dinovagsd

Hi all. Like many on the forum, we did get GPS units from Santa. We are family of 5. My oldest son was told about geocaching by his math teacher. We have had car GPS units for a few years now, so that is nothing new and so we found it easy to adapt to hand-held units. Geocaching is awesome. What great things we have seen already. We did one cache near a beaver dam, and it was really neat to show the kids the beaver "chewings," how they make their dams, the "destruction" it causes, why beavers can be considered a nuisance by some . . . We got to see that firsthand and close up. Now, in the summer when I come home with poison ivy and come to this forum crying about it, I hope to receive some heartfelt sympathy.

Ohhh, sad, sad. That is so tough. We just started caching and tell our kids to make sure they pull the drawstring thingy on their wrist. I jokingly told my oldest son -15- that he might lose his entire hand/wrist if he gets caught up in a tree, slips and slides. "Yup, I could just see your hand and wrist hanging from the tree still holding the GPS," I told him. He's okay with that sense of humor. Silly. Have you checked under the car seats, in them, maybe in trunk, maybe under carpeting in trunk. Did you wear a different jacket that's now hanging in closet, like a special event coat? Suit? In with a Christmas gift? Do you have a lot of "secret compartments" in your car that you don't usually use? Seriously, I pull out this prayer once in a while, only when really necessary, and this would be the time for you. I think I've used it maybe 3 or 4 times in my life and it has worked. "Dear Saint Anthony, please come around, for something's lost and can't be found."

Pennsylvania -> Pike County --> Greene Twp --> Creek Road (off Hemlock Grove Rd, which is off Rte 507)

I read some of the links regarding public/private and permission. Please bop me on the head if this answer was in there and I missed it. I'm so excited to hide a cache and have quite a few places in mind. The first and easiest, which has a really good 'thing' to look at while you're there is on a dirt road. I'm in the mountains of NE Pennsylvania. This is a state road, that I know. It's isolated and there is a perfect place to park your vehicle. So, is it safe to "just put my cache there" without needed permission being that it would technically be on a little state road.

Hi all. THere is a $30 rebate "when updating from MapSource US TOPO to MapSource US 2008." I printed the rebate from the garmin website. Check the details - Purchases made from June 1- December 1 and must be postmarked by 12/31. Although I have not given my new units to the kids yet (Christmas), I'm going to re-read the fine print on the rebate and then unwrap at least one unit and purchase/download, whatever needs to be done to get the $30. I don't remember the path at garmin.com but pretty sure it was under "maps" tab up top.

Thank you JSWilson. I did check your recommendation of google earth but only saw option to dowload software for service, which I won't do. I'm hoping that Garmin's update 2008 maps will show entered addressed a bit better, but I don't count on it, especially for these rural areas. Sputkink, sputnikkkk whoa! That is just too cool. That site is exactly what I was looking for. Who knew. That's the beauty of forums, to share and learn. Great stuff. I did put my mom's address in to play around, of course. She lives on Long Island, so quite populated. Her actual house was about 3 blocks down. The arrow put me at beginning of street. I wonder if that isn't done on purpose. It just seems to me if we were able to get this far, how could we be 3 blocks off? Again, I just can't help but wonder if they do this as deterrant for the ill-minded ones. I don't know, maybe. Anyway, this would certainly work, especially with cell phones. Call, say okay I'm on the road, wave me down. Really, here it can be that bad, with houses buried in woods, driveways obscure.

Hi all. Here's my question. I will give example: One day my son was at after-school event, then called me and asked to go to a friend's house, that the mom was picking them up from school and taking them to her house. Later, my son called and said he was ready for me to pick him up. Okay, where are you I said. He didn't know. My question is this - Would there have been a way for my son to get coordinates for his location -- from the internet -- and give them to me so I can enter them in GPS. Now, let me elaborate a little bit and quickly so you don't think I'm nuts "not knowing" where my kid went. I know of the family very well, son has been friends with them for few years. It's just that they live way north of high school and we live way south, so the kids are pretty much friends during school and online. It happens a lot here, that when they go to middle school they meet kids from possibly 45 minutes away, which is the case here. Also, it seems that many people don't know how to give directions Let's assume that the people don't have GPS and need to use internet for this. Jodi

As a followup -- the end result: Called Garmin: Go with Legend HCx or Venture Hc. She pointed out that you don't want your kids in the woods and not be able to get satellite reception, so get something with "H" for high sensitivity. Considering that a kid might indeed wander into woods now that he has a GPS, imagine that! And not so much here, but they have friends that live on 30+ wooded acres, so when they go over there . . . Thanks to this board, I saw post this morning about Rei sale, so ended up buying Vista HCx, which is step up from two noted above. Longer battery, POIs, router, compass, card, more saved tracks -- all at basically same price as Legend HCx. Of interesting note, when I called Garmin, she entered my state, PA, and told me that my entire state takes 77 mb of memory. Venture I think had 24 mb capacity, so that's a lot of fiddling on computer adding and removing maps, as we travel out of state. Again, thanks for the help.

I just ordered 3 of them, received my email confirmation already. Watch amazon because in my experience their "free super saver shipping on this item" never pans out. For shopping on ebay, I haven't found an authorized Garmin dealer, don't think they exist. I bought a Mantis tiller on ebay; guy said he was authorized. I called Mantis and asked them before I ordered. They knew all about him and confirmed it was okay to buy/warranty will be good. So that's a thought. I telephone Rei regarding coupon that I had. They are not for use on GPS, among other items. www.flamingoworld.com was 15% off, so check that out too, with the visa card -- double check. THere's a guy on ebay selling garmins and he has a 92% feedback. I would NEVER. At least 99% or I don't buy. Rei's shipping was fair, too.

Good morning. I have a family of 5, me, hubby, 3 kids, ages 10, 12, and 14. My husband has Garmin Street Pilot 2500-series, which of course won't be coming geocaching with us, but my Nuvi will. (It has already proven that it can find my car at Bloomsburg fairground. That was really fun!!! Boy did I have the foresight making that waypoint.) Searching for my car at the fair that evening, I saw how into it my kids were. Son had his face "buried" in the GPS and off he went. We were all practically running to keep up with him. I think he really didn't want anyone to say, "let me see," and have to share. So, 5 people 1 Nuvi. I'm fine using the Nuvi, don't want a "geocaching" unit (just because of the $, really). But I would like to be able to buy one for each kid. Maybe one for husband depending on opinions I get here. After reading posts and reviews, I am finally leaning toward Legend, but then I see they are $200+. So I'm wondering how I should go about this. Buy one higher-end one then 2 other lower end. Would it be worth it to save around $200 by buying two $100 ones and one $200. Would one kid be so astray with the cheaper one (LOL). Doubt it with a Garmin What about waypoints, maps, all that techy stuff? I guess I wouldn't necessarily need that on all 3 units, or would I? Hmm. I don't want it to be follow-the-leader. We live in mountains in NE Pennsylvania but travel to dog shows, as far down as Virginia, up north, NY state. I really hope there is a reasonably-priced way to do this and make it fair for everyone. As another gift idea, which might interest some, I'm getting them a metal detector, too. I look forward to your answers.