Reading has always been my one true love. While other children were being grounded from television or playing with their friends I was being grounded from the one thing that would sink in -- books. This love has not strayed as I've gotten older. Rather it has grown, as has my library (to well over 500 books). I read at home, on the trail, and anywhere else I can spare one hand and one eye to the pages. Friends and boyfriends can be fickle, but the comfort of a book is always there.

In February 2004 I was fooling around on the internet and came across Bookcrossing. This site said to "free your books!" The principle of Bookcrossing is for members to register their books and then leave them somewhere -- Starbucks, a Walmart parking lot, the hospital, a park bench -- anywhere, really. Then when someone finds the book they have the joy of registering that they've found the book and read it,making their notes about it before letting it go again. This concept sounds wonderful to me -- not because I can bear to give up my books, mind you, but because I can go out and find more books! Books, just lying around!

As I nosed around the Bookcrossing Web site, a coworker at the newspaper I worked for walked into the room. "You know there's another site like that, right?" he said. "Something like geo, geostashing, or something like that. People give you clues and you go looking for stuff hidden in parks and stuff." This sounded interesting so I started googling and found Geocaching. What amazing stuff! From that day on I was hooked. Days off were dedicated to caching trips to different parts of the sprawling Tampa Bay area or to Gainsville or Orlando. Everytime we went camping I was pulling caches to try during our sightseeing. I recruited my younger siblings (Limited 3 and IronicErwin). This hobby was indeed the best thing since sliced bread. I mean, who really needs sliced bread when you have trail mix anyhow?

But though I had found a new obsession (to the chagrin of my wonderfully supportive boyfriend) I kept track of Bookcrossing. After all, it really was a "cross" between my now two favorite hobbies: books and geocaching. I wondered how I could join the two sites, and decided on a crossover cache. There are other bookcrossing caches out there, from Hong Kong, Germany and the Netherlands to Canada and 10 states in the United States, including one in Jacksonville, Fla., home of this year's GeoWoodstockIII. But I won't often be making the pilgrimage up to Jacksonville outside of GW3, and certainly not simply to drop off a book, so Tampa was in dire need of its own Bookcrossing cache.

Now, anyone knowing me at all knows I won't be giving up my own books anytime soon, but a friend gave me a box of books (because people are always giving me books) and a few of them are not exactly in my taste or are ones I already have. An medium ammo can and a few plastic bags later and I was ready! Since I already have a site in mind, my first Geocrossing cache can begin. I've picked out an array of seven books for the first placement: A Fever in the Heart by Ann Rule,
Coming Back: A Psychiatrist Explores Past-Life Journeys by Dr. Raymond A. Moody, The Night Spider by John Lutz, Dean Koontz's One Door Away from Heaven, The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy, Elise Title's Romeo, and Fern Michael's The Future Scrolls. I left room for trade as well, since none of the books are really kid-friendly (although I hope in the future to either place a few myself or have other geocachers fit some in). Also in the cache are a few trade items -- my signature frogs, Today's Cacher smashed nickels, keychains and other trinkets -- and a log. All the books are listed in Bookcrossing and on the inside cover the Web site and stock number are written so the next person to enjoy the book can make notes and pass it on to yet another cache or friend who'd appreciate it.

Bookcrossing's aim "is to make the whole world a library. BookCrossing is a book exchange of infinite proportion." The design of geocaching "is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet." Both sites have brought together people from all over the globe. What could be better than to bring these two phenomena together as they have brought us together? Like any other cache, this one sits among the trees waiting to be found by fellow geocachers (and book-lovers). Good luck on finding it and happy reading if you get there!