TeamK-9

I heard this idea and I thought it was awesome. But then I remembered that I swore I had heard this idea before... Try Couch Surfing I found that site a while ago while searching for "Cyber Culture" or something like that. Anyway, it has the basic functionality of what you're looking for.. Maybe someone could set up a sort of Geocachers Couch-Surfing Ring with a website listing all geocachers with Couch-surfing accounts... Or maybe someone cool and technical minded could take a look at the innards and functionality of this site and figure out their own thing...

I'm willing to share an anecdote: My first and only event attended so far was a CITO event in Pittsburgh, PA just this past CITO day. Anyway, it seems the day of our event was also the day that a fairly large 5K race was going through the park. Of course the main road through a good part of the park was closed. However. I along with several other cachers, came in a back way completely unaware of the 5K going on. We came in on a fairly major road that I guess they only closed as long as they had to. We pulled in and found a nice parking spot near the pavillion. We parked right next to a fairly large pile of several barricades. A few minutes after we had parked, city police pulled up and put up the barricades and started redirecting traffic, blocking the way we had just come in. Within another 5 minutes the runners were starting through, and within what I swear was only half an hour, they had opened the street again. Quite a few people came in another way and were not as lucky, it seems that the road that these people tried to come in on was closed a lot earlier than the one we were on...

I find that when my GPS is running low on batteries signal aquisition is bad. For example, if I just turn on my GPS and the batteries aren't very good and charged up, then maybe it will only let me acquire 8 of 12 satellites or even 4... But yah, my GPS definately works crappier when the batteries are dying...

From my experience prepaid credit cards are a ripoff. The ones I've found at local stores. You have to pay $15 activation fee, just to get one then you have to pay to have money put on it, then every time you add more money, you get charged five bucks. I'm fourteen, and I don't have a credit card. But my dad was nice enough to use his paypal account (which is connected to his credit card) to get me a year of membership. I just paid him $30 and he paid fro my membership. Quick and simple...

Alot of people have never used the forums, some don't know it even exists, whereas others plain out refuse to use them. Those who do not use the forums, or those who use them infrequently have probably never heard of the hand signal. And so, really this is an obsolete "signal" What I do when I see another person who I believe is a cacher, I sort of hold my GPS prominently but not incredibly obvious. When it is a geocacher, they notice the GPS and walk up and ask if you're a geocacher and a quick conversation will follow. When I see other people with what I believe to be a GPS, I'll walk up and ask them if they're a geocacher, and if they are, I introduce myself and we talk quickly. I don't care if the person on the trail is a geocacher or not, or deaf or not, if I made the hand symbol, they'd just think I was a moron. Cause like I said, most people have never heard of this motion...

Not quite...

Currently, I have one cache hidden. It's called Anderson's Last Stash. The cache is hidden near a historically signifigant cave, and the cache has the whole backstory of the area in it. It's a really interesting read. I'm about to hide another one on an old abandoned road. I can't decide if I want to make it a multi and write the coordinates on an old traffic cone or something, if I did, I might call it "Pile on the Pylon" or something like that. Or if I don't do that I might name it "Road Closed" Another cache I might be placing soon is in a place called Townsend Park. The park currently has one other cache called "Heart Attack at Sunrise." If and when I get around to placing the cache, I have a few ideas for a name, all of which are a spoof of the park or the other cache. "End of Town Cache" "Not Quite a Heart Attack at Sunrise" "Don't Give Yourself a Heart Attack" and/or "A Heart Friendly Hike"

This cache is located near a cemetary that was supposedly used for the Night of the Living Dead movies. It's also part of a major local legend. Unfortunately, I can't do the story justice, so you're best off just reading the cache page. This cache would be awesome and creepy if you did it at night, but I'm told the police frequent the area because of it's remoteness and it's proximity to the cemetary, and if they found an abandoned car, it would likely be towed or sometihng...

Okay, I've combined the major ideas of this cache into one. You'd list it as an event, but not list the actual date, time or location. Then you'd go out and hide three separate caches, each with one piece of information, either the date, time or location. Cachers would have to go find all three. Once they find all three, they'll be able to RSVP on the cache page. The event itself will just be a picnic followed by maybe some group caching. Cachers would get to log a find for attending the event, and a find just because they found the three caches and got the right info. And hopefully, as part of the event, the three caches with the info would also be listed as permanent caches. Thus, the attendees would log 3-5 smileys and have an overall fun time. I hope you guys don't mind if I use this. It might still need a bit of tweaking, but I can figure it out I think... I'll put it in my filing cabinet with the rest of the event ideas that I want to have next summer...

I'd do it, and I'd make it myself if it were probable, but I think it would just be a pain in the butt quite frankly.

