Who is this kid, anyway? So the boy is thirteen, and almost fourteen, which means that he's becoming less what he's been made to be, and more what he decides he wants to be. It's an odd experience, when the person you know best in the world begins to surprise you. Who is this kid, anyway? I have found some of the answers to that question while we have respectively dragged one another around the country on one hunt or another.

He has skills. He's a better cache finder than I am. I admit it. If he didn't need me to drive, I don't know if he would need me for anything. Wait, he had his grandmother drive him to a cache today--maybe he doesn't need me for anything, except spending money. When we get within 50 feet of a cache, he finds it before me at least two times out of every three. I have no idea how he does it. He also translates clues faster than I do. And he can enter waypoints into his eTrex faster than I can, and he's equally fast with either hand. That's the part I find really strange. Has he been practicing? And if so, why?

I've even learned to depend on him. He reads my maps for me, and I don't question him any more. When he says "turn right," I turn. But treating him as a peer requires a mental adjustment that's difficult at times. It's unsettling to have a teenager in my home, but reassuring to know that I'm turning him loose into the world with judgment I can respect.

Of course, he wouldn't be a teenager if he didn't know he had skills, and take every opportunity to make sure everyone else knows it too. He can be a classically insufferable teenager. Insufferable to everyone else, that is: I see too much of myself in him to do besides smile ruefully. It still surprises me, every time, when I see how much he's me.

He writes the things I would write, using the words I would use. For instance, of late, I've become lazy about my log entries. My companions log first, and I log a quick "me too." But I'm not sure I have many options, because once the boy is done, I have nothing to add. It's not that he writes everything I would write--it's that he actually writes the log entry I would have written myself. He writes the things I would write, using the words I would use. He uses the same jokes, posts the same pictures, and even has the same weird, overly-precise grammar. When did my voice start coming from someone else's head? I would think I've cursed him, except that I still think the curse might be on me.

Of course, in other ways, he's a complete idiot. I suppose the modern world is well-suited to these children of the video game generation, but I still wonder about his survival sometimes. How is it possible that this clever, independent creature can navigate me through Denver during rush hour with more confidence and ease than he can navigate himself over a barbed-wire fence? No one will ever mistake me for the Marlboro Man, but I can climb a three-foot fence. This little suburban couch potato needs ten minutes and two aborted attempts, not to mention constant coaching from his father. I wonder, in the abstract, if we're rearing a generation of children who are more comfortable with technology than we are, but more intimidated by the physical world. One of the things I like about geocaching as a hobby, and one of the things I am glad it gives the boy, is constant reinforcement of the intersection between the virtual world and the real one. It shows us lines on a map, and then forces us into the world to confront the objects that those lines represent.

And in some ways, not knowing things has its benefits. Last weekend, the boy solved a puzzle cache that has confounded some of the best cachers in our region for weeks.Geocaching is all about knowing exactly where you are in the world, but even then, where you are is less important than who you're with. I really think that part of his success is the fact that he had no idea what he was supposed to think about the puzzle, so his thinking wasn't restricted by virtue of experience. Make no mistake--experience is still a virtue. But it's good to be reminded that not all of our supposedly informed assumptions are valid, and that we need to leave room to let the world surprise us, especially in this sport, where unwarranted expectations are precisely what good tricksters use to mislead us.

Our weekend expeditions have reinforced that even if he wasn't my kid, and I met him today for the first time, I'd still like him. He's tough, and smart, and not afraid to solve problems, even when they're outside his experience. This boy of mine turns out to be pretty good company. Geocaching is all about knowing exactly where you are in the world, but even then, where you are is less important than who you're with.