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selias

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Everything posted by selias

  1. So here's a funny twist... I picked them up after school and we were all psyched to tackle the Duck Pond cache mentioned above. We roll into the parking lot, I grab a pen, and the three of us get out of the car. No sooner had we taken 10 steps from my car do we hear a clap of thunder -- Out of nowhere! The sky was blue 10 minutes earlier! -- that sends us all running back to the car. We had a good laugh that maybe someone is trying to tell us we shouldn't be caching.
  2. These are great, thanks! I'm picking up the kids from school today and they asked this morning if we could try another cache on the way home. Sounds like they're into it despite our sad initial outing.
  3. There is a reservoir/retention pond adjacent to Wally World, but you have to park, then walk across the lot, then hunt around in these big rocks along the shore. So not in Wally World, but pretty darn close. I think the pre-finding is the way to go... I'm hoping this will be a fun summer family activity, I just need a successful find or two to stoke the fire. There are some awesom caches in that area of Colorado. I can send you some ideas later today if you want. I'd love any ideas or insight you can provide. You can email at sjelias at gmail.
  4. There is a reservoir/retention pond adjacent to Wally World, but you have to park, then walk across the lot, then hunt around in these big rocks along the shore. So not in Wally World, but pretty darn close. I think the pre-finding is the way to go... I'm hoping this will be a fun summer family activity, I just need a successful find or two to stoke the fire.
  5. It's been 11 years since I last 'cached in South Florida. Now I have two kids (7 and "almost 10") and live in Ft. Collins, Colorado. I'd forgotten all about caching until planning a trip to South Dakota that we will be taking in a couple weeks. A lot has changed in 11 years, besides having kids and moving west! Not the least of which is that I don't have to have a GPS anymore now that I have an iPhone. So it's a holiday weekend and I was excited about getting out to find a few local caches with the kiddos and, well, I was a disappointing 0 for 5 which left the kids wondering, "Is the old man nuts running around out here waving his iPhone around?" Cache 1 was near a Walmart parking lot and, despite it having been found as recently as this morning, we looked around for a good 20 minutes and found nothing. Cache 2, 3, and 4 were all in or around areas with a lot of tall grass. In Colorado at this time of year, you just don't go wandering into tall grass without boots and jeans. Cache 5 was possibly attached to a guard rail along a very busy street and not very kid-friendly. It also probably didn't help that 4 out of the 5 were micro caches. I guess I need to do a better job prepping and possible "pre-find" a couple of caches before our next outing so I can "guide" the kids in the right direction. I'm not giving up!
  6. What do they mean by the speculation that the next iPhone will have "proper" GPS? I'm guessing that they mean GPS functionality that's accessible for user services, rather than just the rudimentary GPS capability that's built into cell phones for emergency locating. Is that a reasonable guess? Patty My guess is that they mean "actual" GPS instead of the cell-tower based "locate me" function that is currently on the iPhone. Some folks are improperly referring to that as "GPS" in the sense that many people believe that GPS = any service that tells you where you are. I won't be upgrading my iPhone for a while, but I am interested to see where this goes as I can easily imagine an iPhone-optimized site where you could find a cache, add it to your GPS, read all the information, and navigate to it all from the iPhone when the mood hit you.
