Tracy and I sat down to prepare for our outing with my sister-in-law Shelly and her husband James, who were visiting from Kansas City. I must admit, I was a little skeptical about the thought of treasure hunting. James informed me that all we needed was a free membership with the website geocaching.com, and a hand held GPS unit or a GPS enabled smart phone. We then created an account and decided on a profile name. We were now ready to see what this treasure hunt was all about. We soon discovered it was a technology-driven game of hide and seek using global positioning satellites. Members are able to hide caches and log their coordinates for others to find. These hidden caches contain a log sheet for you to sign your profile name. Some cache containers are larger and contain “treasures” that you can trade for other items. Trackables are items that have special tracking codes so that you may track where they have been. Then there is the virtual cache, which is not a hidden object at all. These types of caches are usually historical landmarks or may just be places with an interesting view. To log these types of caches you must answer a question about the locale or post a picture of the specific landmark and post it to the website. Now that we had more of an idea of what we had gotten ourselves into, I was definitely more excited about the geocaching expedition that lay ahead.
We all decided we would like to hike in the area of Watson Lake, as none of us had hiked there before. I pulled up the page on the website where you are able to find hidden caches and was given many search options to choose from. I opted to search by state and scrolled down to Arizona and hit the “go” button. Twenty-three thousand five hundred and ninety-nine ...
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...scovered many types of treasures that day. The day read like a story from the book The Joy of Geocaching that I had started to read the night before. I must agree with the author’s statement that “Geocaching is a healthy and inexpensive way to get the whole family outdoors, energized, and pulling together for a common goal.(Gillen 9)” Judging from the good time our family had it will be something we continue to do in the future.
Works Cited
Madden, James. Personal Interview. 4 February 2012.
Madden, Shelly. Personal Interview. 4 February 2012.
Geocaching - The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site. Groundspeak, Inc. Web. 07 Feb. 2012. .
Gillin, Paul, and Dana Gillin. "Family Time." The Joy of Geocaching: How to Find Health, Happiness and Creative Energy through a Worldwide Treasure Hunt. Fresno, CA: Quill Driver, 2010. 9. Print.
Now that we’ve made our way through the journey of Ken Jennings’ incredible book I feel as if it’s important for me to try to sway you to become more involved in geography. It’s a truly fascinating subject and can take you places you never thought you could ever visit. If you don’t want to leave your home, at least buy an atlas, map, or visit Google Earth. You never know what you could discover in your journey. If you don’t think maps or an atlas is your thing, you never know if you never try. Jennings created a journey, for me I would have never cared to take had it not been assigned as a college class assignment, but now I’m so glad I did. Jennings shined a different light on geocaching, and map hunting. He made it fun, interesting, and overall thrilling.
Weiner, Eric. The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World.
The Grand Canyon is one of the most amazing natural wonders in the world. It was originally deposited sediment that was lithofied, and turned into sedimentary rock. The rock was then carved out by hydraulic processes (Warneke). These processes, all combined, took almost three to six million years to form the Grand Canyon. Continued erosion by wind and rain in the present time continues to shift what the canyon looks like, and make it different as time goes on ("Grand Canyon Facts").
I would like to dedicate this book to my parents, D Paul and Judy. My love of art and travel, as well as my sense of determination comes directly from them, and I love them deeply for it. I would also like to thank my supportive husband, Jason, without whom I would be lost and adrift. My friend and publisher, Kemberlee, has given me much support and inspiration, as well.
While digging in the far reaches of the African outback, now know as the western part of Kenya, archaeologist Bozo excavated a site that revolutionized the thoughts of the scientific world. At this site they found many interesting artifacts and paintings that included proof of an early civilization. At this time scientists are calling this civilization “Pontu” after one of the paintings suggested that a pontoon was used for transportation across Lake Victoria, one of the adjacent lakes.
The American Discovery trail, also known as the ADT, was founded in 1989 by the American Hiking Society. (HikaNation). It is 6,800 miles long, runs through 15 states, and goes coast to coast. There are continuous paths for adventurers of all types. The trail welcomes horseback riders, cross country skiers, cyclists, hikers and of course backpackers. Anyone planning to hike the ADT from beginning to end should set aside around 14-16 months. Some can finish sooner or later depending on their level of fitness. For anyone wanting to hike through beautiful land, see historical landmarks and say they completed one of the 16 Millennium Trails; the American Discovery Trail is the experience for them.
