Monkeybrad

My Pack a Lunch cache is located, behind Outer Limits Comics, in Franklin, could that be it? It is near where the one Brian referenced was.

I am fond of the REI Hobitat. They have a six person model you might consider.

You should also let them know that you did them both the great courtesy of calling them out on a public forum, as well.

I have experimented with several bags trying to strike the right balance between weight and comfort. I am a big guy 6'3" about 325, 56" chest, so finding a bag that fits properly has been challenging. I find them that are big enough around, but I am too tall for them, or they are long enough but snug fitting around the body. I have bought several bags, that were close but I could not find one that fit all the way around, and were still light enough for backpacking. I recently tried out a friend's bag and it is just right for me, so I am going this weekend to buy one. The Big Agnes Encampment Long fits me nearly perfectly and REI has it on sale through the 11th of May for 109.99, regular price is 159.99. It is a 15 degree bag with Climashield fill. They have other models which offer down and other fills if you prefer something else. The thing I love about this is the size and construction, and all of their bags I have looked at have the same dimensions in Long, so if you prefer a down bag then step ut to one of those, but the fit should be the same. Big Agnes bags don't have fill on the back, instead they have a pocket for your sleeping pad, I was wary of this, but it turned out to be awesome. No more rolling off the pad. It is a modified mummy bag, basically a mummy style, with a larger footbox. I also tried out the North Face Mammoth at REI, it is comparable in size and I liked it, but it does not have the sleeping pad pocket and it is not on sale this week. On another note, I have a Mt. Nebo Grizzly 0 degree rectangular bag, with a mummy style hood, that is very warm and roomy, but it weighs more than my tent and does not compress well, so it is strictly for car camping. I have a feeling that the Big Agnes bag will mark the retirement of the Grizzly.

I would be willing to pay the higher price for an awesome piece such as this, and would likely buy one of each design. Let me know if this comes together.

The large map is located at the south end of the park, at the base of the hill that the capitol is on. The coordinates for the cache, Capitol Relics by Salvo should get you a couple of hundred feet south of the map.

Scoot and I will be there, with eight other Middle Tennessee folks in our party.

I have hit most of the big trails with 150 miles of the house, but I have two that I am going to try to find time to hit this year. The Fiery Gizzard trail near Monteagle Mountain is supposed to be seriously strenuous, but with beautiful views, it will be a weekend hike. I am also planning on hiking every section of the Cumberland Trail, beginning with the existing trails and then filling in as the connecting trails open up. I thought about waiting for the entire thing to be completed and doing a through hike, but I am not getting any younger and my knees are feeling much older this year than they did last year, so I figure I might as well get started.

Mind if I tag along? We plan to see if we can find a bottle of wine or two just north of there. Not sure how successful we will be. As for Red Rocks near Vegas... well, it rocks! http://www.mtn-man.org/vegasredrocks.html The more the merrier! I am surprised that we have not seen more people posting about this particular vacation.

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I think I'll head to Sacramento in May for some caching, with a couple of thousand of my friends.

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I just uploaded mine and found that the INATN number is off by 33 from the GC.com number. Not a big deal, I am just curious to see what the issue is. It is cool to look at the various statistics, but if you know that your input is flawed it makes looking at the resulting info kinda pointless. Edit to add: I just checked and all of the caches are in the gpx file, so it is something happening on the INATN end.

Most, if not all, of the usb Garmins are Mac-compatible, sort of. I have not done the workarounds yet, to use the garmin software, but I have loaded my gps using Gps Babel for Mac and there is another program called Macjournal that seems to work pretty well for loading waypoints and reading GPX files. I wish I had explored the pure Mac options more, but when I load from my macs I use Virtual PC to run the Garmin software. Hopefully, some of the more knowledgeable people will chime in. I hope that between Gps Babel and MacJournal this helps give you a place to start looking.