  7. Update... Just got home last night from a VERY short trip to the Rockies - three days, three GREAT hikes! The weather held out until noon or 1:00 each day so we got in hikes of 2, 5, and 3 miles respectively. Three miles at altitude is a HECK of a lot different than 3 miles at sea level......... Anyway - the pack worked out perfectly! Just the right size!! Thought I'd let you folks know who were kind enough to help out... Apparently, my wife and I were the only ones on the mountain without trekking poles... need to look into those for next year :-) I hope to have some pictures online soon!! Have a great weekend!! -- Scott
  8. Thanks for all the great advice... Just wanted to follow-up... I carry a Gap backpack* to work some days (helps me to blend in with the students...) and as I mentioned I tended to wear it with the straps tightened down and the load all the way up at my neck. Well - this week, I loosened the shoulder straps to let the pack ride a little lower and WOW - what a big difference... I always just used to throw on the pack and pull on the ends of the shoulder straps until I couldn't get the pack up any higher... I tried the above strategy (loosening the straps a bit - not tightening them) with my new daypack loaded up and loosely fastened the hipbelt. It was a much different feel than I have been used to before - it felt a little different at first, but MUCH more comfortable... Thanks again for the help!!!!! Anyone know if I will be slogging through snow when I get to the Rockies on Sunday?? -- Scott * from what I gathered here, I have made the following generalizations: A daypack may or may not have a hipbelt and is generally smaller than a backpack. May or may not have an internal or external frame. A backpack has a hipbelt and tends to be the term used to refer to the pack used for an overnight hike. Probably has a frame of some variety. So what do you call a backpack/daypack used for school? Again - this whole area is new to me... I have a lot to learn about pack vernacular....... "Nature uses as little as possible of anything." -- Johannes Kepler
  9. Darn humidity. Lost five pounds of water weight. Caching sure is fun! or Getting up early To be the first to find it. Someone beat me there. "Nature uses as little as possible of anything." -- Johannes Kepler
  10. OG - Try again - I'd like to see the picture..... "Nature uses as little as possible of anything." -- Johannes Kepler
  11. Thanks for the replies - most confirmed what I already thought... BTW, the Colorado countdown is 5 days! After last week's weather, I'm not sure if I'll be hiking or snowshoeing the trails at Bear Lake... -- Scott "Nature uses as little as possible of anything." -- Johannes Kepler
  12. quote:Originally posted by Bull Moose:... sometimes you need to do math or read a historical marker to be successful. You lead an interesting life, Mr. Moose... "Nature uses as little as possible of anything." -- Johannes Kepler
  13. OK - I'll try... ...you should never overestimate the importance of being well-maintained. ...the first few times you do it it's tough to find the correct spot. "Nature uses as little as possible of anything." -- Johannes Kepler
  14. I would take exception to Mike's comments about Floridians, but - well - that would mean I'd have to disagree with him... I'm a Fort Lauderdale native but I went to UCF for two years of college. Great place - I can imagine the cache opportunities in the state forests east of Orlando... Good luck and have fun! I'm pretty new to this and find that fewer people stare than you might think... granted I'm in South Florida which is a few notches higher on the weirdness scale, but I find most people are too absorbed in whatever they're doing to really care much about what I'm up to. And that's just fine by me!! -- Scott ** The Cacher foremerly known as "Scott / WA4SE." Thanks, Caching In for the inadvertent inspiration!!
  15. Thanks! Mike - After looking more closely at your avatar, your pack is in the same relative position mine was in when I wore the hip (not waist - sorry!) belt loosely fastened right above my hip bones. From the above posts, I think I had it right - it just felt weird (not uncomfortable, just different) after wearing school packs hunched all the way up to my shoulders and neck. The sternum strap is in an OK spot, but I have a pretty broad chest so I probably won't fasten it. I only use the one on my Camelback when I'm doing some serious trail riding... Sorry about being such a complete bonehead about this - I figured the most comfortable way was the best - but since I'm not that familiar I just wanted to make sure I wasn't doing anything that was completely dumb. Hence I bow to the better knowledge of those with the good fortune of getting out to hike more often than I. Thanks!! Have a great week!! -- Scott ** The Cacher foremerly known as "Scott / WA4SE." Thanks, Caching In for the inadvertent inspiration!!
  16. Enough about what's IN your backpack... OK - I admit it - I'm just a flatlander without a lot of experience in dayhiking away from civilization... In this thread I asked for opinions on a daypack for an upcoming trip. I have since ordered it and received the pack (awesome, by the way!) and had a follow-up question... What is the appropriate position for a daypack on your back? My experiences carrying a backpack are limited to cycling with a relatively small Camelback and wearing "school-type" backpacks. The new pack I just purchased has a waist belt which is new to me... Now, when I wore a "school" backpack, I'd just wear it as high up on my back as I could by really tightening down the shoulder straps. When I do that with my new daypack, the waist belt sits just across the bottom of my rib cage (I'm 6'3"). It isn't particularly comfortable, and it just doesn't look right... When I adjust the pack so that the waist belt is right above my waist (what a concept!) it feels OK but a bit awkward - as if it's about to slide off my backside... I will admit that this awkwardness could be due to the fact that I am not used to wearing it like this, but I was interested in finding out what is the "best" position for the pack. Is this completely subjective or is there a right or wrong way? Thanks in advance for helping a poor flatlander enjoy his vacation... -- Scott ** The Cacher foremerly known as "Scott / WA4SE." Thanks, Caching In for the inadvertent inspiration!!
  17. Thanks for the tip... Kind of like Lands' End and their "Guaranteed. Period." policy. Good customer service is hard to find these days. I will probably visit their store sometime on my trip in 11 days (not that I'm counting) and will look into membership. Again - thanks for the heads up! ** The Cacher foremerly known as "Scott / WA4SE." Thanks, Caching In for the inadvertent inspiration!!
