SpeedWalker

A SpeedWalker's First Geocache Race By: Amber Walker

On a warm and sunny day in November, a girl named Amber entered her very first 5G race. The goal of the race was to find and log 5 geocaches the fastest by the end of the racing period. Even though the racers had a week to complete the task, Amber knew she wasn't the fastest so she entered the race under the codename SpeedWalker. Amber was excited because she had heard of these geocache races before but had never participated in one. As she put her bib on and headed to the starting line she began to get nervous that she would come in last place and not find any geocaches. Luckily she didn't have time to dwell on these thoughts as her thoughts were interrupted by the announcer.

On your mark..... Get set......  Go!!!!!

The race began at a convention center in Greensboro, NC so Amber looked for nearby geocaches. The first one that caught her eye was titled "What a Hoot!". Amber immediately thought of the restaurant called Hooters and wondered if the title was alluding to that so she got in her car and started driving closer to the location. Sure enough, her phone led her to the back of the Hooters parking lot. Amber began recording herself for proof as she got closer to the geocache.

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After finding her first geocache with ease, Amber was eager to find her next one. The map said that there was a geocache located across the street but, after seeing all the trash near the location, Amber decided to give up and find the last one that was near the area. As Amber got closer to the next location, she realized that she passed it on her way to the first geocache. In order to find this next geocache, she had to cross a busy intersection.

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Amber couldn't find the geocache after looking around so she decided to look at her phone for a picture of it. Amber found the geocache immediately once she knew what to look for. Since it was getting darker, Amber decided to get dinner and go home and finish finding the other three geocaches later. She felt confident that the other geocaches would be easy finds.

Days passed and Amber completely forgot about the race due to her active life at college. On the last day of the racing period Amber received an email reminding contestants that it was the last day of the race and that no one had found/logged 5 geocaches. After getting out of her only class for the day Amber immediately went to Dunn to find more geocaches. On her way to her car she stopped to look for the geocache by the convocation center. Similar to the geocache in the crosswalk button, she didn't find it until she saw a picture of what she was looking for. This was probably the smallest geocache she'd ever seen/found.



The first one led her to a makeshift road with a tractor on the side. Amber looked but the only thing that she saw was a container in a tree. Although she had a hunch that this was it she decided not to grab the mysterious container. What if it had something gross in it?! Amber decided to drive away never knowing if she found the geocache to avoid any bugs that may be protecting the container (on the nside or outside). She drove to the next geocahce which was only .2 miles away. According to the title INSERT TITLE HERE, there used to be a coffee shop here. The hint for this geocache was to water the flowers. Initially she thought it was going to be in front of the Roses store sign but upon seeing that she was going farther away she realized that it was near the small bushes in the parking lot. After looking around for a couple of minutes Amber decided to pick up what looked to be a stake for the bush. Not expecting to find the geocache, Amber opened the container. She realized that this was, in fact, the geocache!

After finding this geocache Amber only had to find one more to finish the race. She had two options. Head to a geocache 2 miles down the road or head back home and find one near where she was having dinner. She got in the car and decided to do the one by home (her every move is decided in some way by food). Once she got near the location she parked her car and headed towards the power boxes that were close to the destination. She looked all around but could not find anything. She even looked for pictures but those didn't help. She even lifted the cable boxes but didn't want to move too many things for fear of electrocuting herself, and what good would it be if she found the geocache but didn't live to get her prize? Unfortunately, this location has been the site of a recent project to provide more sidewalks for students to use. As Amber went to dinner, she figured that the people who put the new sidewalk in moved the geocache when they were working and didn't put it back. Sad that she was not able to find all five geocaches and get first place, Amber was still glad that she got this far into the competition with an overall record of finding 4 out of the 7 geocaches she looked for.

Being a future teacher, Amber is always looking for things that she can use in her future classroom. She loved geocaching so much that she decided to create a lesson plan for her own students. Following is the lesson plan and any materials you would need to do the same activity in your classroom. Enjoy!