Today we went on our first geocaching trip. Geocaching is essentially a scavenger hunt, or a treasure hunt. People place a log (perhaps a piece of paper or a small notebook) along with other small trinkets into a box of some sort. The box can range anywhere from a film canister or a magnetic key holder to a larger plastic container. The other small trinkets are often identifiable to a particular person or team (like a wooden token with your name on it, or some home-made craft or some such), or sometimes just other small things. There are also geocaching “coins” which are numbered tokens whose location are tracked (via geocaching.com), and also “travel bugs” which are something other than tokens (usually something larger, like a small toy or something) that are also tracked on geocaching.com. After placing the cache, they are logged on some website (geocaching.com, terracaching.com, etc) where others then check to see what caches might be near them. For example, right now on geocaching.com, there are 3336 caches within 100 km of our condo!

Which brings us to today. As I’ve mentioned, I got a GPSr for my birthday. Today was the first day that we were able to get out and specifically go looking for some caches. I downloaded some local caches to the GPSr and loaded them up to my PDA too. The GPSr takes care of locating the cache while the PDA takes care of providing the details of the cache like what it is, and the hints on how to find it. The closest cache was one located on the bridge to Charleson Park. Gwen & I headed out with Aidan in the stroller and used the GPSr to get pretty close to the cache. Gwen climbed up on to the bank, looked under the ivy, and just like that, we’d found our first cache. The cache was a medium sized lock box with a bunch of stuff inside. Buoyed by that find, we made our way down to Granville Island where the next cache was located. This one was under a bridge, and while I was looking for it, it turns out that the person who placed the cache wandered by! She asked if we were geocaching, and told us we were close. Alas, I couldn’t find it, but Gwen went in and found it in no time.

We then went into the Kids Market and bought ourselves some tokens that we can place into the cache instead of just writing our name into the log. For us, it’s $0.50 stretchy-plastic speckled frogs. (♫ Five green and speckled frogs, sat on a speckled log, eating the most delicious bugs… ♫)

The next cache, also on Granville Island, was a bit humbling. Apparently a magnetic key holder located near the west end of the island. I’m pretty sure we had the right location, but we couldn’t find the cache. We sure got quite a number of weird looks from the tourists milling around too. The pressure got to us, and we bolted.

The next cache was located at the feet of a totem pole near the Burrard Bridge on the Seawall. Once again, I looked for it but couldn’t find it. And, once again, Gwen found it with little difficulty. This one was also a magnetic key holder, with room for little other than a piece of paper for logging the find.

Next up was a larger cache … a reasonably large plastic jar … behind the Vancouver Academy of Music. This one apparently used to have a number of musical instruments in it, but when we Gwen found it, there weren’t any there. We had bought some small wooden castanets and left them in the cache. Our last attempt for the day was one up on the train line near 7th and Burrard. The clue was unclear as to what we were looking for (it was part of a multi-part cache) so while we were at the right place according to the GPSr, we didn’t actually look for the cache.

So, for the day, Gwen was 4/5! It was lots of fun, an we look forward to finding lots more caches. We were all tired by the end of the day, some 4+ hours of walking and searching, a little over 8 km according to the GPSr.

The results are in: we pushed/carried Aidan through the 10k in 103:44 minutes.  Gwen finished 0:01 ahead of me, though!  Yay team!

Today, in our continuing series of things to do outside in Vancouver, we walked the Vancouver Sun Run. The Sun Run is a 10 km race through Vancouver that has grown beyond a typical 10k. For one thing, many people — like us — simply walk the course. For another thing, I think it’s grown way beyond what they had originally intended and almost beyond what the organizers are able to handle. This year, the largest ever, had 54,317 registered participants. The route (view it in Google Earth >here<, captured by my new GPSr) winds its way from West Georgia Street near the Art Gallery down through Stanley Park, along the north side of False Creek, over the Burrard Street Bridge, through Kits near Granville Island, along 6th Ave to the Cambie Street Bridge and over False Creek to B.C. Place. We’d done the Sun Run before, in 2004, but that was before we had Aidan.

So, we pulled our sorry selves out of bed early on Sunday and walked down to Granville street to see about catching a bus. Aidan was in the jogging stroller and our intention was to grab a 98 express, but the first one that came was waaaay overcrowded. Next along, however, was a #10 trolley that had plenty of space, and we wheeled the stroller on without any problem. So we arrived on West Georgia around 9 am, and made our way to our corral. And stood. And waited. It wasn’t until about twenty to ten before we started moving! By this time Aidan was starting to get a little antsy, but since we were jammed so tightly there was no room for him to get down and explore.

