It was a blustery Saturday afternoon. Clouds were looming in the distance. The shrubs brushed against my arms and legs as I burrowed deeper into the wilderness, in search of a small canister that had the potential to change my life forever. A raindrop plunked onto my unexpecting forehead, and as I glanced up, I noticed a mysterious black shape sneakily hidden in the side of a tree. THE CANISTER! A more adventurous and rewarding version of a scavenger hunt, geocaching is a highly intellectual activity that requires only a GPS, a set of coordinates and pure skill. To find a geocache, one must first enter the set of coordinates into a GPS. This will give them a vague location, and at times might even be a decoy to test the geocacher’s abilities. The geocacher must then travel to the destination and use the various clues provided to track down the cache. Be warned: difficulty levels vary. It could be a PNG (Park ‘n Grab) or you may be army crawling through the woods for hours in search of your treasure. You will want to embark on your expedition as soon as possible, as people who are the FTF (First To Find) may be the lucky recipients of a special prize. Some of you have probably already written this off as a “nerd” activity, but before you decide to do something “cool” and “fun” instead, such as contracting nasty germs from the local tanning beds, just think of all of the amazing benefits geocaching has to offer. First of all, geocaching increases your chances of survival should you ever get lost-probably by a good 99% (I would have said 100% but you never know what can happen in the wild). Also, it teaches you good GPS skills (handy for stalking crushes). Geocaches are hidden all over, so it gives you an excellent excuse to see the world (and the beautiful corn stalks of Iowa!) and meet new people along the way. So, the next time you have a couple of hours to yourself, I highly recommend that you dip your toe (or your whole foot) in the world of geocaching. You never know what you might find!