In a time where the general population is overweight and obsessed with technology, there isn’t much time for the outside world. A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson is about two corpulent men on a journey to walk the Appalachian Trail. At first their tale seems unlikely because of their weight and the fact that they have never hiked a day in their lives. However, it quickly turns into an inspiring story that we, as people, should use to spark our own adventure in the great unknown. Bryson writes A Walk in the Woods to encourage people to live a little and experience the great outdoors, to meet interesting people in it, and to encounter the enthralling wildlife that resides on the Appalachian Trail.
The state of place-names in the future is unknown and rapidly changing. The place-names in online games and virtual reality worlds don’t exist in the real world. We are constantly being told by these games that whatever we see in the online gamer world is a good model of life in the real world, but that statement is wrong. The invention of the GPS is starting to have a huge effect on the history and derivation of place-names, and it is starting to make humans un-reliant on place-names. Nowadays, all one has to do is type in the coordinates and can immediately find his or her destination, which is the cause for the downfall of the importance of place-names.
It had been a decade since I camped last, and I recalled it being a jam packed, smokey, noisy family campground. I had only been camping in the “real woods” once, and that was literally decades ago - four of them. And now, Wendy, who is a self-proclaimed Queen-of-the-wilderness, introduced a weekend in the interior of Algonquin Park as one of our - Canadian Destinations.
Strayed, Cheryl. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012. Print.
Growing up in Midwest America, there is not much to look at. The trees, fields of grass, rolling hills, and small towns offer a dull environment for a teenager. There are hardly any monuments, sculptures, or architectural feats to gaze at in admiration. Ultimately, the Midwest appears very mundane. This monotonous landscape seems to push the idea of a typical lifestyle of conformity; one that customarily consists of attending school, finding a career, and settling down with a family. To fully procure an awareness and acceptance of different lifestyles, one must travel. Whether from town to town or on the other side of the planet, traveling allows a person to see the different cultures, beliefs, and beauties that make up our world; I believe in traveling.
The debate over technology being healthy for our children has been a debate that has gone on for years. It appears as though the tragedy that children are missing out on hands-on nature is definitely something we all must learn to accept. Nicholas D. Kristof hits the nail on the head when he suggest that we try to preserve nature but we don’t promote natural activity such as hiking, biking, camping, and “discovering the hard way what a wasp nest looks like”. Kristof does an effective job getting the point across on experiencing nature and limiting technology. He is a father that is destined for his young daughter to know about the outdoors with personal experimentation. Kristof’s intended audience is geared toward people that want their children and themselves to be involved in nature, but they have been consumed with this technological age.
The Hereford World Map is the world’s oldest surviving map of the world; it was made in 1300, during the beginning of the Renaissance in Europe. There was a wider range of influences on mapping during the later medieval period. With an increase in exploration, Europe began to evolve into an international continent; widespread travel can be seen by the influences of the Islamic world on architecture. While map making in China had flourished in the 11th C, mapping was beginning to evolve in Europe. By around 1400 there was a peak in map making in Europe. There is evidence of the influence of Roman mapping on medieval maps in Europe. The Medieval world maps but together information from Roman sources to make the world maps in the middle ages known as the mappa mundi, meaning cloth of the world. These were cloth maps, and the name mappa mundi was widely used for them. These world maps were understood by historians as an attempt to show where countries were located, quite often they were not just geographical representations but they were also stories of the world. As knowledge of map making increased during the Renaissance, was a move for wider representations of information on maps. The map became a source of information on the animals and history of the different countries. This can be seen in The Hereford World Map, a map that gives a geometrical representation of the locations of the known countries of the world and also acted as an encyclopaedia of information on various types of animals and where in the world they came from.
Looking back on a childhood filled with events and memories, I find it rather difficult to pick on that leaves me with the fabled “warm and fuzzy feelings.” As the daughter of an Air Force Major, I had the pleasure of traveling across America in many moving trips. I have visited the monstrous trees of the Sequoia National Forest, stood on the edge of the Grande Canyon and have jumped on the beds at Caesar’s Palace in Lake Tahoe. However, I have discovered that when reflecting on my childhood, it is not the trips that come to mind, instead there are details from everyday doings; a deck of cards, a silver bank or an ice cream flavor.
The worst day of my life began innocently enough with my small group of friends preparing to explore a cave. Each month the four of us, I, Jill, John, and Ted, would choose two or three caves and spend our weekends engrossed in exploring them. Today’s cave was a special one; it afforded just a small window of opportunity for exploration because it flooded completely with each high tide. As we checked our packs and made sure all our spelunking and survival gear was in order, a rather jovial, but sizable, fellow by the name of Scott Porker happened by and asked if he could join our group. We agreed, as we were always happy to be in the company of a kindred spirit, and since the tide had just gone out we began our descent into the cave.