I just realized that today marks my wife (Scoot the Frog) and my fifth anniversary of geocaching. Five years ago today we left the house and drove 20 miles one-way to find our first cache, Big Duck (GC877B). We chose it because it was the nearest traditional cache to our home. I just looked it up and there are now 211 caches in that same twenty mile circle. I knew that the sport had grown tremendously, but I had no idea there were that many "out here in the country" now. Over the last five years we have seen hiding styles gain favor and then fall by the wayside and we have seen many cachers come and go. As more people have joined the game more caches of all styles have been hidden. In some areas there are more micros, in some there are more traditionals. I know there are lots more hiking caches now than there were back then and the growth of kayaking caches around here has been phenomenal. I guess that it just depends on what you are looking for, but the thing I find most exciting about the growth of the sport that we have seen, is the great variety of caches. When we first started there were several great caches, but you had to travel far and wide to find much variety, and we did. These days we can find almost any type of hide or experience and never leave middle Tennessee. In some ways I envy those who are just starting out, with so much to choose from. The good news is that the game is still the same, we still enter coordinates and head out looking for adventures, I am sure that will never change. I know it is not a big deal and that most of the people I have met over the years of running all over the country hunting caches rarely visit "the big forums", but looking back has me feeling a little nostalgic and retrospective, so I hope you will all indulge me when I say thank you. Thank you to all of the great friends we have met along the way, your friendship is the best treasure that anyone could ever hope to find. Hunting with you all has been what has kept Scoot and I going, whether out on the trail or bouncing around town scooping up quickies, either way the company is what has made it fun. The community of cachers is one of the best that I have had the honor being a part of, no matter where we go we have always been welcomed, whether by friends we met at some far off event or folks who we only knew through these forums. Thank you to the crew at Groundspeak, for doing the work behind the scenes to keep the wheels turning that this great game possible. Thank you to the volunteer reviewers, for giving back to the sport. Your sacrifices in time, effort and frustration are often overlooked, but you are the true strength of this game. Without your efforts out there on the front lines, dealing with local issues, cachers and land managers the rest of us would not be able to take it easy and play the game. Thank you for working hard so the rest of us can play. I also want to say thank you to the rest of the geocaching community, to all of the people out there who I will never have the opportunity to meet, but who have made my life more interesting, by placing a cache at some special spot and sharing it with me. When caching I often take a moment to stop and remember that the only reason I am getting to enjoy some spectacular view or great location is because someone else took the time to place a cache there and share it with me. So once again, I offer a heartfelt thank you to every other cacher out there, whether you hide a cache, find a cache and share your story, review that cache or run the servers, through your efforts my life has been enriched, and I appreciate that. These last five years have been a blast, filled with adventures and escapades, good friends and great fun, I cannot wait to see what the next five years hold for us and this great sport. I hope to see ya'll on the trails, Monkeybrad

After losing my faithful Canon Digital Elph at a cache last year, I finally found the perfect caching camera. For Christmas my wife got me an Olympus Stylus 770SW. It is shockproff, dustproof and waterproof to 32 feet. Since I got it I have carried it kayaking, swimming and rapelling. I have dropped it a couple of times and subjected it to conditions I would not have dreamed of carrying a camera in and it keeps making great shots. Check out my gallery for examples of the shots it takes.

Sounds like a local problem. I think they go in cycles, we used to have several near here, but I have not found one in a lightpole in Mid-Tennessee in quite some time. It seems like they come into favor for a little while and then they become the object of scorn and derision and then they fade away, or at least that is what seems to have happened here.

I have bought several over the years, but I keep coming back to my old Black Diamond Zenix. It has a big LED spot light and two small led area lights. I use the spot for hunting caches, etc. and use the sidelights around camp or walking the trail. I also have a great Petzl that has a big halogen adjustable spotlight and four smalll leds task lights that I like, but for me that Black Diamond is nearly perfect.

I haven't noticed any problems. Double check to make sure your spam filter has not caught it. I know mine has been hung up a couple of times because of the large file size.

I thought I would take the liberty of posting the Geocacher's response from the magazine here. I found it to be very well-written and a great representation of geocachers. I do not know that author, but if I ever meet him, I am buying that man a beer. The response: "The geocaching community strongly promotes "Cache In, Trash Out." We try to leave an area in better shape than when we found it, which can't be said of all hikers. A well maintained and hidden cache is not trash, but rather a place that has frequent visitors and is maintained by a specific person in the region. Geocaching is a great activity for all ages that attracts people to parks and forests who wouldn't otherwise visit them. We would love to see all public lands open to geocaching, but we recognize that sensitive areas need more protection. As a result, we work with local managers to set limits on cache locations. After all, we want to encourage the growth of this sport while also preserving where we play. Allen Waterman President Iowa Geocachers Organization"

I have it on good authority that there are a couple of "highly qualified" people working on one.

I have always carried a Gerber multi, I prefer it's opening mechanism to the leatherman series. However, I am intrigued by the new Leatherman Skeletool. In fact, I went to buy one last week, but REI was out of stock.

Bear in mind that anytime you leave the parking lots you are technically violating Leave No Trace ethics. Even the most fastidious practitioner cannot help but leave his or her mark on the land. Luckily, the land is resilient. The best we can all do is try to be conscious of our impact and not do unnecessary harm. As long as we don't leave geo-litter out there, geocaching is no more damaging than any other outdoor activity. Our caches sit in a spot for a time and then are removed, leaving no trace that they were ever there. I have had this argument with some hardcore LNT people who don't think twice about "caching" supplies along a trail, but get up in arms about leaving a geocache in the same area. Each to his or her own, but I think we are all better off if we try to leave an area a little better than we found it, without a bunch of finger-pointing. Edit to add: The Geocacher who wrote the response from the geocaching side in the article did a great job. I meant to seek them out and send them an email for representing us all so well. He is the president of a geocaching club, so it should not be that hard to figure out. When I get back home I will look it up again and copy the text of the response here, it was great.

My longest so far for one cache was 11 miles.

And there are some who say I have no magical powers, but look at the miracles before your very eyes.