tracywatson

Hi! Thank you for your response. I do apologize for it taking so long for me to even see that you replied, we started homeschool and I've not had much computer time lately! I'm either teaching or grading papers these days and sneaking off to find a geocache every few days if I can talk the kids into getting their work done early! Okay, it was a metal disc set in/on a small cement pyramid type thing that was about maybe a 1 1/2' tall. The disc is broken on one side but 90% of it is still there. I can't remember what it said now but I know it was a Benchmark. I'll go back and get pictures etc. It's on Highway 51 in Pineville by the huge fleamarket behind Carowinds. The lat/lon is N 35 05.382 W 080 55.092 If you're facing the fleamarket it's on the left side of the flea market at the edge of the road outside the fence at a big sign. It's directly across the street from the Pineville Matthews Micro Marathon #3 SC State Line cache GC138KZ. That's how I found it. I will go read the "Me First" FAQ now... I probably should have done that to start with! Thank you for your reply! Take care, Tracy

I found a benchmark, quite by accident, today. Part of it is broken off but it's obviously a benchmark. What am I supposed to do now or am I supposed to do anything? I am probably not the first to find it as it's kinda out in the open but who knows... Thanks, Tracy

Naturally curiousity compells me to go look but I don't see anything weird. I had to look about 3 times. Lower right hand corner of photo. Well, yes, the biz cards are indeed one thing, and their content is a bit risque, but there is also the very concept of leaving a handful of business cards as TRADE ITEMS in return for having removed a number of coins (quarters) left as trade items. Amazing! In that vein, I must admit that I LOVED is the ensuing log entry left a month later by a subsequent finder of the cache and the cards, who CITOed the cards, as follows: Uh... if you look in the log where they've performed the annual maintenance... don't go to the picture.. nothing interesting... I think they meant cutting and pasting the web site address they have listed in the log. The web site is NOT acceptable AT ALL, especially for children. I really did not know that there were "services" such as these. Nothing amazes me anymore. Tracy

I am addicted to this and I've only been doing it a week BUT I can honestly say I was almost forced into quitting and I was certainly not happy about it. My fiance' is the protective type and at first acted like I'd came up with another hair-brained idea for entertainment (my ideas and his differ quite a bit as TV and geocaching do NOT go hand in hand...) Anyway... so that was his first attempt, make me feel silly and I'll stop. Well it didn't work. I ignored him. The second attempt was telling me I couldn't go and he had an enormous problem with it and was angry at me for not asking permission to drive the van I was borrowing on geocache hunts. So I asked permission and got it. He couldn't argue. Then he eliminated the solo hunts as there's always a serial killer looking for me even when I check the mail all by myself like a big girl. LOL! (You know, I can't BELIEVE you went to the mailbox by yourself! What if someone hurt you!? We wouldn't know where you were!) My reply should be "well, I wasn't too far from home, about 5 feet exactly, so you wouldn't have had to look too long." But, I bite my tongue, tell him I'm a big girl and move on. He has forbidden certain geocaching sites that the lower-class people in town live in close proximity to and therefore are all murderers and drug addicts that are going to get me! LOL So... I decided if I wasn't allowed to go without a 7 foot 400 pound gorilla bodyguard with me then HE was going! So... tonight HE actually found the cache I'd been looking for on three separate occasions! LOL! It's taken me two weeks but he finally went with me! He did scare me though I have to admit. He allowed me to wander around in the woods looking for the cache and he did help me. He allowed me to enjoy myself and take my time and get all excited when he finally found it for me. THEN we leave the site and drive past the really nice trees etc. right smack into the worst neighborhood or living conditions I've ever witnessed in my entire life. I looked for signs of electricity and could find none. I also noticed there is a port-a-john every three houses or so, out by the road beside the mail box. (YUCK) I also made note of the people in the yards.... very sickly looking and with classic signs of hard-drug-use. Jonesing I guess it's called? The inability to stay still, involuntary movements, sores all over the place, etc... <sigh> He was right on that one and I am glad we found it so I don't have to go back there. There were some houses out there that could literally have been pushed over by my two year old son and people really lived in them!!! No windows, can see right into parts of the house, and there were people inside those houses. It was very heart-wrenching and scarey. There was a very odd odor before we actually got out of the woods and it wasn't the port-a-johns. Those people certainly were NOT happy that we were there. It reminded me of Deliverance or something to be honest. Everyone knew we were there and everyone showed us we didn't belong there. So... I've taken his warning to heart and I'm careful and don't mind the company he insists I take with me but it got rediculous when I wasn't allowed to even go to the park. It's okay if we're playing on the swings but it's not okay if I am looking under bushes, rocks, logs, or under and around the benches and tables. LOL! He's so funny sometimes. But... I guess maybe some people aren't "allowed" to go geocaching once they start talking about it. Tracy

