Homerz

We too have seen "Aliens" used a bit in the Northwest area, and use it probably more than "Muggles", but really don't care as long as the context is clear.

You can always try caching without a GPSr too. I've seen folks attempt to do it using only mapping programs and the hint. Some have some bit of luck with it as well. If you wanted to get your wife interested, drag her along on someone's cache (don't tell her you've previously emailed the cache owner and gotten explicit instrcutions on how to find it) and let her make the find! Besides getting you all out of the house and exercising, you can use Geocaching in general to teach your child about maps, geography, satellites, etc. We've got a 6 year old who is tracking one of her travel bugs. It was released in central Oregon, has been to South Africa and is now on it's way to New Zealand. A cheap world map and some stickers and what better way to teach her what a small world this is? How much more convincing would your wife need? Also try www.gotcache.com for the home of Emerald Valley Geocachers (cachers along the I-5 corridor).

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, cache...... - Homer

This happened to us this fall: Spend a day in the Maury Mountains near Prineville, OR cutting a trailerfull of firewood. The next day, instead of heading straight home, decide to head out near the Deschutes Nat'l. Forest for a new cache. Do NOT leave trailer of wood at the hotel, but instead haul it along behind us, nearly 60 miles out of our way. On a dusty desert road, pull over for the Chevy Blazer that comes haluing a** up behind us, but Chevy Blazer does not pass. As dust clears, notice the blue & red light bar flashing.. Get thoroughly checked out and questioned by a BLM agent about where we got the 2 cords of juniper and why are we heading into the middle of nowhere with it? Fortunately three things happened: 1) We were well prepared with all of the pertinent permits and paperwork and our load was clearly tagged. 2) We had just seen the exact same officer on a version of "Oregon Field Guide" the night before, and were able to disarm his official demeanor with a little celebrity suck-up, and 3) We told him that normally we wouldn't be so far out in the middle of nowhere with 2 cords of wood except that a new geocache had come up and we just had to try for it. He was fully aware of geocaching, and even had us come back to his rig to see the really nice GPS and mapping system he had set up inside (SWEET!). All in all, most public officials will cut you some slack if you just tell them why you're really there.

The kids really do get into the whole indoor cache thing, and it's a great time killer and boredom reducer on these winter days. The fake arrow was the only way we could figure to use the Gecko indoors. They played along with me just fine, even though they know that's not how it really works. It's great when the kids will indulge my little fantasies.... As I was getting out the box of Cheerios the other day, I saw an empty peanut butter jar in the pantry on the shelf. It was filled with animals and crayons. Seems someone hid a cache in there a week or so ago, and forgot where she'd left it! When I pointed it out to her she puts her hands on her 4 year old hips and says "YOU weren't supposed to find that! That was for Mommy!"

Mariner BC- I think we can keep you from having to come all the way to Salem. Soup has offered to grab the bug from Salem and move it North to Portland. I will let Soup know that once the bug is grabbed from Salem that he should contact you and let you where he will be placing it. Log on at www.pdxgeocaching.com under 'events', and the 'Olympia Cache Machine' thread also, and that will hook the two of you up so you can keep the bug headed north in time. Thanks! - Homerz

OK, I take it no one is interested in moving the bug along. Hope the event is fun!

I've got a Travel Bug that I'm going to leave in a cache in Salem Oregon next weekend (the 19th). It's goal is to visit state capitols. Is there anyone from the Salem area who is planning on attending the Olympia event as well? If so, I'd like to leave it in a time-sensitive sort of way for you to pick up to get to Olympia. I'd probably leave it in south Salem, as we're planning a cache day in that general area. Any takers? P.S. This isn't one of my Bugs, I'm just trying to get it headed in the right direction for the owners, John & Lynn.

If the girls are bored and we're stuck in the house due to bad weather, we have entertained them for hours (and I literally mean HOURS) by hiding and rehiding a cache somewhere in the house for them to find. They love the secrecy of staying in their rooms until we complete the hide, then we send them on their way with the old yellow Gecko (with a fake arrow on a piece of tape on it) to guide them. We try to keep it to one room at a time. Usually they come ask for us to point the arrow in the 'real direction' of the hide when they get frustrated after looking for a while. Sometimes, it boils down to a 'warm', 'cold', 'hot' thing too. But really, don't underestimate what your kids pick up and actually enjoy doing from the example you set.

