BarbVA

I just wanted to add something that I just discovered in the swag recently. That is if you buy a package of tiny stickers from say the Dollar Store you can get 100 for a buck. Most micros will hold a half dozen or more of these. I started dropping some in the micros we visit after noticing how disappointed my 6 year old would get by the 3rd or 4th micro of the day with no swag. A couple of little stickers can make a kids day when they have been finding nothing but micros for a bit.

Well, it has been camo taped and replaced, and re-activated. Luckily where I live there aren't many caches, and not many FTF hounds, so hopefully it really is No harm No foul. I think next time I'll place the cache and give it 24 hours before submitting it to the reviewer incase I have an after thought. Thanks for all your advice, and understanding!

Actually, it was in place when I submitted it, but I thought they could grab it and bring it to me in a few hours time and no harm no foul, but I have learned my lesson. Thanks!

To make matters worse, this topic is posted 3 times (at least). I kept getting an error telling me to try posting again, and when it finally went through, I see it 3 times, ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope a forum moderator will see and fix that.

We've had a place picked out for a new cache placement for awhile. I wrote the cache description up over this weekend, but had it set for the reviewer not to see until today. We went out around noon today, got our final coordinates, and placed the cache. When we got home, I made my last minute edits to the coordinates and cache description and checked the box for the reviewer to see. Then my boys (13-23) said they were going to Walmart to spend some Christmas gift cards. So I said, "hey, how about grabbing my cache and getting some camo tape for it while you are there". Figuring I had at least 24 hours before the cache was published, I didn't think anything of it ( I was planning on putting on the camo tape and having them run it back within a couple of hours time). But no, our volunteer reviewer is just too quick (I say that fondly) and approved it in less than an hour, and the boys aren't back with my camo tape yet and I believe they grabbed the cache on their way out, because they intended for me to put the tape on and they would return it. So I have temporarily disabled it, and feel like a fool having a brand new cache temporarily disabled and hope nobody went looking for it in the 20 minutes before I knew it was published and disabled it. I've learned my lesson, I'll take all the lashings I deserve, but please tell me I'm not the first one to do something so stupid.

I think I had 42 finds when I hid my first one, and it seems to have been well received judging by the logs. Like you, I was a faithful forum reader, and tried to learn what people like and dislike in caches before making my first hide. Beyond that, I had a certain spot that simply inspired me to want to bring people there (GC1AN35). I'm actually ready to place my second, but haven't been inspired as far as a location yet, and I made a deal with myself that I would never place a cache for the sake of placing it, so I'll continue to wait for that inspiration. I say if you are inspired, go for it. If you just want to throw one out there to say you did, then expect to be disappointed by many six letter logs (TNLNSL). Most of all have fun!

Also, try to stay in the 1 difficulty until you get a few under your belt and get a feel for what different hides look like, then you will start looking at things differently and can go for the more difficult ones. Most important is keep having fun!

I like it. I think what would work better than a food storage bag though would be a "dry bag", you can find them where kayaking and canoe supplies are sold. I have one that I'm imagining would be perfect, even has a handle that the TB tag could easlily attach to. Good luck and have fun!!!!

I guess if you looked at the TB prisons, you'd find many more. One of my local prisons currently has 6 TB inmates, and I'm sure that's NOT a record.

At least yours is a 4.5, mines a 1

It's my ONLY cache, it's a 1 difficulty and I couldn't find it, lol, but I'm sure its there. Thought I was making a quick stop by my cache yesterday with my 5 year old who was ready to release her first Travel Bug. We were going grocery shopping and thought it would take 5 minutes, didn't bother bringing the GPS, I knew exactly where it was. Well after poking around in all kinds of wet and creepy crawly stuff, wading through thorns that I thought must have really grown alot since my last vist, we gave up. Called home on the way to the store and told my 13 year old of our bloody nonadventure (I had gone in shorts and sandals and was determined to make it through the thorns so dd could drop her bug), when my 13 year old reminds me that I had first planned to place it in the spot I was looking, but later changed my mind because it LOOKED like it would be coved in thorns by spring. Note to the wise, bring your GPS even if you THINK you know where your own cache is

I would do just as you did and leave. Not only do you have to worry about the plants gardener being irate, but what if the police already know about it and are waiting for someone to come and tend the garden to make the bust. You sure would look guilty out there trampling through the stuff with nothing else around.

