By Hailee Jeske
On Saturday I participated in the Geocaching Excursion hosted by UWM’s Campus Activities Board (CAB). When I saw that CAB was hosting a geocaching event, I was extremely excited. The weather was the nicest it has been in a very long time, perfect for heading out on a hike. My parents and I and our dog Georgie piled in the car and went to Pike Lake State Park, something we haven’t been able to do for a few weeks.
My favorite part of the event was the nostalgia that I experienced while completing the geocaches. When I was a child, my family and I would often go geocaching all over Wisconsin. Back then, we had to use an actual GPS, not one on a phone. Prior to going, my dad would have to spend around an hour to get everything set up. He would have to first search for the geocache we were going to hunt for and download it to his GPS. It was interesting to see the immense growth of technology because today we were able to use just an app on my cell phone.
My parents and I unfortunately were unsuccessful in finding our first geocache, and we are thinking that maybe someone had taken it. But we didn’t let that stop us. We went back to the geocache app and found another one close by.
This was the first virtual event that I have completed outside of the house, and it was a great change of scenery. It was a fun way to get outside and feel connected with others even though we weren’t all physically together.