One of the big draws for me when I decided to join the staff of The Natchez Democrat was the opportunity to get out and meet the citizens of our community, and write the stories about their sporting adventures.

This week provided me my first such opportunity to participate in such an adventure when Stan Owens, Ron Willett and Bruce Derden took me for my first Geocaching expedition around town and through the Natchez State Park.

I was surprised by the fact that Owens expected me to be an active participant and any ideas I had of this being a regular story vanished, when Owens handed me his GPS unit and after a brief instructional session told me, &8220;Now You go find the cache.&8221;

I can&8217;t tell you where the location was because of the honor code, which forbids me from disclosing the specific location, but I will say that once I had reached the location of the first cache, I was provided with a spectacular view overlooking the Mississippi river.

From there our group headed over to Duncan Park for the start of our next hunt. Again, I, the novice, was thrust into the lead and reluctantly bounded down a nature trail following the little arrow located on the screen of the GPS unit. I had no idea where I was leading these guys &8212; or where they were following me to &8212; but neither of us seemed to mind once we began walking.

After searching for a good 20 minutes the GPS reciever said we were within a few feet of the cache, I located my second cache by thinking to myself, &8220;Now where, would I hide something like this around here?&8221;

That was when I began to understand a little more implicitly the nature geocaching. It&8217;s all about the thrill of the hunt, and finding a reason to get off the couch and go somewhere you otherwise would have had no reason to visit.

Our third cache took the group over to Emerald Mound. For me this was the most nostalgic part of our afternoon, because sitting atop the mound I was able to think back to my childhood when my parents brought my brother and I out to the mound for a picnic. He and I spent that afternoon rolling down the mound in the hot sun, while our parents looked on.

At the summit of the mound I thought my afternoon of Geocaching had reached it&8217;s conclusion, and inside I was almost hoping it had, but I quickly learned that this was only the beginning as the group began to compile numbers and take down coordinates that would lead us to our next destination a little more than a mile away somewhere within the state park.

From a parking lot inside the state park, again I can&8217;t say exactly which one due to my having sworn to keep the location a secret, we piled out onto a trail which lead us deep into the woods off the trail to our next cache. For 45 minutes or more we trekked up hills, around giant spider webs, and it was there that I gained another insight into geocaching &8212; for the participants, it&8217;s an obsession. This was something I was familiar with from my years spent turkey hunting, where I have endured near-dehydration, snakes and a innumerable other hazards all for the simple pleasure of chasing a few toms and spending a few hours with nature.

When the afternoon&8217;s hunt was done, I came back into the office with my shirt soaked with sweat and still breathing heavily from trekking up and the down trails in the state park.

Someone in the office asked me, &8220;Well, did you have fun?&8221;

&8220;Ask me tomorrow,&8221; I replied.

Tomorrow has since come and gone, but as I sit here still sore and my legs itching from the chigger bites I picked up along the way, somehow it all oddly seems well worth it.

Rick Breland is the outdoors editor for The Natchez Democrat. If you would like to share one of your outdoor adventures with he can be reached by phone at 601-445-3633, or by e-mail at

rick.breland@natchezdemocrat.com

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