365 True Things: 219/Ingress

Last year when David was in Maryland, I went out for a couple of visits. On one of those visits we explored Harpers Ferry, WV, and on our way home we stopped at Antietam National Battlefield. As we approached the visitors center, a couple walking toward us down the path stopped, gave David an appraising look, and asked, "David?"

And so we met, in the flesh, a couple of virtual Flickr/Facebook friends, Vicki and Daniel Ashton. What a surprise! It turned out they had seen some recent photo posts of mine, which of course featured David—so even though they didn't know him from Flickr or FB, they recognized him. We all thought that was very amusing.

They were spending the day playing a game called Ingress, capturing portals. They explained the concept briefly. It sounded like a glorified mash-up of geocaching (because you have to move from place to place to accomplish anything) and a complicated war game. All done via a "device"—in their case, an iPad.

That was in September—David's birthday, in fact.

Gettysburg unknown soldiers

Skip ahead a few weeks. We were now on our way back from a glorious trip through Pennsylvania to New York (Ithaca, Niagara Falls, Corning) and stopped at Gettysburg National Battlefield. As we walked up the road past bumper-to-bumper cars waiting for a parking spot at a popular site, what did we see but a license plate that read MUSICVN—belonging to Vicki and Daniel Ashton! (Daniel is a violinist.) We'd stumbled into one another again!
Seriously, what are the chances?

And they were playing Ingress again, as we learned later when we ran into them a second time on the driving tour of the battlefield. This time they mentioned that they belonged to the Resistance (as opposed to the Enlightened, or more familiarly, the Frogs, because they're the green team) and suggested that if we ever decided to take up the sport, we should join the "good guys" (or Smurfs, because we're blue).

Recently, a friend who's expressed an interest in going geocaching with us mentioned that her son has gotten her going with Ingress. She demonstrated her limited knowledge as we strolled around Pacific Grove one afternoon. Intrigued, we researched a bit more. Got the app.

And today we wandered (and drove) around, more or less randomly, "hacking" and "deploying resonators" with gusto. We captured a couple of portals! We collected mods, portal keys, power cubes, resonators, and weapons like mad! What we do with these things we haven't much of a clue—yet. But David is now studying Smurfling Lessons (sent to us by Daniel today when I announced that we were tackling this sick game). Perhaps with multiple readings, we'll actually figure things out. Or not! In the meantime, it's just fun.

I'm sure, though, that Ingress won't replace geocaching as our frivolous pastime of choice. Pretty sure, that is . . .