draconis

I grabbed a premium membership to get the pocket queries for my old e-bay-bought second-hand palm. Only reason. To find the 'members only' caches was a bonus. 'nuf said.

I have a used laptop in the van hooked to a GPS to track on a map. Sometimes I download some cache pages, sometimes I go with a printout. Looking for wi-fi is another reason, for checking on a cache listing or weather or whatever.

I've run into a bowling ball, a cinder block and a 1/5 (1/8?) scale yellow jeep. All at event tb swaps. Also a 'micro'(on the cache type) that turned out to be a 40 gallon can with a sketchbook for a log and a oversize gag pencil to log with!

I had an idea to use strong round, washer shaped magnet and use it to attach a microcache to a structure. The cache would be a nut and a piece of threaded rod screwed into it. The log could be inside the nut under the rod, or inside the rod if it is big enough to drill it out. The magnet holding it would look like the washer on the bolt, and also attach the cache! This cache on a tower or a water tank side could look the same as an existing nut/bolt and be hidden in the open. Ohhh. Now I have given it away.......

My son and I have met a few cachers on the trails going in or going out. The best one by far was a group of people we met and the youngest of the group, a girl, stated "did you find the treasure?" We all had a good laugh and and then we had a small discussion of cacheing. Some times a fellow cacher can be a great clue/spoiler for a difficult cache(Thanks 'Should-have-bought-him-the-tie'). Until a few months ago we had never met up (accidentally) and found a cache together with another group. We had 'Little Rover' with us, and he was very happy about cacheing with another group. Prior to that, he propably wouldn't wanted to cache together with another group. Now he can't wait!

I did a cache this summer, that involved astonomy, but you didn't know it until you started figuring it out. The cache had a group of coordinates that had some kind of relationship and one set of coordinates was missing. I turned out to be a map of a constellation with one star missing. Filling in the missing star led you to a box with numbers that plugged into a formula that gave you the final coordinates. The 'Ah Ah!' moment was great. The cache was an easy find after a tricky time figuring it out.

What about dessicant? That would be easy to replace (found in medicine bottles or can be bought) and would keep the cache nice and dry, if it's sealed tight.

Compass? What do you mean?

Minimally, I carry some new baggies and fast food napkins to dry out the contents. More than that, well.. it depends..

We (draconis) were heading back home from caching on the first of the year (2005). At about 4pm CST, the gps satellite signal strengths on both of our gpses dropped to almost nothing, then a few minutes later, the signals went up to almost max for almost all of the satellites. Mind you this was on a cloudy day, on an open highway with nothing obstructing the sky at all... Has anybody else noticed this event happening, (or is it just us) and does this have something to do with president Bush (what he said about gps satellites) or the Department of Defense?

I put out caches to bring people to area I like to go. Unique areas are very appropriate; geology; history; memorials etc.. A name with appropriateness to the hide is great. A name with some pun ishment involved make me chuckle all the way down the trails. I love the logs, and the cachers appreciation for the caches.

I've logged caches as finds, but only on caches that I have placed with a fellow cacher. He placed them with his account, and I 'found' it to remove it from my cache list. Because I don't 'own' it, I could 'find' it. When I check ona cache, I just post a note.