everythingspersonal

We stopped by a cache in a very nice local park yesterday evening. We were the only ones in the park except a young boy and girl on the walking path. The boy was on his bike and standing next to a nice hiding spot for a cache. I check my GPS and sure enough, it's pointing right at the kid. At this time my fiancee sees another hiding spot and goes to check it out. As she has her back turned, I see the kid on the bike reaching into the hiding spot, pulling out the cache container, and discarding the contents! I called over to my fiancee and clued her in. As the kid was showing off the nicely camo'd container to his sister we went over and picked up the log and swag off of the ground. The kid quickly coughs up "Oh, sorry, is this THING yours?" and hands over the cache container! We've only been caching for a little over a month so we still get a kick out of making fun of the word muggle. "Oh, no, here comes a muggle, walk away!", lol. I thought the cache was hidden in a good spot but I guess when you're a young kid, sticking your hands in hiding places sounds just as fun as it does to a geocacher! I know some would say that I should have kept the container and notified the owner but we explained geocaching to the muggles (which they thought was pretty cool) and we hid the cache better than it was when the muggle found it. Timing is everything! Lol

I get mine from Target. I recently went on a trip to the Texas Hill Country and found a lot of nice containers that survived being submerged in floodwaters. A majority of these containers were the Lock-n-Lock type (the others were bison tubes) In my area I've been finding a lot of wet logs lately and those caches haven't seen nearly as much rain as the ones I found down South. If everybody used nice, watertight containers we would be much better off.

I started mentioning CITO in my logs because I'm proud of the fact that I took the time to clean up the area around a cache. I'm not bragging but hopefully I will inspire some other people to get out and clean up their areas as well. I can't stand finding a cache that 20 other people have previously found and there is trash all over the area. If we all do our part, we will all benefit from it. I don't mess with Texas, do you? ;-)

That is unless he took twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against them. I know a local couple who got busted for cocaine possession because they had cocaine residue in plastic baggies in their garbage that was put out on the curb. The police had been watching the residence in an undercover drug sting and every time they put the trash out, the police would drive up and get it during the night. The cocaine was found in bags that also contained mail from the residence so it "linked" the drugs to the couple. Within a couple of days warrants were issued and the SWAT team was banging on their door :-) I always throw my garbage away correctly and we carry a roll of bags with us while caching.

Don't get me wrong, I personally don't have any issues with the religious aspect of it, it's just that I thought this cache in particular was very heavy on the advertising. I would have thought the same of it had it been baptist, budhist, muslim, etc. I found a cache behind a Home Depot and if it would have been chalk full of advertisements I would be saying the same thing about it.

Last night we found a cache that I went seeking because it was in a large ammo box and was tired of hunting micros. The cache was on church property, sitting behind some bushes in a populated area. There were only a few other finders before us so I'm assuming most of the swag was original. Inside the ammo box were lots of mini bibles, some larger religious materials, flyers to their weekly meetings, lots and lots of religious toys and a cool travel bug. We took the travel bug and a tiny bible (similar to the spoonful of bible image in this thread). I wasn't expecting this cache to be of such a religious nature and was a little turned off by the flyers and such because it's not really swag, it's advertising. As if putting the cache in the church bushes wasn't advertising enough. I felt like somebody took advantage of this cache (whether it was the owner or the church itself) and went a little too far. This reminds me of church members that give children candy for attending a class Hopefully this was the last cache of that nature for me.