  18. Saw this on another thread a while ago and bookmarked it... Have never bought anything from them, but check out RAM in your research. Looks like they might be just the ticket... ** The Cacher foremerly known as "Scott / WA4SE." Thanks, Caching In for the inadvertent inspiration!!
  19. Thanks, a182pilot! That's the first actual user report I've gotten on this pack. I know some others who posted earlier in the thread will be interested in this info as well. I ordered mine last Thursday, so shipping USPS it should be here late this week or Monday. I don't know what it is, but I have a serious backpack fetish myself - I never have enough. I need one for photography, then another for photography that isn't a backpack but a shoulder bag, one for work that holds my iBook, one for work when I don't bring my iBook, one for grad school... My wife thinks I'm nuts... She steers me away from the pack section in our local Outdoor World - it's like sensory overload... Probably too much information, but thanks for the therapy session. Your post made me feel like I am not alone... ** The Cacher foremerly known as "Scott / WA4SE." Thanks, Caching In for the inadvertent inspiration!!
  20. quote:Originally posted by Kouros: quote:Originally posted by Flatlander22:Having said that, the one thing that caught my attention in this article is the statement that some geocachers ignored signs that the park was closed and ventured in anyway. That part made me question the validity of the article (as did the bit about Geocaching _encouraging_ cachers to use motor vehicles on sensitive land). A few other things don't seem to tally up in my own mind, but I wouldn't want to comment without seeing the cache logs in question. What's the old saying about never letting the facts get in the way of a good story? I agree with many of the posts that the article seems a bit, well, light on facts. ** The Cacher foremerly known as "Scott / WA4SE." Thanks, Caching In for the inadvertent inspiration!!
  21. First of all, I am a relatively new geocacher and I don't know anything about the area that is the subject of this article. Having said that, the one thing that caught my attention in this article is the statement that some geocachers ignored signs that the park was closed and ventured in anyway. If that is true, it is certainly unfortunate and certainly does not provide us with good PR. It seems like they may have viewed some cache logs to substantiate this, but who knows whether it was 2 people or 200? It's a shame to see this happen to such a great activity... I hope to be able to cache for a long time without worrying about issues like this!! ** The Cacher foremerly known as "Scott / WA4SE." Thanks, Caching In for the inadvertent inspiration!!
  22. Not quite the same thing, but... I did my first cache on Saturday. As it turns out, my initial search area was about 40 feet away from the cache site. I found a good half-dozen condom wrappers. The area was overrun with bugs and the spot was a little rocky. All I could think of was OUCH! ** The Cacher foremerly known as "Scott / WA4SE." Thanks, Caching In for the inadvertent inspiration!!
  23. Thanks, Crashmore... I looked at that one as well, but decided on the panel-loading style instead. Other than that, it looks like the packs are the same size at 2100 cu. in. Ordered the Whitney last night so we'll see when it arrives... I'm a bit curious about the hydration sleeve - is it a completely separate compartment or does it share space with the main compartment? Is there a pass-through for the hose through the pack somewhere near one of the shoulder harnesses? I would assume that the above is what is meant by "hydration compatible." Have a great weekend! The rain has stopped so I will plan to be OUTSIDE a lot...
  24. Great... More choices... Thanks Brian... I like the Cordillera daypack better than the other one. Way to throw a monkey wrench into the purchasing process... <UPDATE> That Jansport pack is on backorder... Decision made... It's going to be the REI pack I believe... </UPDATE>
  25. Who you callin' 'flatlander'? Hey - I'll have you know we have lightning here, too! Lots of it! Just no high mountain peaks to be stranded on - but we DEFINITELY learn to respect rapid changes in the weather that bring on powerful thunderstorms. We have a landfill, though... It's pretty tall... Seriously - you may have prompted me to change my Geocaching name... I kind of like "Flatlander." Hmmm... I would love to stop into one of the REI stores near Denver, but we will only be making a very short trip this year... My wife takes a class every Saturday, so we'll be there from Sunday, 6/15 to Friday, 6/20. And I could EASILY spend a day in an REI I'm sure... While I have your attention, what are the "must do" day hikes in the Rockies? We will be there from Tuesday afternoon until Friday morning after visiting my dad in Cheyenne for a day and a half. I heard there is also some good hiking (and much less of a crowd) in the Snowy Range for when we are in the Cheyenne area... Thanks for the reply!! -- Scott
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