Insurance is definately a big thing. But other than that, the idea is absolutely awesome! Maybe you could make it a multi, and have the keys for the door in a micro or something and people have to find the first stage to get the key, and then they don't really know what the key is for, until they realize it's for the house...

There actually is quite a bit of maintenance involved in virtuals. A lot of times, a plaque is destroyed, or maybe the general area that the virtual is in is closed off. Often times the cache owner who is not local, would have no clue what was happening. The two main problems, (that were probably told you by CO) is that it's a vacation cache, and that it doesn't have much wow factor. As far as I'm concerned, unless the place you're coordinates are is a really spectactular view, or a place that very few people go or even know about, than it doesn't quite have the "wow factor" which is used in reviewing virtuals....

If I remember correctly (I haven't downloaded waypoints from cache pages in a while) you have the choice of what you want to name it when you download it...

Hey Keystone, didn't you say a while back that you get the occasional care package of awesome Groundspeak goodies?

I'm not a woman, and neither is my caching partner who is my dad. We're actually both really kind of large guys. But we usually get a little freaked out while caching in places that are frequented by quad-riders. Just last week, we were caching at a place that is a known party spot, and we found at least 3 dozen empty shot gun shell casings laying around that couldn't have been there more than a day or so, cause if they had, the rain would have gotten them muddy... But yah, it's kind of creepy when you know you're on someone elses "stomping grounds." I could probably beat the crap out of anyone who tried to attack me as long as they weren't majorly huge, but I usually have mace burried somewhere in my cache bag, and if I feel unsafe, I dig it out and put it on top of one of the easier access compartments...

While attempting to drive to a cache that was said to provide a fun off-road experience, I had jumped out to help spot for the driver. At one point, we weren't sure how much farther the Jeep would go, so I walked ahead to see if it got wider. Anyway, while walking the road, which was primarily made of crushed gravel and slag. There was an area that was really kind of steep sides with no real flat place to walk. Anyway, I slipped and fell. I managed to scrape my leg up, bruise my ankle, and on top of all, my entire leg was coal black. I managed to hobble back to the Jeep and we used most of our remaining water supply to try and wash the coal off. After using all but about a liter, we were ready to go again, but two of us and a dog would not be able to make the 1.5 mile round trip walk with only a liter of water between us...

Darn those uneducated, hillbilly muggles! Seriously though, there's no rule that if a muggle finds a cache that they can't play the game and trade and log, so what's to say that if they're FTF that they can't trade and log. But as someone else said, I don't think the cache could be hidden very well if a muggle scored a FTF...

I thought this was kind of cool: Edit, unfortunately, my photo host doesn't work to allow me to post the picture here, but I'll post the link to the album.. Click Here

I figured there would be some traffic cones in that story Actually, one of the ideas is to have a large road block at the beginning of the road with barrels, and jersey barriers. When the person drives up to the gate, they see the barricade and several ordinary looking POSTED signs. The difference is that the Posted signs aren't ordinary, they'd probably say something like "POSTED: No Trespassing" and then "Except geocachers" underneath all the legal mumbo jumbo... Anyone who didn't read, (and most people wouldn't) would go home crying...

I'd definately buy some land to do have my cache on. There's a lot great ideas that I have that can't be done in parks cause it would be against rules or smoething...

I'd buy a parcel of land, and build a small road with a series of gates.... Each gate, you have to find a cache to figure out how to open it. Maybe one gate you need a keycard, another you need a passcode, and another you just need a key... But to be realistic, I'd probably want to hide a ten gallon drum, hide it really well, and glue a tupperware or ammo can on top of it. Then, people looking, see the ammo can, think it's the cache, and they unhide the ammo can, and they can't pull it out cause it's attached to the real cache!

"Groundspeak employs a very dedicated staff of volunteers to keep the world family friendly. Some moderators such as Mtn-Man, have been known to cross state borders to maintain family friendliness..."

Awesome... I've always thought that you guys needed a medium sized sticker. The big ones are perfect sized for ammo cans, but not always good for tupperware... Thanks!

Yah, I'm able to track new caches alot of times through YJTB's. Alot of people arond here will put them in their caches to start, and I'll get an email that a YJTB has been placed into xxx cache, and I go to look at the cache, and it;s not aproved yet...

My caching is sort of "planned opportunities." Every once and a while, we'll plan out a half day or so of caching in a certain area, and we'll go out and do it, but normally we just cache by chance. Like maybe I know that I'm going to a relatives house, I'll look up local caches, and maybe hit them if we get the chance. Normally, our caching is planned like this "hey, we're going to xxx town today, maybe we could get some caches while we're there, why don't you look and see if there's any good ones" and of course, I look up the zip code and look for caches and print out the sheets of any good ones in the area. But like I said, that's how a lot of our caching is done, otherwise it's done in bursts of 2-4 caches in one general area, not usually planned very well....