S Keillan

Hey all. I'm very interested in setting up something of a travel bug race to tour INDIANA. What I'm thinking is that a winning travel bug has to visit some number of regions within the state before making it to the finish line. I'm trying to figure out how to best describe these regions, and the precise number. I would like suggestions on both. If it helps, I'm looking at starting in early March and hoping someone would have a winner by the Fall GEOCACHING picnic.

Talking about counties, Benton county will be a hard one to pull off as there is only one cache in the whole of the county, and it's currently disabled (I think). Maybe someone can go hide a few caches there so people can go GEOCACHING in this fine INDIANA county. (Well, I suppose I could, if I can find time during our move to a new house in town.)

Most excellent! Now the festitivies may commence!

I just thought of a good function for this. This would be ideal for downloading temporary event cache waypoints. The points would still have to be manually entered by the GPX inaccessible, but it would be a boon to the rest of us. Keep up the good work!

I was concerned about that initially, but upon seeing that I would be the only one getting them, I've added waypoints to my puzzle caches. Still, I think that hidden points should only come from an individual download as rarely will a cache owner need to have the points anyway.

That's within my range, so I would be willing. However, I will defer to Team Shydog should they choose to adopt it as they are a bit closer and already have a couple of ISQs nearby.

I was chatting with another cacher (SixDogTeam), who founded the Indiana Spirit Quest. He keeps statistics on all of the finds made on the series. He has recently decided to have the statistics include finds AND hides. (There are many other hiders in that series.) Anyway, he recently adopted a cache and converted it to an ISQ. I had found it before the series even began. Should that be counted as an ISQ find for me? A judgment call as it could be decided one way or the other. Anyway, back on point, I began thinking that there should be a statistic that keeps track of finds plus hides, but doesn't double-count them with the "find-on-one's-own-cache" tactic. Since I have a few like that (a pre-adoption find and logging my own event caches), I feel that this would be a fairer comparison stat. Of course, I work under the paradigm of no multi-finds on a given cache, including event caches. I suppose that the stats are in the eye of the beholder.

I'm considering coming down there if I can get a few others to make the 700 km trip there. I suppose that we'll have to see as 15 March approaches. It would interesting to tackle a 5/5 event cache!

That's on a Thursday, which means that I would have to be into work the next day. On the other hand, Terre Haute is only about 90 minutes from Lafayette, so it might be doable. I'll see how I feel about going to a Thursday night GEOCACHING event further south in INDIANA as the date approaches.

Tres drôle!

It's starting to look like a BoB run is the one of interest, so unless there's a large outcry for Beverly, we can plan on going after the group of 99 in April. Should we be successful, everyone should hit a milestone on that trip. TeamLich has all the BoB caches bookmarked and public through any of the series. That makes it easy to create a PQ about them. I guess that I could spend the next three months plotting an optimum route for the run. In the meantime, we can get those stickers ready as -{LoS}-Xile suggested. (Good idea, I might add.)

Most excellent! I was glad to have been there for it as well.

I see the accolades of yesterday's APE run are flowing well. To that end, I've been looking at a couple of possible sequels: Beverly: The oldest cache in Illinois (GC28), dating back to 13 May 2000. It's located near Barrington Hills, about 20 miles west of O'Hare Airport, not far off of I-90. There's also 55 caches within five miles of Beverly, from which a plan could be developed. BoB: Placed by Team Idiot Savant (Genius Loci and Hutt), this is a series of 99 caches that stretch over about 12 miles in northern Chicago suburbs. See here for the "first" of the series. Given the density, this is a way of racking up a lot of cache finds in one day. A large group from Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Indiana tacked these last November, with one saying that he found 112 that day! It is possible to go for both, but the BoB series is about 20 miles from Beverly. It doesn't sound far, but remember that this is Chicago. I'm thinking that 8 April might be a good day to plan for. It currently doesn't conflict with any events in the region, and it's the first Saturday of daylight-saving time. Let me know if there's any interest in this.

Hey all. I guess that I'm the first to get back home to INDIANA after a big day of GEOCACHING over in Illinois. I believe that our Project APE run was a phenominal success. Several cachers in our group hit milestones today with the APE cache. Let's see if I can remember them all: Joypa - 350 Rupert2 - 400 Car54 - 400 -{LoS}-Xile - 800 WilliamsFamGC - 900 4damFam - 1000 finds! and me with 531 Congratulations to all. I think that we'll have to do something similar in the near future.

This is a little premature, but 4damFam has reached their 999th cache, positioning themselves for number 1000 at this weekend's APE cache run. By the way, it looks pretty good weather-wise for this weekend. Cold but not rainy. Sounds like a good excuse to get some exercise.

OK, maybe I won't defend them THAT much.

I pretty much found it by entering low-number waypoints. Too bad that it was archived. It seems that the older generation (i.e. the initial cache placers) have left the sport for the most part, and that we're something of the second and third generations. There are exceptions, but I suspect not very many.

The oldest period is Indiana's First near Elkhart in Elkhart County. It was archived 6 May 2002. Hope that helps.

Thinking about it, I suppose that everyone is entitled to their opinion. I personally can't stand caches being placed in raw sewage at treatment plants, even with explicit permission, but I'l defend someone's right to place them. (Also known as what if Voltaire was a geocacher.)

I can easily empathise with that. My wife is NOT an outdoors person. To get her to go on anything higher than terrain 1.5 stars is an emmense challenge. Also, she is not able to walk long distances to a cache. It seems that the only consistent set of caches that I can get her to visit is microcaches in urban settings and in cemeteries. I like to go geocaching with my wife as it is a way of spending time together that doesn't involve staying home or spending money at a restaurant or department store. If these types of caches were to disappear, I would have to forego this activity with her, which would be a shame. Regarding bikinibottomfeeders' question and comment, I can't really think of what would be my favourite, although I've seen some fairly good ones in my adventures, including one in a rodent's skull! I am wanting to hit some BoB caches sometime, partially to write an article on them in Cacheopedia.

I'm hoping to go by the public library and find copies of the two films for Bad Movie Cache, which some of us from INDIANA might want to go GEOCACHING at this Saturday. While Cutthroat Island might be tolerable, I'm guess that The Hot Chick will probably require some kind of stomach medicine. I'll let everyone know if I get a chance to make this sacrifice for the greater INDIANA GEOCACHING community. (Did I say that twice?)

It doesn't look like my APE cache trek will yield a milestone number, but it will be fun anyway. Furthermore, SixDogTeam and I gathered info needed for one of the puzzle caches that's on the list (Cachiversary 4.5), so a few of us may jaunt off for that. Now all we need is for someone to stomach a couple of bad films.

I also offer accolades for your milestone. Congratulations!

Welcome to the 500 Club, Chris. And on an ISQ as well.

I was seriously considering Virginia. However, I didn't really get too much of a chance to prepare a proper cache page. I did place a cache in our family cemetery. Hopefully it'll be approved soon.