Here's a link to a Google Earth blog entry that has a .kmz file showing the location of all SR-71 spy planes.   I thought stuff like this would be a secret. 

 

 

 

I woke up Saturday and prepared for my first day of geocaching.  I had 4 kids with me, so I located 4 local geocaches at geocaching.com, programmed the coordinates into my new Garmin Geko 201, and sealed the directions in 4 envelopes.  When I picked up the other 2 kids, each kid selected an envelope and began reading about their cache.

 

We first tried to find a cache named Salamander, but after an 1.5 hours we gave up.  This is harder than I thought!  Drats, strike one. 

 

Next we tried Sampson's Pebble.  We hiked about .75 miles down the Midstate Trail in Spencer near Browning Pond to a giant boulder named Sampson's Pebble.  About 500 feet off the trail was the cache.  I turned on the Geko and we bushwhacked to a stonewall.  The thing I didn't know about, the GPS systems are only accurate to around 60-80 ft, so we started looking under rocks at the stonewall.  After about 15 minutes I heard a yell from my daughter Elise "I found it!".  Yes.  It was a cylindrical can and when we opened it it was filled with cache trinkets:  jax, sunglasses, plastic toys, and a log book.  We all signed the log book.  And the kids took a trinket each, for them, this was the prize.  I told them I would need some help carrying the trinket I wanted -- Sampson's Pebble -- and we all pretended to try and carry it. 

 

 

The treasure for me -- a nice day of hiking, orienteering, and geocaching enjoying the day with kids.

 

We tried one more cache...the Moore State Park cache...but I was too cold.  And I had already my treasure.

I received the Garmin Geko 201 I had ordered today...and am ready to go geocaching with the kids.  This will be a lot of fun.  We had done some letterboxing last year, geocaching should be even better.  There are about a dozen caches within 5 miles of my house. 

 

I got this Geko 201 model because it has built in GPS games...Geko Smak, Virtual Maze, etc...  Fun, fun, fun!

 

Google Earth is fascinating software.   With the open APIs and GPS, all sorts of interesting things can happen.  Sportsmen of all kinds -- bicycle riders, hang glider pilots, etc.. -- can record their trip, save it to a file...and share their route with others as on this website named MagnaLox

 

Google Earth has increased the resolution on the maps in the region of the Olympics.  The resolution is so high that you can zoom in between individual trees!  With Google Earth and the .kmz file you can practically visit the Olympics virtually.  Fascinating.