Geocaching and Solar Telescopes

Here is the gang before heading out for the day.  We all decided today was the day to try our hand at geocaching.  Our first stop was at a local park.

 We looked everywhere and we couldn't find it. We were trying to be sneaky about it since their were so many people at the park.  We gave up after about 20 minutes because everyone was cold and quickly losing interest.  I chalked it up to that we are new and we need more obvious ones as we start out.

Our next stop was a local store (S & S Optics) that sells telescopes.  They were having a solar party where they had several customers set up telescopes that can look at the sun.  We had a great time learning about all the different types of telescopes and then seeing the sun in so many different ways.

 We saw solar flares,

 sun spots,

and hydrogen burning off.

The kids loved this man.  He explained everything he was doing and why.  He talked to the kids at their level and didn't talk to me at all.  They wanted to stay with him the rest of the day.

 Eventually, we left to try to find another geocache.

But once again, we just turned in circles.  Here are the kids traipsing through the tall grass, trying to avoid cactus.

 We had to get N back home by noon because he had a baseball game. So we dropped him off, had lunch and then talked Dad into going out with us.

First, we had to make a bug stop to check out a cool stink bug.

Then we started looking for a cache.

We found it!!!  The kids were so excited especially since we hadn't found the last 2.

 We checked out the box, made trades, signed the book and then rehid it.  The kids were motivated to find the next one now.

We tried to find out that we had looked for earlier but had no luck.  Finally, we were heading back home.  It was a fun day full of lots of learning, new experiences and memories.

We can't wait to go geocaching again.  We will just keep improving our finding skills.