Here’s something about Bean: she watches a relatively small selection of favorite movies over and over again. Some of her favorites include Knocked Up, Sex and the City, and National Treasure.

I only mention this because I always thought it was odd that National Treasure was in her mix. It’s the puzzles and the important secrets hidden in plain sight, she says. Everyone has equal access to any of them, all they have to do is look.

I never really thought about the democratic underpinnings of the idea that these various treasures are available as an equal opportunity to anyone who cares to find them, or how, bullet slinging baddies aside, this might constitute the real wonder behind the National Treasure movies.

But that aside, maybe treasure hunting is just awesome.

This weekend, Bean and I tried our hand at a little treasure hunting, and I nearly lost myself in giddiness. My voice went unusually high. I jumped up and down a few times without cause. I even found myself laughing at the air.

Treasure hunting can put anyone into a place of childhood glee.

Want to try it?

Have you ever heard of Geocaching?

Yesterday, following up on a suggestion, Bean and I registered with the website www.geocaching.com, created a profile, and started hunting in our neighborhood.

Geocaching is a game being played right now by people all over the world.

Someone hides a “cache,” basically a box or a jar that contains a log (like, a written log, not a tree, jerk) and maybe some other special items. To find this cache, you download coordinates into your GPS (either a Garmin or Tom Tom, or your smartphone) and find your way to the coordinates. Once you arrive, you have to figure out where the cache is hidden. Sometimes there is a puzzle involved, sometimes the trek to get to the cache is really challenging. Once you find the cache, you can write in the log, and take out any treasure (as long as you replace it with something of equal value).

Now here’s the cool part: these caches are located all over the world. There are an estimated 5 million geocachers out there and 1.2 million active caches. You may find that you’ve been walking by several every day for the last 5 years and never even realized it. It’s just like National Treasure without guns.

Here is the official website video describing what Geocaching is and how it works:

Think this is easy? I’m telling you, it’s like National Treasure without guns. Look at this example of a hidden cache:

Let me know if you join!