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TAoN No. 158: On mini adventures and feeling dorky. Plus a new (two-part!) Missing Word
Hello from New Orleans, where it’s open-window season.
A slightly unusual dispatch today, on the subject of Geocaching. I’m sure some of you are familiar with this practice; in fact, I’m hoping that’s the case, and that you veterans will weigh in. While I’ve been hearing about geocaching for ages, I’ve always found it a little off-putting, for reasons I’ll get to. But recently I decided to give it a whirl — not despite that hesitation, but because of it. I needed to let a little fresh curiosity pull me out of my comfort zone.
Briefly, for those not familiar: Geocaching is described as “a real-world treasure-hunting game.” Per Wikipedia: “Participants use a Global Positioning System receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called geocaches or caches, at specific locations marked by coordinates all over the world.”1
When I started hearing about this maybe 20 years ago, it sounded too complicated for me. Today, of course, there is an app.
So I downloaded it, and was presented with a localized geocache map. According to the app, there are 503 geocaches in New Orleans (more than I would have guessed). One was about a 10-minute bike ride away from TAoN headquarters; two more were within a 20-minute ride. I decided to head for the closest one; it wasn’t on any of my usual routes, so I took a pleasingly roundabout path to get to the site. The location turned out to be a monument I’d driven past and wondered about. So far so good!
But when I arrived, I wasn’t sure what I was actually looking for. I gather many geocaches are special, small containers, tucked away and stashing … well, I didn’t know what. So I walked around with my phone, looking. The “description” on the app was written like a riddle, and while in part it obviously described the monument, that didn’t help me find the cache. There’s a “hint” button, which yielded the word “camo.” Not helpful.
Maybe it was gone? Clicking on “activity,” I read entries by people who had found it, some recently; a few offered cryptic (to me) clues, but many just said “TFTC” (“thanks for the cache”). Some said, like me, they couldn’t locate it. Poking at my phone, I felt like a dork. A family or a bunch of school children searching for “treasure” is charming; a middle-aged man pacing about and peering under things is just weird. So I left!
The other two nearby caches were on regular routes, so a few days later I plotted a ride that took me to both spots. The first yielded a similar experience: Cool to stop and take a closer look at a local landmark — and less cool to log more fruiltess dork time.
But at the second spot, the directions were extremely explicit: go this prominent statue, then to the next street lamp upriver, and lift its loose base. Voila! So what was the treasure?
A keyholder containing a folded up piece of paper to sign, and a penny. Kinda anticlimactic, treasure-wise.
But frankly, I was elated.
I don’t see myself getting into geocaching in any ongoing way — I don’t like all the code-word, secret-society, puzzle-solver vibes, which to me threaten to override the pleasure of genuine engagement with a place. But I get the appeal, and I’m still thinking about the possibilities.
More to the point, I certainly got out of my comfort zone. I can imagine checking the app when I’m in a new place, and letting it send me on a mini-adventure (whether I find the actual “cache” or not). Besides, it’s okay that it sometimes made me feel dorky. I am, after all, a dork.
If you’ve had geocache experiences (or related thoughts) I’d love to hear!
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Dictionary of Missing Words is an exercise in paying attention to phenomena you encounter — sensations, concepts, states between states, feelings, slippery things — that could be named, but don’t seem to be. More here and here.
This week’s missing word is from Laura Manuel in the comments:
I was recently in Tokyo and it was pouring rain. As a Canadian who rarely has to use an umbrella, I struggled with umbrella etiquette in a megacity. Do I lift the umbrella to avoid a tangle? Do I tip the umbrella to the side when passing? And then I thought about missing words — we need a word to describe the smooth (or disastrous) flow of umbrellas in a crowd.
And this brought a response from Mark F:
On a crowded wet, rush–hour downtown, I watched a man manoeuvre sidewalks, walking briskly with precision and displaying flawless ‘dexterity’ with his umbrella; avoiding disastrous collision and dancing a smooth flowing dance across the puddles.
Clearly the man Mark spotted has the unnamed quality that Laura is searching for.
What else should we add to The Dictionary of Missing Words? Leave your suggestion — or respond to this one — in the comments.
IN OTHER NEWS
I am loving Joshua Glenn’s “Street Schema”’ mini-series on HILOBROW, “via which Glenn will share photos of manhole covers, the diagrammatic design of which he sometimes finds useful to his thinking — in his role as a consulting semiotician — about how to diagram a ‘semiosphere.’”
My most recent Branded column for Fast Company is about advertising that follows you around the Internet: creepy or “cool”?
My geocache mini-adventure reminded me of a similar experiment with Pokémon Go some years back.
Friend of TAoN Edward Cotton on his recent Photography Bootcamp for Strategists. “Crafting a story using ONLY images and NO WORDS is great and even better if they're your images.”
“Here is a gallery of men watching a solar eclipse in Boro Park in 2017. The photographer is credited simply as JDN. I would buy a book of these.” Via The Neigborhoods.
And in conclusion, I would buy a book of these: End of New York, by Rob Stephenson (whose The Neighborhoods newsletter you should be following!).
OKAY THAT’S IT!
As always, I value your feedback (suggestions, critiques, positive reinforcement, constructive insults directed at me, not at anyone else, etc.), as well as your tips or stories or personal noticing rituals, things we need a word for, and of course your icebreakers: consumed@robwalker.net. Or use the comments.
—> Or just click the heart symbol. That always makes my day.
And thanks for reading …
rw
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All this by Rob Walker PO Box 171, 748 Mehle St., Arabi LA 70032. Send me mail!
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See that Wikipedia entry for the history, but the basic idea apparently descends from a 19th century game called letterboxing, “which uses clues and references to landmarks embedded in stories.” Also: “Geocaching shares many aspects with benchmarking, trigpointing, orienteering, treasure hunting, letterboxing, trail blazing, and Munzee.” Now you know.
Geocaching for me is less about finding the item and more about seeing your city in a new way or exploring new cities. I’ve lived in Austin for 12 years and recently visited neighborhoods and parks for the first time thanks to geocaching. It’s even more enjoyable if you have someone with you and can pair an additional activity on like biking, hiking, or a picnic. It’s a nice way to do something different without spending money and limited sweating (well, maybe not avoidable in Austin but you get the idea!).
I have been geocaching for many years and have done some pretty crazy things to get my caches. Size matters and micro caches are usually small. Some can be disguised as bolts, or faceplates. I found a geocache on every island I went to on my cruise, China, Korea, I even made my brother climb a tree to ring a door bell, so that I could find the next location. Good brain work, and you learn to see the world differently!