History Behind Geocaching
Ah, yes, I must admit. There’s a bit of a pirate in me. My heart thrills at the thought of finding a hidden treasure, but this is 2006. What are the chances of finding a treasure anywhere in the world? In one word: excellent.
Excellent? Sure, and we owe it to Oregon resident David Ulmer and President Clinton. Prior to 2000, the United States Department of Defense developed a satellite navigation system known as Global Positioning System (GPS.) Intended for military use, the government scrambled the signals, thus limiting the civilian’s accuracy use. On May 1, 2000, President Clinton announced that the scrambling would be turned off.
Two days later, Ulmer celebrated by filling a bucket with trinkets and a log book for people to sign. His other instruction read, take something out, put something else in.
Ulmer hid the bucket, recorded its locale, and posted the information on the Internet. Less than twenty-four hours later, someone found the stash and word spread. It took less than three weeks for the craze to reach far away places like Australia.
Even though people enjoyed this new activity, something bothered them. The word stash had too many negative connotations. On May 30, 2000, Matt Stum coined a new word, geocaching. Today, over 330,000 geocaches exist world wide.
I’ve incorporated geocaching in my novel Why Casey Had to Die. Check it out!
Here’s some picture of me geocaching.
LC Hayden Geocaching
