StClairC

Yea, if you go for an older unit BE SURE that has a USB connection. I have an old Etrex Vista that I still use that only connects via Serial port, so I have to fire up my 7-year old PC any time I want to load caches onto there.

We've been almost exclusively biking to caches recently. Part has to do with the high gas prices, half has to do with the recently populated bike trails in the area. And due to this, our enjoyment has gone up a ton. One of my least favorite parts of caching had always been the toll it takes on my car - starting and stopping several times a mile, urban driving all over the place. Biking simplifies it. Now I just need to get comfortable enough to bike while holding the GPS in my hand without crashing and I'll be set

These caches look awsome - especially excited for the soda fountain one. This is exactly the kinda stuff that maps won't tell me about that I'm looking for. Thanks! - Chris

Exploring Bodie works for me. Fun place! Yea we went to Bodie last year but for some reason didn't do any of the caches. I think by the time we got done walking around and doing the Mill Tour, we were hot & anxious to go grab something to eat. The hot springs sound neat - just need to track down a termometer for that one. Plus after a week of roughing it, some hot springs would probably feel really nice.

I've seen some 05+ Tacomas on some pretty tough trails... Burro Schmidt Tunnel would be one of the recommendations I'd offer. It is off the 14 just past Red Rock. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=GCF441 Manzanar is a good place to stop and learn about history. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=GC1153 Thanks a lot. I was actually thinking of stopping on the way home and camping a night or two at Red Rock so that might work out perfectly. Those pictures might be a bad thing for me to see if I'm feeling adveturous that day

We'll be in a 2007 Toyota Tacoma - so unfortunately nothing too offroady. In our previous visits, I took my old Carolla on many roads that I probably shouldn't have but it won't make it anymore

We're going to leaving in a week from Los Angeles up to Bridgeport and was wondering if there were any must-do caches along the way on Highway 395, and to a lesser extent Highway 14. As of now, the only one we have planned is GC13th1 Glass Flow 2 / Obsidian Dome. This was the place where we first learned about Geocaching and have always wanted to go back to find the cache at the top. I've done the PQ's, looked around, come up with hundred of possible caches - Just want to see if there are any personal reccomendations (and extensive side trips are always welcome for a particularly good cache ) for anything especially good.

Oh I think the DNF logs are the most fun to write and it seems that my best stories come from the frustration of not being able to find the cache. I have a seperate account just so that I can write my own logs. I always go with my girl and we thought about just having a joint account but i can't handle not writing about the expirience She's more of a TFTC or a sentence kinda gal while I'm a little more verbose about the experiences. As far as the actual physical log goes, I've been doing this for three years and it's the first I've heard of writing more than your name and a date in the log. I just thought that was the way it is done.

Thanks for all the advice. We ended up getting one virtual cache in Bodie and then on our way to turn back onto the 395 I rear ended a PT Cruiser while looking the other way at traffic. So that pretty much derailed any desire to do anything but get home as soon as possible We did stop for Really Good Jerky though, which made things slightly better.

Yea, I noticed all the ones to Bodie and we are going to have to make a day of that. Every year we go up I say "THIS will be the year we go to Bodie!"....well that's been going on for three years but THIS will be the year! Sadly no 4x4 but we do have a truck this year so we have a little more range than we did in my Carolla before. And feel free to go on and on if you want. We are looking at somewhere to spend the night halfway home so we can make it two days full of lots of caches on the way home - so the more we can plan the good ones we want to go to, the better.

Stop for a cache and awesome bbq - sign me up Thanks for the suggestion, looks pretty neat.

This Friday we are going to be making the drive from Orange County up to Bridgeport to go camping and are planning on caching along the way. Even pocket queries that only stray .5 miles from the road record hundreds of results, which sadly we don't have time to do them all. So I wanted to see if anyone had any suggestions of must hit caches on the 395 between the 15 and Bridgeport?

If I were to move, and anytime I travel whatsoever, my GPS is right on me, not packed away in some box. Other than that, being in a virgin area is just geat. Yea, every other time I've moved I've had it right there with me and actually have stopped the UHaul truck on the side of the road to grab a couple caches. But this time I must have thrown it somewhere cause I have no clue where it went.

It's a beautiful thing to bring up all your nearest caches and none of them have been found I can't wait to find whichever box my GPS is in so I can get out there and explore new territory.

