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Lately we have, as a family, taken up “hiking”. I say “hiking” because my definition of a hike involves wilderness and some sort of physical exertion. The Catfish defines hiking as “any walk longer than the one from front door to the mailbox”.

You may be wondering what it is like to hike with two small children. I am here to tell you that it is both easier and much much more difficult than two adults, alone in a forest with no one telling them to stop every two seconds because their “feet are hungry”.

I say it is easier because physically, it has to be. Catfish is only four and cannot walk for six miles on a flat stretch, let alone up the side of a mountain and back down. It’s also harder because the Admiral is still figuring out the dynamics of two footed forward motion and therefore must be carried in a Kelty pack.

I have a lot of people tell me “Wow, you guys are always out hiking!” and wonder aloud how and why we do it. The answer is simple: worn out children are a thousand times easier to manage than regular old cranky children, with the added benefit that they actually look forward to going to bed.

Because of all the time we spend outside some people have erroneously classified us as “outdoorsy” people. We are not “outdoorsy”. Just the word “outdoorsy” conjures up images of svelte men and women in Gortex jackets and high-end Tevas with special wicking socks to keep the blisters at bay. These people have no time for you or your children. They are too busy on their seventeen mile trek to the glacier fields to worry about your puny little problems.

Well, okay. To be fair, I live in Seattle. One of the main reasons Seattle is a city is because about one hundred fifty years ago a bunch of outdoorsy folk decided that they needed somewhere to get all their gear before heading on to Alaska in order to shoot some bear, pan for gold and generally hang out with Nanook. The little village of Seattle had a port from which to sail, was close to Alaska and had seamstresses in abundance, some of which even made hiking clothes.

So, in a sense, this town was built for those adventurous people. That doesn’t mean they aren’t annoying though. It is admirable to want to get back to nature but there is no need to be self-righteous about it.

Perhaps I’m just jealous of the Seattle Outdoor Enthusiast. I would love to be svelte but, as I am married to the second best chef in the Pacific Northwest*, that is never going to happen.  Plus, I really can’t afford all those fancy hiking clothes let alone all the fancy hiking gear. I have a black Jansport backpack that multitasks as my purse, diaper bag, day pack and suitcase with the added benefit that my husband is never embarrassed to carry it for me in case my hands are full. I bought it at the Fred Meyer for less than fifty dollars and I am planning to make it last for another five years . After which I will probably replace it with…

…a black Jansport backpack.

But, where was I? Oh right, hiking with kids. How does one go about getting children, some of whom are content to sit glued to a television set, out of doors and actually excited about what is essentially just walking up a hill (or down a hill, depending)? Luckily most children are born with an innate love of dirt. Others may be a little harder to convince.

Enter Geocaching.

What is that you say?

Well, I’ll tell you!

Before May 1, 2000, the United State government and a few of our BFF countries used a system called “selective availability” to scramble GPS receivers. Only those people that had the code key were able to accurately use a global positioning system. This was chiefly to keep the bad guys from being able to lock a missile target onto Graceland or the Mall of America or even Boeing Headquarters.

On May 1, 2000 the government turned off the “selective availability” feature of their satellites (I don’t know why, they didn’t tell me).

But, who cares?

Dave Ulmer, that’s who!

He found out about the switch off then turned around and said:

“Wait! So if I hide something out in the middle of nowhere, then go post the GPS coordinates of where I hid it, some random person could go find it? HOW F^@&ING COOL IS THAT?!?!”

So he did. And on May 3, 2000, geocaching was born .

I discovered geocaching by reading a Wiki-how article on “How to reuse an empty Altoids tin”. Number eight under the miscellaneous heading is “make a geocache or mini-time capsule”. To that I said “What the heck is a geocache” So I looked it up. Thirty minutes later I bought a GPS unit because, and I’m being completely honest with you here, geocaching is freaking awesome.

Basically, it is a world-wide game of hide and seek that’s played with technology instead of peeking through your fingers to cheat. You can go to the geocaching website and look up the coordinates for caches in your area. Once you find the cache you sign the log book and trade for any trinkets you might want (you take one, you leave one). I feel it is my duty to warn you that once you see how many are hidden near you it will drive you crazy until you can get out and find them.

The first time we  found a geocache, my son’s eyes lit up with incredulity. We had found a stash of toys under a log out in the middle of nowhere! I think he might have thought it was magic. Whatever it was, it was well worth the hundred and twenty bucks I dropped on the GPS unit.

We don’t hike any more; we now go treasure-hunting. For every park we visit we can find at least one cache hidden there. It makes the trek all that much more interesting and Catfish is getting pretty good at finding the hidden caches. Better than I am at any rate.

So go! Look up www.geocaching.com. Find your neighborhood and see if there are any caches around. It really is all sorts of cool. Just be sure to keep it on the down low when finding those caches, you don’t want everybody to know what you’re up to or they’ll want to be in on it too.

p.s. If I can, I will post some updates about the parks we visit.

*I say “second best” because there is a famous chef here in Seattle whom my husband admires very much and would be embarrassed to be ranked above him. Our friends understand this and agree, out of deference to Brian. Occasionally I get a random “But what about Foodie McAwesomeChef?!?” to which I reply “Would you like to come over and have dinner with us sometime?” I have never heard of anyone trying to rank my husband below second best after eating one of his meals.

You’ve seen the 2006 version with Daniel Craig, no? That was an awesome movie. A little parkour, a little black tie, a little flash and roll – it’s a very good time.

This was not the 2006 version. Nope.

Not by a looooooooooong shot.

This was the original 1967 version starring David Niven, Peter Sellers (sort of), Orson Wells, Ursula Andress, don’t forget Woody Allen, and just about anybody that walked into the studio and asked for a part.

Had I known it was a satire of the Bond films before I watched it. . . .

. . . .No. Actually, that could not have made it any better. It may have kept me from being so scandalized at the end. It may have swayed my decision to watch the movie at the start.

I can honestly say that I’m glad I saw this movie if only for the fact that I never ever have to see it again.

EVAR.

This was, without a doubt, the strangest and most confusing film I’ve seen since The Man Who Fell to Earth. And in TMWFTE at least I got the gist of it even if I fell asleep four or five times.

This was more like “Laugh-in” meets “Benny Hill” appearing together in a Vegas stand-up act to make fun of PBS’s “Mystery” series while swathed in velvet and feathers. If asked to describe it in one word I would have to say

WTF?

Is about as one-wordy as I can get. As far as the non-existent plot goes here is what I gleaned from the movie (and the subsequent Wikipedia article I had to read to learn what the hell I just watched)

James Bond retired in 1917 after luring his one and only love, Mata Hari, over the border to France in order to face a firing squad. For some reason the British Secret Service needs him back so they devise a plan to bring him back into the fold by blowing up his house. In the explosion ‘M’ dies and he has to return the only extant piece of him, his toupee, to his Scottish widow. Evil super-group SMERSH found out that’s where he would be and planted all sorts of honey-traps posing as the widow and her bazillion daughters….

…oh good lord, You know what?  If you really want to know what the hell happens in this train wreck, read the Wiki article on the plot like I did because I can’t even begin to regurgitate it.