I got a kick out of reading all of the funny responses to my original message. I also think it's funny that some of you think what I did was wrong. I'm sorry but a backpack hidden behind a very busy restaurant that could possibly contain weapons (I never said bombs) or drugs is something I thought should be taken care of. I don't care if some bum lost his ID card because I found his pack. The police thought it was a good idea to snatch the ID just incase something comes from it. If it would have been a driver's license or state ID card I wouldn't have taken it, it was the fact that it was an INMATE ID! The police were happy to be warned that this particular individual is more than likely hanging out in the area (or hopefully just passing through) and they were going to run a background check on him to see what he might have been up to. Oh, did I mention this area is located near a school campus as well? Common sense tells me that homeless or recently released inmates probably have some sort of weapon to protect themselves out on the streets and I was uncomfortable in just leaving the bag 4 foot up in the tree (not 45 ft.) where it was easily reached. Anyways, thanks for the humor (one way or the other)

JACKPOT! This is the mysterious bag about 50 feet from the cache site. I was barking up the wrong tree :-) I checked out the exterior of the bag and saw the front pocket unzipped. Inside was a stick of deodorant (I'm thinking homeless guy's bag) and then I found what I was looking for. An ID Card! Here is the ID Card. As soon as I read what it said, I yanked it out of the bag, jumped in the truck and hit the GAS!! I drove straight to the police station and luckily an officer I know helped us out. He took one look at the ID and said "Wow, you found Chester the Molester", LOL. He had heard about a local church that was allowing homeless folks to sleep on a school bus in that parking lot. I didn't see anybody around nor did I see the bus but guess what? When we went back to check out the bag, it was GONE! It had been there for hours (from the time we first saw it out caching and I started this forum topic and it was there when we went back to open it up) I was so ticked off that it was gone. I really wanted to know what was in it. I'll be keeping an eye out for this guy as he appears to be very creepy. I really wasn't expecting this kind of outcome. I thought it was just a bag in a tree...lol

I'd consider it to be rather large, overly stuffed. I didn't exit the truck to smell it :-) I'm going back up there with camera in hand and I'll post an image ASAP. If I get up the nerve to pull it down I'll let you know what happens (well...I'll try and let you know...if I still have all of my fingers to type with)

Ok guys and girls, I'm new to geocaching but came across something today that threw me off a little bit. We went to grab some lunch and I remembered there being a micro hidden behind the fast-food place. I searched my GPSr for it and it pointed the way. There was a obvious hiding spot (a big bushy tree) and when we pulled up next to it I could see a large backpack stuck up in the middle of the tree. I remembered reading that this cache was a micro and the GPSr was jumping around and telling me I was about 45 ft. away. I am curious as to what could possibly be in the (not so) hidden backpack but in today's world I am afraid to open it. So what would you do? Open it? Leave it alone? Notify the police of a suspicious package?

Ok, thanks for everyone's input. I spent some more time tonight searching this topic and found a program called EasyGPS that someone had recommended in an older post. I installed EasyGPS and was able to upload a bunch of caches to both my TomTom and my Etrex Legend. Thanks again!

Well, since I'm a newbie I need to really study up on this stuff. I need to load the same pocket query onto both the TomTom and the Etrex so I'll have the same info on each, but as of right now I can't figure out how to upload multiple caches (say 100-200) to the Etrex. Thanks for the ideas about the coordinates.

Basically that is what I'm trying to do. Route to the cache or multiple caches with TomTom. The TomTom doesn't work well for me out of the car but my Etrex Legend does a good job pointing the way. I'm just trying to coordinate my cache waypoints with the TomTom and the Etrex. I'm really curious if there is a way to find the coordinates of a POI on the TomTom's menu??

First off, I bought a Garmin Etrex Legend a few days ago and have successfully downloaded waypoints for individual caches in my area (Fort Worth, TX) but I've also been using a friend's Tomtom 910 to help me drive to each cache. I figured out how to add data from a Pocket Query of my route to work to the TomTom. My issue is trying to match up the cache waypoints between the TomTom and the Etrex. I figured I could upload a bunch of caches into the TomTom and whenever I stop at a cache, I could just enter in the coordinates as a new waypoint for the Etrex. Are any of you firmiliar with the Tomtom 910 to help me locate where I can find the coordinates for each POI/waypoint? I would appreciate the help as I'm trying to get an idea of how easy this will be so I can possibly purchase the Tomtom from my friend. Thanks! everythingspersonal