The story of us

Who knew this little “hobby” of mine could change my life so much? Not only has it taken me to some incredible places and created countless memories, but it also introduced me to my sweetie.

If you’ve been geocaching for a while and pay attention to social media, you may recognize him. That’s Scott Berks. Yep, that scottberks. Former co-host of (the NSFW) Chicago Geocacher Podcast and current co-host of The Geocaching Podcast. I met him at a cache. I had no idea who he was.

See, I was relatively new at the time. I had been caching about a year and a half but only had about 50 or so finds. And I was so proud of those 50 finds! I really thought that was a lot!

In December of 2012, I pulled up to a standard lamp skirt park and grab. It was farther out in the parking lot, away from the building, where there were no cars parked. Except for one – a cute little grey Mini Cooper with a cute guy in it. And it was parked at the lamp skirt that held the geocache. So I pulled in next to it and thought I’d wait him out. But then the guy got out of the car and walked up to the skirt, lifted it, and pulled out the cache! What?!? Holy smokes, another geocacher!!

I got out and asked if I could sign the log too. He handed it over, and we introduced ourselves. Keep in mind, this is the first non-family member geocacher I’d ever met! We talked a bit before he asked if I wanted to go find a few more together.

A million thoughts went through my head, like “Oh my gosh, what do I say? I don’t know this guy, but he seems harmless. But what if he kidnaps me? Or kills me? But wait, he’s a geocacher, so he can’t be all that bad, right?”

So I hopped in his Mini, and we found 14 caches in a huge series called the Randall Road Re-Romp in about an hour or so. Remember, I only had found 50 in total before this day, so this was huge! We exchanged information before going our separate ways that evening.

About two weeks later, Scott and I had our first official date. It was December 21, 2012, to be exact. If you remember, that was the day the world was going to end according to that crazy phenomenon based on the Mayan calendar. We still joke that we’re not sure if the world actually ended or truly began for us that day, but whichever it is I’m thankful every day that he and his boys came into my and my son’s life.

That original geocache is now archived, but Scott placed one there as a reminder that every story has a beginning and that’s where ours started. It’s gotta start somewhere!