We agree! It would be much more interesting to see what someone intended to do with a bug, then what actually happened. I also think you can only upload pictures to the picked-up log, not the dropped-off log, but I may be wrong about that. What we've been doing is logging the drop, then posting a note as well, with our additional comments, and any pictures we've taken of the bug's adventures. This could be done in one fell swoop though, in the one log.

We've been caching nearly a year and have yet to run into any cachers. We HAVE chased cachers around the same caches all day, just yesterday we were third in line right after the same couple of cachers on six caches. We always seem to find caches when there's a flurry of activity on them, but have yet to run into anyone.

We've never actually chosen to do night caches, as our kids are still a bit young. Two caches we've done have been at night however just because we've run out of daylight and are trying to squeeze in 'one more'. One was a remote desert cache and we were able to watch a great sunset from the cache location. The other was an urban park setting and one of the kids was asleep anyway, so one of us took the other one and set off. It wasn't a long hike, but we had to find it with only a key chain flashlight we'd found in another cache earlier that day. While we did enjoy the night cache, we didn't get to see much of the park it was in. We did get to enjoy near total solitude in an otherwise busy boat-launching, fishing sort of riverside park. I think we'll try more night caches, but we'll have to remember to get a flashlight in the backpack. Had that little keychain light crapped out on us, we'd have been searching by the light of the GPSr screen.

We did a cache last weekend that got us really spooked. It was a 1/2 mile hike up a trail from the road. Along the way (about half way to the cache) we passed through a gravel quarry. We reached the cache, and did our logs & trades and just as we were headed back down, gunfire erupted from the quarry. There was no way we were going to be able to go back down the trail with folks doing target practice, as the quarry was set up for folks to fire UP the trail. With 2 small children, a lot of spooky things go through your minds when you're alone in the woods faced with gunfire. We eventually decided to traverse back down the rail along a river front area, which ended up being a lot of fun and we all kind of forgot the incident. Still, it makes me wonder if the cache placer thought about the possibility of people using the quarry along the way as a firing range when he/she placed the cache. Would he/she have placed it if they thought they were putting people in danger?

We have had caches approved in as long as 72 hours or so, and although the wait seemed agonizing at the time,..it was all fine in the end. I think a lot of folks time their caches so that the cache comes out in the next notification by the cache Bot. If it doesn't get approved this week in time,..it'll be on the next Bot notification. I have two accounts for notifications in two zip codes. One comes in like clockwork on Thursday night. The other doesn't show up until Saturday night anyway, so don't expect that everyone gets their Bot notification on Thursday. Approvers have lives and families and things to do just like everyone else...they WILL get to it as soon as they can. I ALWAYS make it a point to contact those who approve my caches and say, THANK YOU. It says right on the bottom of your cache page who did so. It's not a bad idea to just thank these folks for their time. They don't always get thanked for this admin stuff they do as VOLUNTEERS. As a volunteer firefighter & EMT, I know that a little thank you goes a long way to making you feel good about what you do.

Hello! We've been doing this since February and have 54 finds. We have had 5 DNF's. Three of those we logged as DNF's (2 because the cache actually appeared to be missing, and they were). The other DNF we logged was one that we printed out in Feb., and between then and the time we hunted it in June, the owner discovered an error on the Long/Lats posted and made a correction. We posted our error in the hopes that anyone reading our log didn't make the same newbie mistake (ALWAYS RESEARCH AND READ LOGS OF ANY CACHE YOU PLAN TO HUNT JUST BEFORE YOU GO OUT - THINGS CHANGE!!!). The other 2 DNF's we did not log. Both are still there. One we simply couldn't figure out the clue at a waypoint and intend to go back at a later date and have another crack at it. The last one, we had everything right, but the cache appears to be on a very unsafe ledge. Many logs about it mention that no one was real happy about shimmying out on that ledge but they did for the cache. That one wasn't worth it to us and will probably not be attempted again. We didn't log it as a DNF because we were frankly pretty much over it. I don't think our ratio is too bad. I know every DNF we have learned from and found ways to improve our skills, equipment, research, etc. You'll be fine!

Congrats Guys! We consider the Logscaler caches we've done among our faves. Now we just need to know when the celebratory party is!

We get to the Tillamook State Forest once a year for the Jolly Jeepers rally and will be happy to check up on the cache then as well. I think this cache will have no shortage of adoptive caretakers in respect for a fellow cacher. - Homerz