GrandpaCannon

I am, of course, biased. But, I always envy new cachers in the Utah County area. In my opinion the best trade items are signature items and we have a lot of gret one around here. Unfortunately I already have a lot of them so I am constantly searching for that elusive "new" signature item. Okay, I haven't had a chance to cache in a while but with the spring weather we are having I think this weekend is it. Football Freak (my son) and I are already planning a trip out to stretch our legs and bag some caches.

We have a similar cache here in Utah called Lost in Lehi. In this case the coords are on two different TBs. You need both to get the full set. It is a really fun cache to find. Great idea.

It always works for me and I always have the system send me a copy so that I know that it went through the system.

You should be able to get a bearing from your GPS this is the direction to the cache in degrees. If you turn the compass so that north lines up with the compass arrow then there should be degree markings and you can see which direction the cache is in. This is a really simple explanation. I don't know of a good tutorial but if you go to your local library you may be able to check out a Boy Scout Merit Badge Book on Orienteering. Give that a try and see what you can learn.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if you take a banned item out of a cache you should not have to trade for it. In this situation you are just "fixing" the cache. On the other hand I usually will leave a few items to improve the cache so that I can claim to be a good citizen. If you are taking an item that is not banned but that you think is a "bad" item then I think you need to trade fairly (is that a word?) for it.

Along with many others my avatar shows my Sig item. I do try to change the patch year each year to show when I did the cache. I love Sig items and they are almost all I collect anymore. I always leave my patch and then I usually just take a signature item that I don't already have. If there are no sig items I usually just take nothing.

I have gone to my daughters school and taught them about geocaching and her 6th grade class is considering putting a cache on the school property for cachers to find. If we do it, of course, the page will say that the cace was placed by a class and that should alleviate peoples fears.

I guess it depend on where you are. In my area (I realize already that I am very lucky) we have at least 2-3 new caches placed each week within a 20 mile radius of my house. I don't think I'll ever run out of caches to do. When I started alomst 3 years ago there were 200 caches in Utah now there are over 1500 (I'm not sure because I haven't looked for awhile to see how many the state has) It looks to me like the caches in our area have taken on a life of thier own and will only keep growing.

It has been a while since I put out a travelbug but I think this is what you do. Login to GC.com (this is important so the system knows that you are the bugs owner) now go to the bug page. In the upper right hand corner there should be an option to edit the bug. Click on that option and there should be a place to identify a picture. If you have already uploaded the picture, the picture should be listed in the drop down menu. Click on it and the picture will now appear on the bug page. I am typing this without the pages in front of me so I hope this is not too confusing. As for linking to a cache page I know that there is a fairly simple way to do it but unfortunately I don't know enough to even know that simple way. Sorry. Hopefully someone else will step in to help.

The reasonable man in me agrees. Just because you are allowed to do something does not always mean it is a good idea. On the other hand the rebel in me says that if the neighbors do steal the cache you should change the name of the cache to the "Barking Dog Cache" and make it a virtual. To log it you bring a tape recorder; go to the cache coordinates and describe the scene while the dog barks in the background. Okay maybe this one wouldn't get approved but it is tempting isn't it?

Now that's an impressive number!!! As for me 179 found 1423 available that I did not participate in hiding, for a ratio of 12.6%.

I'm almost embarrassed to say after the poverty of caches that you just described but I have 904 within a 50 mile radius. I have well over 100 within a 10 mile radius.

The hardest physically was Big Baldy http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...B-744B6A6A450F} Not as scary or hard as some of the above but a 7 mile round trip with a 3000 foot climb is a big deal to me. The hardest search was Sure Shot http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...2-E73230136A59} He even had decoy caches in likely places to find the cache telling you that this was not it. I am sad to see that this cache is now gone.

I think I have the record so far 179 finds 68 archived and/or unavailable 38%. But...as far I can see I was not LTF on any of them.

"-Makes you leave the house although there's jobs to be done." I thought this was one of the Pros to caching I would add to the Pros: -Gets you outside -Great exercise -Keeps you away from games and TV -Something to do outside even if it's raining -Make friends along the way with fellow cachers -Extra thing to do on a trip or vacation -Some caches can lead you to places you now love but never would have found normally -Keeps you active instead of being a lazy bum -Gives the Dollar Stores more profit -Gives you something else to do with your kids. -Playing with technology is cool.

Hey. that's my caching smurf name as well. And I also don't think so.

Wild George is one of our very active cachers here in Utah. I met him at a cache once and he was very friendly. As far as I know, these tokens are meant to be signature items and not tracked anywhere. I do not think Wild George ever intended for anyone to register his token with WG.com. I think it has the two web addresses (gc.com and wg.com) to promote both websites and "hobbies" I would love to have Wild George read this thread and respond, I hope that he gets the chance.

1) When I search for a cache I certainly want as many decimal places as possible. If, however, you can only give two that will have to do. You might mention on the cache page that your GPS only goes to two decimal places and ask for some three decimal place coords. from the first few finders. Then you can update the page with more precise coords. if you want to. I'm just impressed that you care enough to ask. 2) I think that what you leave is up to you. I leave my signature item in every cache I find great, good, mediocre, or lousy. On the other hand for me it's a vanity thing. I love to read the comments on a cache that I have already been to and see that someone has taken my signature item. Whenever I get a chance to cache out of my "regular" area I find myself thinking about how great it is that new people will be exposed to MY signature item. (I told you already I was vain) If you don't leave a signature item I would not say that your didn't leave it because you did not feel the cache was worthy I would just record what you left and what you took. Although I think my signature item is cool (see my avatar) it is homemade on an embroidery sewing machine so I don't have a lot of money invested. (My wife already had the machine.) I suppose if I spent a lot of money on my signature item or if it took me a long time to make I might be a little more choosey.

Proud to have more caches found than posts.

What you need is a little luck. I have a travel bug that started in Utah went to Japan then Hawaii and came back to Utah after almost a year. Now it is in the midwest. Another TB went to Japan and now Europe. Both of these bugs are a school class project and so people seemed to want to help them out. We have had some great pictures posted on both Bugs and it has been great. Patience is the key for a happy TB owner. See what happens and be glad so long as the bug keeps moving.

If it weren't for Bad Luck I'd have no luck at all. Doom, Despair and Agony on me.

So when do we get to see the photo? I don't know if I can decide to buy something until I see it on a lovely model.

This would actually bother me more than your original hypothetical. If you figure out a way to change data on your site because data is changed at GC.com then I feel like you are taking advantage of GC.com. I'll admit that I cannot articulate exactly how since I suppose anyone with web access can theoretically look at every cache page everyday and use this information in various ways. You wouldn't even have to log in. But your proposal "feels" unfair to me. Now if you had a third say Geoupdate.com that both the hypothitical site and GC.com chose to be a part of then I'm fine with it. But choice on the part of the participateing sites is very important to me.

When you said Mr. Sherman I thought at first that you were talking about the boy that goes with Mr. Peabody on all of his Way Back machine adventures. His name is Sherman right?

I probably would not list my caches with your new site. Why not? Some of it is a lazy thing and it may never even occur to me to re-list. Some of it is also a loyalty thing. I feel like a Groundspeak geocacher so I would probably stick with that. If you e-mailed me and asked if you could list my cache and do the work for me I would probably let you. (So much for my loyalty.) The fact is I don't have strong feelings either way so it might depend on how busy I am when I get the e-mail. And it might depend on how hungry, sleepy, or irratable I was at that very moment. I've always wondered how much the small day to day decsions we make are based partially on what we had for breakfast or lunch that day.