I don't recall last year being this miserably hot! I know that when you get out of the car and you can't breath, you better get back in the car before you go hiking and having a heat stroke. Even my boys (all 6 of them) who count the days until summer, haven't been able to stand the heat more than 10 or 15 minutes at a time before they're back in the house, red-faced, and begging for ice water and a cold shower. This is saying a lot for my boys as I've seen them wrestling in 100 degree weather in the yard for almost an hour and never really even getting tired. We've done most of our geocaching in the evening or early morning to be able to withstand the heat. The thermometer in the shade on the side of my house read 105 yesterday. Add in the humidity and you might as well stay inside. Tracy

<grin> I've heard this a million times... As a previous site manager for a security company in SC (not anymore as I got rather bored with it after the Knight's Baseball season was over and I didn't have anything more entertaining to protect LOL!), I think I should let you all know that these "Rent-a-cops" in SC have just as much power as a police officer, they're just not sworn in so they can run away if they want to and ignore you if they so choose. They don't HAVE to deal with you in other words. They certainly can arrest you and make you sit there until a police officer transports you to the jail. If you harm them, disrespect them, or resist you can be charged with the same crime as if you had done the same to a sworn officer. Some security officers can and will transport you themselves although most don't have the insurance for it so they just let the cops do it for them. Which is rather frustrating for the person being arrested but it saves a LOT of time and paperwork for the security guard. The guards are required to be present during court after arresting someone and they receive just as much respect as a police officer does in the court system. Most of the police officers in our area are very appreciative of the security guards walking the streets, patroling the parking lots and hotels, and doing all the after-hours boring work for the police. Security guards are trained and licensed here by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division and must go through a firearms class if they are to be armed security guards. I'm not defending the security guards and yes, I do know some are quite irritating, but I saw the trend starting here and just wanted you to know that "rent-a-cops," although annoying, have just as much power as a police officer so I'd avoid confrontation unless of course you want to be hiding a microcache in the jail cell LOL! Also, more than half of the security guards we employed were college students who were actually pretty intelligent and just trying to offset costs for school, or they were older men who had retired from the police department or military and just wanted part time work. They knew the laws and what they were talking about 99% of the time. The women were mostly looking for work after hours when their children were in bed or their husbands were home from work to babysit. Those were the one's who had to have two incomes to support their families and had to work separate shifts. We insisted on clean criminal and driving records, clean drug tests, and at least a high school diploma. Our armed guards were more intelligent than the unarmed guards as a rule. Also, unlike a police officer, a security guard must strictly follow the directions given to him by the property manager or he can risk losing the entire (usually very expensive) contract for the company and then he loses his job for poor performance on the job. That's usually the reason they're annoying. The manager has specifically and very clearly said "NO ONE PARKS HERE AFTER 11 PM, I DON"T CARE IF THEIR CAR IS ON FIRE! NO ONE PARKS HERE!" So, then the security guard has to be the bad guy and make everyone mad for being so cold and irritating or he loses his job. They're put in difficult situations more than you know and they usually have to make decisions that they don't want to make. Most guards are videotaped all night long as well so all of their actions are on tape. Just wanted to let you all know that the rent-a-cops are just as serious as the "real cops."

I bought a Garmin eTrex Legend today on sale so I'm looking forward to figuring it out and going caching tomorrow! Thanks for your reply. Tracy

I have two iWay 500c GPS units we used to use in our wrecker business. I don't know if they're for sale yet. One might be.. I'll re-post if it is... (It isn't good for geocaching) I've used it to basically get to a parking area close to the cache then wing it from there so this might explain why I haven't had much luck. I don't know how to use it for Lat/Lon anyway so it isn't doing me much good other than getting me anywhere I'd like to go on the road. I would really like to purchase a handheld GPS but we've got 8 kids and we're homeschooling and in the middle of homeschool shopping so I'd need one pretty cheap. Being that I'm not skilled in this area and we're new to this it would probably have to be idiot-proof too. <grin> We're going to incorporate geocaching into our homeschool curriculum this year! We'll be placing a lot of kid and education-oriented caches around Rock Hill and Fort Mill, SC over this school year. Any ideas or cheap GPS units will be considered, but, I'm warning you, I've got questions and a picky husband. LOL! Tracy