We didn’t end up crossing the start line until about 10:20 am. The “race” portion of the event started at 9 am, and by 9:30 am the “elite” runners had finished. By 10:20 am, some of our “runner” friends would have finished as well.

It was good weather at least, and to be in the middle of such a crowd is always interesting.

Despite the crowds, we kept a pretty good pace. Kilometre by kilometre whizzed by and soon we were almost halfway done — crossing the Burrard Street Bridge. As you can see, the crowds haven’t thinned yet.

We wound our way through Kits with Gwen pushing the stroller now, and incredibly our pace increased. This might have been because there was a little more room to manoeuvre the stroller, but inexplicably Gwen also tends to get faster towards the end of these things.

As we came along 6th Ave along the south side of False Creek, we seemed to catch up to another big pack of people. We saw Carla as we hustled back. It looked like she had finished the run and was on her way back home. She cheered “Yay Aidan!” as we went by. Shortly after, Aidan decided he had enough of the stroller and I ended up carrying him on my shoulders for the final 2 km.

Finally, we came to B.C. Place, the finish line. I don’t know what our time was, but it was somewhere around 2 hours. I don’t recall what our time was in ’04, but I think we were faster this time. Certainly we both felt better at the end of it this time. We met up with Ali and some of his friends inside.

After rehydrating and chowing down on some oranges and bananas (well, the boy and Gwen had bananas) we walked home (yeah, another 2 1/2 km walk). Getting transit back from B.C. Place just wasn’t going to happen. For one thing, the roads were still shut down for the race. For another thing, the Canada Line Sky Train construction has throttled traffic on Cambie St beyond belief. When we left the stadium, we could see a Canada Post truck on the bridge. By the time we got to the other side, and up a couple blocks to head home, it still hadn’t made it to the middle of the bridge!

We arrive home tired, but satisfied. A quick change, feeding, and rehydrating of the boy ensued and then we put him to bed for a well-deserved nap. The parents ingested some quite-needed Ibuprofen, and then plopped down in front of the TV. What adventures for next weekend?

Friday was my birthday, rounding out our 3 week stretch of birthdays. For my birthday, Gwen got me a GPS receiver: a fancy Garmin eTrex Vista CX. We intend to use it to do geocaching and for hikes. But that’s not what I want to talk about. On Friday night, Gwen took me to see “Hockey Mom, Hockey Dad” at the Arts Club Theatre. Tammy came over to babysit for us, and brought her two cats Keji and Jack — she and The Brit are going to Mexico for a week and we agreed to look after them again. At any rate, Hockey Mom, Hockey Dad is a two-actor play starring Cailin Stadnyk and Jackson Davies (you know, Constable Constable from The Beachcombers). It was written by a Caper, Michael Melski. It’s billed as a romantic comedy.

So, the play starts with a completely unrecognizable Jackson Davies (see pic from the play, below). Mind you, he looks 30 years younger. His character, “Teddy”, is a divorced custodian with a young son playing hockey in house league. In Trail, B.C. (apparently a departure from the original). Cailin Stadnyk’s character, “Donna”, is a divorced school teacher also with a young son playing hockey in the house league, on the same team (“The Leafs”). Teddy is one of those over-bearing, over-competitive, loud-mouthed hockey dads. Donna is a meek mother who’s never been to a kid’s hockey game. Right from the start, Teddy pursues Donna, and over the next 90 minutes (yes, it’s a short play) we find out more about Donna, but not that much about Teddy. As it turns out, Donna came from an abusive relationship.

Once we find that out, the play gets uncomfortable. Frankly, Teddy comes across as the same sort of abusive personality as her ex-husband. At one point, he incites the kids not to shake hands at the end of a game and instead to start a fight. Donna is predictably aghast at this urging to use violence.

Eventually, the two feed off each other. As the play wraps up, Teddy becomes a little less extreme and Donna become a little less meek, and they live happily every after.

The acting was great: both actors were quite convincing in their roles. The writing, however, was weak. Not awful, but we’ve definitely seen better plays. If you’re considering seeing it, consider giving it a pass. We had fun, though.