Meow&Purr

Oh heck yeah. I've been approached by police a few times. I'm always polite, explain what I'm doing, and offer for them to look with me if they have the time. Usually they are vaguely familiar and go on their way. I've had an officer help search once, which was fun. I've had an officer run my plates (in his defense, I had pulled into a strange area for a guardrail cache on a little-used road at 6:30 am on a Saturday... he was making sure it wasn't a stolen vehicle & that I wasn't full if shizzle. Geocat_, if you're reading this, you know which one I'm talking about, darn you! Politeness and honesty goes a long way. The only time I've not been honest was the very first time police inquired - the officer stopped and yelled out the window asking what we were doing, I yelled back "Looking for a lost cat" He said "Good luck" and went on. I shouldn't have lied but I was tired, dirty, and not in the mood for conversation. First and last time for that.

We love cats. I'm more talkative, so I'm Meow She's sweeter, so she's Purr It's also easy to abbreviate on nano logs, M&P I also like how it fits into logs, "Purr saw it first" or "Meow wandered off again"

I'm nowhere near as generous. I'll donate time. I have an abundance of that. I'll go out with my GPS and phone. I'll encourage them to download the app and use it for non-PMO caches. I'll hand them my GPS and let them wander aimlessly whilst I follow. I might give them a trackable or two bucks' worth of swag.

I'm glad I got the & then

I usually read the cache description - twice. Once when I'm scouting it out and the second time when I'm near the cache or getting ready to start out for it. My reasoning isn't preparedness or hints, although they do play a minor part or act as a bonus. My reason is simple: the CO took time to write it up. Some folks in our area (geocat and others, I'm looking at you) put significant effort into writing their descriptions and making them fun and/or imaginative. As a result, I try to do the same and I hope people read mine. With a cache I imagine the CO wants to take me somewhere, show me something, or make me smile. I hope the cache description wants to do the same. tl;dr - I do. Respect the CO. Like showing, they're saying.

You're on the right track! Meow&Purr doesn't always fit so M&P works or sometimes two ears and some whiskers...

When I don't log DNF it is for a few specific reasons - most of which pertain to me and/or my lack of planning. If I give it a 2 minute quickie look because the park is closing, because I didn't bring something necessary, or when I decide to bail because of muggles or another extenuating factor then I won't DNF. I DO log a DNF if I give it my all, look high and low, etc. and still can't find it. When I've given it the ol' college try and come up empty, then I DNF.

I did the same thing except I didn't have the tracking # - I cleared out my phone and never transferred it over... so I left a note in multiple places and the next person who finds it will get it back on track - I hope.

Great ideas. Thank you all. You're right, it was most likely taken by an animal. I replaced it and another cacher found the cache and on the way out found the original container about 20' away on the ground. That rubber spider had one heck on an adventure and some forest critter has a tale to tell as well. Muggled my Mother Nature.

Ok so now I am much more humored... thinking of the squirrel who found this big squeegy spider and thus conquering this Goliath of a foe, he now has some tall tales to tell all of the other squirrel-kin. It is a horizontal hollow, more like a cup in the top of the branch. Interesting thought about the critter-muggle. I bought a half a dozen of the critters so the only limit I have for the time being is the bison tubes - I'm replacing it at lunch today, so that's not a problem. I'd love to find where the thing ran off to, maybe just maybe...

It's no fun to get muggled. I'm kind of surprised this cache did. GC6HH6N is the only cache I have out now and it isn't easily accessible, it is a premium member only cache, it isn't off of a trail, it is above eye level, you have to reach into a hollow that you can't see into to extract the container (a rubber spider w/ the bison tube hidden in the abdomen)- so I'm a little surprised that it was found and taken. But I'm prepared. Thankfully I bought an army of the critters in case this happened. My question is how many times do you re-hide or replace a cache before relocating? I tried to make it very muggle-proof so maybe back to the drawing board for the design. What's your usual response to getting muggled?

This is me in a nutshell. I recently logged a dnf after an exhaustive search and BAM someone else comes along and "Quick find, tftc" I went back and still couldn't find it. Sometimes I wonder about me... I don't really feel defeated. Sometimes frustrated esp. if it was one I was really looking forward to but then I realize we had an adventure. We got out and had some fun, saw something new, learned something new, laughed at something (likely lots of things) and we did something that is fun for us both.

We carry lots of swag and frequently 're-up' caches that are full of ripped movie tickets, chewing gum, business cards, and the like. Seeing junk makes me and . Along with our bag of trackables, geocoins, and such we frequently buy and carry balloons, marbles, little green Army men, and other trinkets. Nothing big or elaborate but if we take one trinket we usually leave 2-4 small different items to keep the cache well stocked. I suck at any type of handicraft and I LOVE seeing the ideas you all have posted here. Good inspiration to be more creative. My logs are where I use my creativity. We pick up multi-packs of things at the local Mega-Lo-Mart, grocery, Dollar Tree/Store/General/etc. It's not high quality but it's keeping caches stocked. It makes it more fun for us - and I hope for the next few who come along.

