Monday, April 19, 2021

Another One of My Crazy Adventures by Merri Maywether

I talked my husband into a crazy adventure. Geocaching. In my defense, it was eighty percent research for the story I'm writing,  Lilac Lane, and twenty percent I needed to get out of the house.

Geocaching is a scavenger hunt-style game that is managed with an app. The game is simple, free, and a fun way to explore old and new places. I watched YouTube videos and read blogs. With each bit of information, I knew this was my kind of game. The rules are simple. 

  • People hide containers of all shapes and sizes. I thought it would be a shoebox-sized container. It turns out some of the containers are smaller than a pillbox.
  • Others then set out to find them. 
  • The larger containers have a piece of paper or a book to sign. 
  • When a person finds the container, they take something out of the container and leave something behind. I brought stickers to share.
  • Regardless of success or failure, people log their attempts. 



imageThe app used Google Maps to help us get within ten feet of the "geocache." Easy right? 


Nope. 


This was one of those my small child hid the car keys when you're ten minutes late for work level of difficulty.


We searched under rocks, trees, picnic benches. I hurdled a creek. A couple of times, in hopes that a garden gnome had tried to abscond our treasure, I looked under the bottom leaves of flowers. Our shoes got muddy. People created wide berths to walk around us, and it was the most fun I'd had in a long time.


image The picture is of my husband showing our one geocache find.


To say we failed horribly at this game is an understatement.


However, we found something else. For each challenge, we spent thirty to sixty minutes as a team working to achieve something. Starsky and Hutch, Sherlock Holmes and Watson, and the Scooby-Doo gang had nothing on us. We found what had been buried for almost a year – a fascination with our small slice of the world.


Will we do it again. Definitely. What would I do differently? Bring more snacks. Trying to find something the size of my wedding band demands a lot of energy. I'm kidding, I like snacks and will use any excuse to enjoy them. 



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Merri Maywether lives with her husband in rural Montana. You can find her in the town's only coffee house listening to three generations of Montanans share their stories. Otherwise, she's in the classroom or the school library, inspiring the next generation's writers.


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Take a Visit to Paradise Hills, Montana


Faith Alexander ran away to Paradise Hills to hide from her past. Back home she has a mother that wants to run her life and the ruins from a marriage that never happened. An unexpected job offer gives Faith the chance to start a life where she can live life by her own rules. It is that much easier when she is befriended by the unassuming Holly Stewart.

A week before they were supposed to get married, Clark Grayson called off his wedding to Faith. By the time he figured out he made a mistake, it was too late to right the wrong. She was gone. When his friend Liam Lane helps him get a job at the Paradise Hills resort, Clark jumps at the chance to start life anew.

When Clark and Faith reconnect as bridesmaid and groomsman in Liam and Holly’s wedding party, an interesting game of cat and mouse begins. Everyone in Paradise Hills knows that love has a special kind of magic. Are Faith and Clark ready to trust it? Or, is their love buried too deep to be found?

Paradise Hills Summer is part of a series but can be read as a stand-alone novel. Download a copy and escape into a feel-good summer love story.


Get your copy for 99¢ 


5 comments:

  1. Oh! That geocaching sounds like so much fun! I’ve heard about this before and have a couple books with this in it.

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  2. Merri, thank you for sharing your fun adventure with us!

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