Lebanon Express writer

Even though we didn't conquer a natural obstacle the way we have throughout most of the summer, preparing for this week's Recreational Guide was one of my favorites.

Instead of scaling a mountain or navigating a river, staff photographer Jeff Smith and I did something that can't even be considered a sport-rather, it's an activity.

We went geocaching on the coast.

This is the first Recreational Guide that I would encourage people of all ages to participate in.

Geocaching is a form of hide-and-seek game with the intention of getting people out to explore.

A cache is a small, usually waterproof, container that has a log book for people to write their name.

Little knick-knack items are placed inside the container.

Geocachers hide a cache and record its location with a hand-held GPS receiver.

To get started, visit www.geocaching.com.

Other people will then look up its coordinates and search for the cache.

These caches are hidden all over the world, including Lebanon, but we decided to take our hunt to the coast.

We left Lebanon for Newport early in the morning. For the third or fourth day in a row, temperatures were expected to reach 100 degrees.

It was somewhere between 60-70 degrees in Newport. That's what made it one of my favorite adventures of the summer.

Our first search took us to Newport's historic bayfront.

After checking out the area for a little bit, we looked up our first coordinates.

We headed back toward where we parked and found the cache, after a five-minute search, about 30 feet from Jeff's car.

It was a small container with a log book and a seashell.

I wrote our names down and put my business card into the container, encouraging people to e-mail me.

Our next search was a little more challenging.

We followed the coordinates on Jeff's iPhone, which took us to an upstairs deck overlooking the water.

We spent about 15 minutes searching along the wood railing and just before giving up, Jeff found a tiny container on the stairs.

We had ended our search and were heading back downstairs when Jeff spotted it.

For the next hour, Jeff and I explored more of the area, searching for caches.

Geocaching is a nice way to spend an afternoon and it forces you to explore.

And what better place to explore then the beautiful, cool Oregon coast?