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The link failed. Trying again. Castlewwod Park in St Louis Mo:

2 weeks ago, I went to check on a cache I placed at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The adjacent Nature preserve was flooded, and my cache looked to be drowned. Found these deer trapped in the museum's formal gardens by the high water. (cache is fine, BTW). Caching at Castlewood State Park in St Louis, Mo. That's my sister, Geopic. From Lone Elk Park in Missouri:

The problem with Altoids and other tins is that they are tins. They rust, and bleed rust all over the log paper. Plastic is usually a better idea. Bison tubes are better still. And crack vials are the smallest of all, and don't leak. And, no, I don't use them for crack or anything else, but have seen them used as cache containers.

Made me laugh out loud. But then, I don't have any kids. Since there are many caching kids who visit this site, I'd change it if it were me. MHO.

and this one, a harmless eastern bullnose snake, at this cache (now archived.)Degrees

Here's one I came across at this cache in Indiana.Wayside Repose Pretty, isn't he?

THis thread prompted me to place this one, Tandem Tale: The Neverending Cache but few people who visit write the tale. They just log the find like any other cache. I'm sorta bummed about that, but still, it's a nice place to hike. My sister and I have exchanged tandem tales my email over the years, as a writing excercise. They have a habit of getting pretty silly, and she read them to her kids when they were younger. Email tendem tales are fun; they make opening your email interesting again.

try this link: Mapquest long/lat

Here's a great vest, and the company was top notch to deal with. Say hi to Val when you call. I love mine, though I don't use it in hot weather, as it's made od a quality canvas fabric. You can also get is as a jacket with zip off sleeves. Vestmate.com Only US$40.00. I have seen this exact same vest in camera stores for over $100. If I'm not using the vest, I use a fannt pack with twin water btottle paockets that I got for about US$15 at a Target or Wallmart or someplace like that. Cheap and serviceable. You don't have to spend alot for decent gear. But you could!

For my birthday, a friend gave me lots of hiking accessories, bite kit, light sticks, repellant, etc. She hid them in the woods along a lovely river bank and created a cache page that looked exactly like a gc.com page. I got to go out and seek my own gifts, and the game was the best part of the package! I see that someone suggested creating a cache in your recipient's name . I Did that too. Check this out. A fun idea can be as much, if not more, fun than getting stuff.

Just keep in mind that often those holes are some creature's humble abode. I placed a cache in a root bole hole in the late winter. In the spring, whoever was hibernating in there woke up and and it kept evicting the cache container. Had to move the cache.

Top notch photography! Thanks for posting your link. What, no captions? What is that weird snake skin fish head looking thing?! And that odd plant, looks like 3 curled pods? What are those?

Know that below 30* or so, the LED screen on your GPSr begins to freeze some. It will be slower to show you changes as you walk, and so your accuracy factor will be bigger that you think it is. Keep the GPSr in your breats pocket as much as possible to keep it warm, and when you get close, stand still for a few minutes to give the LED time to catch up. Expect lots of DNF's, but do log them, so that when the snow's gone you can go seek them again. In the winter, I like to check the caches I DNF'd for thick canopy, and in the spring, I seek the ones I didn't find in the snow.

It was hot. I was wearing canvas trail runners. Stepped up onto a log, and it disintegrated beneath my feet and I was instantly swarmed by thousands of fire ants. AAAAACCCKKKKK! Took more than 100 bites on my feet and spent 3 weeks on steroids. Nights are really long when your feet are screaming at you, and the only way to shut them up is to leave them soaking in cold water. All night. Every night. For over a week before I could stand it. Still, I went caching the next day. OK, not for long, but that was before I'd convinced myself I was going to have to visit the doctor... And it was a DNF, because the cache had gone missing. Sigh.

But now your cache container smells like food! I've ben FTF at a peanut butter jar container cache... well, I was FTF after the creature that pulled it from its hiding place, chewed it all up, played with the contents and ate most of the 'congratulations you found it!' letter. Be sure and soak it in bleach overnight to get rid of the residual food small before you put it out in the woods.

If your cache is cheap, you get McDonalds. It's important to perform cache maintenance when things get moldy and soggy. Watch out for those engineered cache containers; they often degrade more easily.

Wait for winter. In Indiana, most of the state parks do not charge admission from Nov to March. They are not going to pay someone to sit all day in a little booth and collect from the few adventurous patrons who might happen by. So cache the 'pay parks' in the off season and save the free ones for the spring and summer. Winter caching is all it's cracked up to be, and I enjoy the added challenge of finding a cache in snow. No bugs, better GPS lock with no tree canopy and darn few muggles around. Oh, and did I mention: it's free!

Here's another cache with the same idea. They shot a Blair Witch type video to set it in motion. Fun hide, and I enjoyed seeking it. The Devil's Playground by The Magical Misfits

I do log my DNFs. After reading why others do and don't, I went back to analyze my DNFs. Note that I write a note instead of a DNF if I didn't actually get to look for the cache. For example, last weekend, one cache was in a cemetery with a padlocked gate. Another had new No Trespassing signs at the trailhead. I don't feel those are true DNFs, but I did think the cache owner needed to know about the problems, so I sent the notes. Of my 42 DNFs, 8 were found at a later date. 6 were actually gone missing, 3 of which were archived and 3 of which were repaired and reactivated, but I've not yet searched for them again. The remaining 28 were real DNFs, for a 9.7% 'failure' rate. Don't know if that's interesting to anyone but me. Don't know if 9.7% is good or bad. But I do know that it's clear that logging DNFs makes a difference to the owners and seekers of the missing caches. And it makes a difference to me, so that I can keep track of the ones I missed and try them again. In performing this little axcercise, I see that another seek-my-DNFs day is in order. Sounds like fun!

Check out this log for one of my caches. The cache has since been archived, but it was replaced by this cache so the name lives on.

You all might enjoy this book, the story of an antique dealer who stole historic maps from libraries and book archives all over the world. I was fascinated. Island of Lost Maps Here is the Amazon page, complete with mixed reviews: Amazon's page For a map lover, this is hard ro beat.

Umm.... Since people use peanut butter jars, this argument is a bit off. Nope. It's right on target. I was FTF at a cache in a peanut butter jar. The jar was sitting out on the trail, all chewed to hell. Most of the log book had been eaten and the inedible contents were strewn about. Looked like possum tracks in the mud.

Not such a hot idea. They are nasty when they get old and start to moulder and rot!

One year, we rented a house in Texas, and those things were all over the backyard in the fall. Bagged em and put em at the curb, and the trash men said they wouldn't pick them up because they are too heavy. (put more than five or six in a bag and you will agree.) The trash guys said we had to take them to the dump ourselves. We thought, No way! and we dug a shallow pit in the backyard of that rental house and buried the suckers. The next year, there were about 100 of those trees trying to grow back there! OH NO! Imagine the horse apples in a few years! So we just moved out edit: typo

I once missed FTF on one when the coords put me smack in front of a huge No Trespassing! sign. Turned out the coords were off by more than 300 feet! Oh well. Sometimes you get the worm. Sometimes the worm gets you.