My thought is that a cache like that is only for the brave soul. I don't think it is just the elderly we have to worry about, but the young ones as well. I constantly tell my 5 year old to be on the look out for snakes, but if she actually encountered something like that her geocaching days would most likely be over. I would hope that anything that could potentially frighten a cacher away from the sport would be ranked with an appropriate difficutly level. I would consider a snake cache to be no less than a 3. I wouldn't take my 5 year old on a 3 difficulty cache. If I went out on a 1/1 and my child was frightened away from the sport I'd be a little ticked off. While I think such caches are cool and fun, they need to be given an appropriate rating, and maybe even a hint of the potential fright.

Sorry I responded to the next poster, but hey isn't that a job for duct tape? :D

I dispute your calculations. We went camping this past week at two locations. The round trip was less than 360 miles. The only driving we did besides getting from campground to campground was for geocaching. We filled up 4 times at between $71 and $75 each time. Being that a tank full of gas gives us close to 300 miles (our Expedition has a thing that calculates it for you to see), I'd have to say that we spent over $150 in gas just for geocaching in one week with only 18 finds because we were in the mountains where they were really spread out. Edited because its late and MY math was wrong (and I'm the accountant)

I wish there was like a Travel Bug E-team. I'm actually thinking that might be funner than putting out TB's, becoming the people to contact when they are stuck or go missing, lol. Is there any such group or individual in existence?

I haven't heard about the yellow Etrex, please tell me what all you know. I have a yellow Etrex H, and have unintentionally completely drowned it twice and it worked immediately upon retrieving it both times. The first time, we stopped to go potty, apparently when we closed the doors it slid off the console directly into a glass of iced tea sitting in the drink holder below the console. Worked fine as soon as I pulled it out. Second time was last weekend, when I got dumped out of my kayak and it filled completely with water and had to be taken to shore to dump with the Etrex submerged in water. Again, worked fine as soon as I pulled it out. Just wondering if I've been lucky and should not count on it being water proof in the future.

Was out geocaching Saturday in Buckingham County, VA with the 3 kiddos, and we pulled no less than 20 ticks off the 4 of us. We got most of them before they buried in, but my 5 year old who wasn't even with us when we think we got most of them ended up having 2 that were already burrowing in by the time we got to the camp showers where I could check her over good. We promptly bought some bug repellant, although I've never been one to like to put that stuff on my kids, I'm now considering it the less of two evils with everything ticks can pass on.

I second the dollar store. We buy all of our swag there, minifans, batteries, first aid kits, pedometers, clip on watches, mini flashlights, work gloves, kids toys, glow bracelets, the list is endless.

I see nothing wrong with theme swag caches. But I'm one who prints out all the cache listings and actually reads them, I know many don't. If say I'm going to a cache that has a Happy Meal toy theme, then I KNOW my dd will want to swag so I make sure she packs one, no big deal. If the theme interests us, we make sure that we have what is needed, if it doesn't we just sign the log, no problem.

I was just browsing through my new Summer Activity Girl Scout catalogue, and one of the things they are doing this summer is an introduction to Geocaching. It says in part: "Discover the meaning of GPS, "travel bugs", "gotchas" and "caches"." I thought I had heard most terminology by now, but can't say I've heard of a "gotcha", anybody want to enlighten me?

No, me and some friends have a bug we released about 10 days ago and are watching as a group. It was picked up within an hour of being released and hasn't moved out of the grabbers hands yet. I know it's not been THAT long, but when it's YOUR bug it sure seems like a long time. I guess the point I'm making is now that I know how it feels to have your bug sitting in somebody's hands, I'll be more mindful of picking up bugs I can't move along right away. (I did hold one for longer than intended recently and I'll be careful not to do that in the future).

to remind you how important it is to MOVE THOSE BUGS! Just sayin

I think if you actually look for it and don't find it, you should log it. Our first day out we logged our only to date dnf (of course the kids still like going for easy ones, so we're bound to have more as we increase the difficulty). We looked hard and long, so I logged it with an explanation that we are newbies and it was our first micro attempt, as to not discourage others from seeking it. 3 more dnf's later and the owner has disabled it until he can get out to check on it. Point is, sometimes the owner needs to know that several people have looked before the alarm goes off that maybe something IS wrong. Now on the other hand, on the same day we were determined to to grab one more, and found the parking area, got out and scouted the top of an 8-10 foot hill we had to go down before getting anywhere near it, and decided it was just too late and getting too dark to attempt it at that time. I didn't log that one, because I didn't feel like we really looked for it, we just scouted the area, and didn't want to alert the owner of a non-issue.

Well thanks Princess for that bit of information, that actually makes me feel better, I was still making assumptions based on the old wives tale.