Our new electronic friend...

Yes, after much research and pondering, we recently acquired a TomTom portable GPS unit. Since Shawn and I are getting older and are finding that we can't remember stuff more and lose things more frequently than we used to that we better get this new gadget before we lose ourselves! Since I have always been the "navigator" when we travel we were surprised and amused to find that our new GPS has a navigational voice named, yes, you guessed it, "Lori"! Ha Ha Ha! Very fitting! Kind of even sounds like me, but to Shawn's thankfulness, GPS Lori tells him where to go without any attitude. That's okay, I have enough attitude for both of us!

Anyway...not only does GPS Lori help us when we travel, but we have found that she can also help us with a new hobby we have heard about but never tried until this weekend! We decided to try "geocaching" this past weekend with our longtime pals, the McDowell family.

For those of you who don't know, geocaching is kind of like a treasure hunt using a GPS unit. All sorts of folks go out and hide these little treasure "caches" all over and then enter the latitude and longitude coordinates and other information about their "cache" on a very cool website called http://www.geocaching.com/ for other people to go out and find. We have found that cache etiquette allows you to add to the treasure (as space allows) and even take a little momento from the cache if you choose.

Our first excursion led us to an old cemetery near Tumalo where we had to look for clues on headstones to get the final coordinates to lead us to the hiding spot of the cache hidden in the cemetery. Very clever! It took us a little bit to get the hang of how the GPS works, but what great fun!! We are hooked!

Today we decided to try it again on our own after the McDowells took off for home and were able to locate another cache near the Deschutes River just outside of Tumalo.

We think it will be a great summertime hobby and help us and GPS Lori get to know each other better! Happy Hunting!