The Vegas Tourist

Just for the record: Geocaching is an addictive sport/hobby, whatever you want to call it…  Ok?  Just wanted that out and in the open for anyone interested in trying this out on their next trip to Las Vegas. So don’t blame us when you come to Vegas for a vacation and miss your flight home because you were looking for Gracie!

Now let me explain.  After upgrading my GPS device this weekend, Sazzy and I headed off to the Strip to do something Sazzy talked about a few years ago.  Geocaching.  yes, another Partners in Crime adventure was about to begin.

According to Geocaching.com: Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices (most new smart phones are GPS equipped). The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online.

Someone hides something somewhere, goes online and logs its coordinates plus leaves a clue or two.  Others log on, get the information and head off to find it.  Each is ranked according to its difficulty and the type of terrain it is located in or near.  Some may look easy until you see it is on the other side of a mountainous ravine or a wall/parking lot, etc…

If you find the caches, there is usually something in it; A toy, a card or a notebook.  Each has its own instructions on what to do when you find it.  Generally when you find it, sign it, record your discovery than return it to where you found it.

Come to find out, Las Vegas is littered with these.  Some are easy, some hard.  I found two on the Strip that looked simple enough.  I grabbed Sazzy and we were off on an adventure.

(The Strip?  On Saturday Night?? We never said we were sane)

The first one was titled “Say Good Night Gracie”.  A tribute to the late George Burns, who played at Caesars Palace.  The cache is supposedly located near the Caesars Palace lower Valet.

After searching and probing for over an hour to no avail, we headed for a second one close by. “Is it a Mirage?”  It was pretty funny because after not finding Gracie, we marched off with this sense of determination.  The need to accomplish, to find and to conquer.  After all, this is Vegas, this is our home turf!!  We were not going to let a little cache stop us in achieving our mission.

Following the clues put us on top of the Mirage parking garage.  After not finding anything that looked like a cache, we called it a night and headed  home without any trophies to speak of. Just a really deep desire to get out there and do it again.

This drove me nuts, not finding a simple cache in a simple parking lot with clues that pretty much told us where it was and coordinates that were very accurate..…. So this morning, I returned to the scenes of the crime.  While hunting around Caesars Valet, I actually ran into another man looking for Gracie.  He had a few thousands finds under his belt and this one had him stumped.  It didn’t help that the signal bounced off the Coliseum.  I think he is still there looking.

Meanwhile, I was determined to have something for this post.  So I headed back over to the Mirage to figure out why we couldn’t find it last night.  Actually it was right where we were standing the night before; I just didn’t take the clue too literal.  “Feel for it”.   Yea, I do canyon tours and know not to reach into dark holes.

Looking right where I looked the night before and there it was;  tiny and hidden.  Hidden, but easy to see once you put some light on the subject.  I pulled it out, opened the capsule, and unrolled the paper inside.  Added our name to it, photographed it and put it back.

I can now say with great pride, The Vegas Tourist, as a team, is no longer Geocache virgins!  The first one is now down with many more on the horizon..

Interested?? Take a look at the geocaches site, look at where the caches are.  Next time you are in Vegas, give us a heads up and maybe we will join you on the search or plant one of our own for you to find!