show Survivor…some caches felt like we were actually on the show itself, in search of the hidden immunity idol.
I don’t know who has hidden these items around Oxtongue, but I thank them for doing so and hope that maybe a few of you decide to find out more about Geocaching. It really is a fun thing to do and what an opportunity to enlighten ourselves about local folklore, history or places and will be enjoyable in your travels even far from Oxtongue.