I've been stalking a cache with close to a year and a half of DNFs. I've been in communication with the CO as they moved to the other side of the country. Suddenly someone with less than 30 finds logs it as "Found It" with nothing else, no words of their own. Some of the most prolific cachers in the area logged it as DNF. I know there the cache 'should be' from talking to the CO. I messaged the finder and inquired how they found it. Their answer tells me they never went out. So their 'Found It' log just skews the legit DNFs - and now the CO messaged me saying "someone found it, I told you it was still there, no reason to adopt it out, no reason to archive it, I don't need to watch it" etc.

^ What they said. Definitely contact the landowner in person. If they are unfamiliar with Geocaching then make sure you have a great explanation beyond "hide and seek for adults" "treasure hunting on your property" "like an Easter egg hunt" etc. Have your idea planned out, container in-hand if at all possible so they can see what you plan to do. Be prepared...and be prepared for them to say 'no'. Be respectful, be polite, be prepared. If it is a park, know their regulations before going in. If it is a private landowner explain why you want the general public on their land as opposed to somewhere else in this huge world. I'm sure there's more.

The more you find the more ideas you get. Google, YouTube, tumblr, and other threads here give great ideas. The most favorite points are given to very unique and creative hides/spots/containers. Here's a long thread for your perusal. http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=62421

I have an etrex20 and here's how I do it: Go to the individual cache page Download thr GPX file into a GPX folder on my desktop Drag those into the GPX folder of my Garmin. Every time I am done with a group of caches I remove them from the GPSr Yes, it takes several steps but it is methodical and works for me.

We've visited this cache. Incredible! One bin is devotes to trackables. What a fantastic memorial, one of our favorites, for sure.

If you feel you really must find that cache go after it before or after normal business hours when you're less likely going to encounter people in cars or walking through the parking lot. Or, just go up the skirt, lift it, grab the cache and sign the log. Don't worry about who may see you. Act like you belong there and are doing somehting you shoudl be. That's what I do these days. No issues yet. I have a reflective vest and other gear that I've been known to wear for these things. At one cache, the log was hidden under a huge carving of a bear at the entrance to a diner on a busy road in full view of the dining patio... I donned my vest and walked up like I belonged. The tube was shoved WAY up under the bear and I had to spend considerable time retrieving it. A guy came up and asked "So I'm wondering what a 'bear technician' does out here" I made up an elaborate story about checking the base and such. He nodded, agreed, and walked off not enlightened about the work of a 'bear technician' Found the log and got the heck out of there...

I love haiku. This has inspired me to be a bit more creative with my logs. I always write more than TFTC but less than a Stephen King novel. I try to be descriptive or add in something from the outing/trip. I'm going to try writing haiku for my logs, let's see how this goes - and of anyone notices, lol.

Hi- If the trackable owner is still active, you could try sending them an message/email and they can either fix it, or give you the tracking number so you can fix it. Unfortunately they moved & don't have it any longer. Ah well, should be interesting to watch. The pic I took of the back is just shiny with no numbers visible so, alas, I'll just watch for it to move. Thanks! I don't understand this part: Are you referring to the "Copy" tag? Have you been in contact with them? They always have the tracking number on their trackable page, visible only to the owner. It is on the upper right hand side of the page, under TRACKABLE OPTIONS and above ACTIONS Yes, I've been in contact. I'm not sure they knew the ID could be found there, I didn't either. Thank you. I appreciate your help. Always learn something new.

Hi- If the trackable owner is still active, you could try sending them an message/email and they can either fix it, or give you the tracking number so you can fix it. Unfortunately they moved & don't have it any longer. Ah well, should be interesting to watch. The pic I took of the back is just shiny with no numbers visible so, alas, I'll just watch for it to move. Thanks!

So, Purr, my wife/partner-in-cache and I had a miscommunication...I thought she dropped a trackable in a cache and she thought I dropped it - in reality neither of us did. However I logged it as dropped and can't retrieve it to make it right, I don't have the number form the back of the trackable. It did, however, get dropped in another cache about 200 miles away from where it is logged as dropped. Make sense? TB logged as dropped in Cache A but it wasn't. It was actually dropped in Cache B in another state. Silly me. How can I fix this - or can I? Meow of Meow & Purr

Oh now that's cool. I'd like to see pictures though, didn't see any on the found logs..

I don't use the app much anymore but I pulled it up to have a look... Light blue lines? I'm lost on that one. The only light blue lines on mine are creeks, rivers, waterways. The other one I will address is hiking trails not being on the map. For the GPS there are map packs available that show some trails however I can't imagine trying to map the trails of out local parks and make that global. Trails change, open and close for maintenance and repair,a million things. I'm neither surprised nor troubled that trails are not mapped on the app. Maybe for now some of the urban caches would be more appropriate for a 4yo? I don't know of many caches in the woods/parks/trails that are right on the trail - most in our area and other places we've cached require at least a few feet - usually more - off-trail. Some are best reached seasonally. As I said, maybe urban caches are better for now until the little tyke is a bit more durable and ready to go bushwhacking The terrain is much more subjective than the difficulty. Pocket queries for kid-friendly posted above is a great idea as well.