The most I've done by myself is....5. And that took me almost 3 hours and I was exausted afterwards. I would love to one day take a couple days off any really push it to see what I could do but it just never works out. I agree. And without someone there to navigate for me I found that I always parked farther away then I needed to. Hunting for the caches was fun but constantly finding parking was probably the biggest pain that made me stop when I did.

If I'm going to be hoofing it for a day of caching, I usually just let the "nearest waymark" feature on my GPS be my guide (of course I also bring my phone which has info for the 3000 nearest caches so that helps too). Very rarely do I come across anything I can't get around with a five minute detour. Part of the fun is trying to find the correct route and all the cool/wierd things you see trying to find it

Unfortunately, many cache owners don't. If you take care of your caches, then you can just ignore it and go about maintaining them however you see fit. I see nothing wrong with an awareness month geared toward both cache owners and finders to maintain a high standard for all caches. Promoting things like cache repair kits and such is a good idea that I'm sure many people have never thought of doing. Anything to reduce the number of rusted-over altoids cans and wet, unsignable logs is good to me.

Why not just quit your job and become a full-time freelance geocacher? That's not a bad idea.

Just have him open a new account and log all of them. In the logs, just state that he was once part of "Team ethanbl" and is now re-logging under his new, solo username. I don't think any owners would have a problem with that.

Yes, ask for people here to break the Groundspeak rules. Nobody will do that for you. You have to become a premium member yourself, paypal is international. You will have to run multiple PQ's yourself to get ALL the caches in your country, and neighboring countries if they are close enough. You will have to put those on your computer and using GSAK have effectively an offline copy of geocaching.com that will not have any new caches listed unless you run YOUR Pocket Queries all the time which apparently will be a problem for you since you are not often near a WiFi connection. But one benefit to being in an underpopulated country, caches are not published dozens per week... ] Really no need for you to jump on him like that, it seems he meant the comment innocently enough. As far as PMs go. Just get the quarterly one for $10 and build up a huge database of cashes. You'll come across the occasional problem of searching for caches that have been archived - but it wouldn't be that big of a deal. Another idea might be to find groups near where you are that go out together or events that are happening. Then you can tag along with people and cache without having to get all the waypoints yourself.

Sigh Being stuck at work on a beautiful day, seperated from the outside world by sound proof glass. Caches are out there waiting. Calling. All I can do is read their cache pages and wait for the clock to strike 6. 2 more hours...

Aww....don't hate on Lard Land Donuts

I'm actually more concerned by copyright violation than I am geo-trashing, and, in as far as I know, copyright violation is illegal and takes a higher precedence than geo-trashing ever would. Sorry you feel harmed because some mean people might remember to be mean about your hobby. Is there even a record of which geocaches have been trashed and if Groundspeak accounts are being used for this purpose? Is there even a link between posts on that community and missing geocaches in the area of members? Is there any evidence at all that these individuals are effective or successful at anything they want to do in real life? Give me something that tells me I should be intimidated or concerned. I have no evidence that this group of individuals has done anything more than steal a graphic that they had no authorisation to use (which has been corrected), moan about something they don't like and create a really bad graphic. - Elle Really? Concerned about copywrite violation on a website that hasn't been visited in 8 months? On facebook, no less? You've completely missed the point. I don't mind that there are people out there who are mean to "my" hobby - its the over-reaction of people who are doing nothing more than encouraging the group to continue doing what they are doing. Is it even worth taking the chance that a cache might get trashed? I think the Simpsons said it best. "Just don't look, just don't look!" and it will die on its own.

Every cache I can't find I consider evil

Scariest moment happened a few months ago. We were driving home on the 395 and came across a multi. The first stage was right off the road but the 2nd was about 3 miles off the main road way out in the middle of nowhere. When we got to the coords, it was an old abndoned building all shot up and shot gun shells all over the ground. Also the building was spray-painted with "DEATH" pretty much the whole way around. The topper was when we finally worked up the guts to step out of the car - we get into the building and see a half-eaten hamburger and drink sitting right near a pile of fresh shells. Needless to say, we didn't stick around any longer and booked it back to the main road. Freaked out my girl so bad that it ended up being the end of our caching day and we made the rest of the drive straight home.