Morning Dew

I apologize for any confusion my post might have caused. I'm not sure how well you read it, though. Please take the time to reread it. This is not my "cause", as I said clearly in my post. And most importantly, I in no way intentionally belittled anyone or any organization. I used the word "This" meaning the concept, idea or process. You quoted my writing out of context and then implied that I was writing about GS. I was not refering to GS. I just want to clear the record on that. If I were refering to GS I would have used GS, they or them. Finally, again, I apologize if you or anyone else took it the wrong way.

The way I play the game, this is not a find. However, the best possible advice I can give you is don't post this question to the boards. At least not in the manner you worded it. You asked "Is it OK to log this as a find?" The correct answer to this is YES. See, there are very few HARD rules in geocaching. GS doesn't even define the term FIND. let alone have a guideline for what a find may or may not be. Play the game how you want to play it. On the other hand, if you asked for opinions on wether or not this was a find, I think you will find that most people would not consider this a find and would not log it as such. But, none of those posters are God. Unfortunately, God is not a cacher and GS has no cacing police, so you are entitled to play how you wish. For it to be a find in my world, I need to sign the log book. I do make an exception, if the log is too wet to sign, I rip off a piece of paper from my personal book, sign it and stuff it in there and count it as a find. Others may agree or disagree. So far this is the only exception I've made but I'm leaving MY rule book open to other exceptions that I might or might not discover down the road. On a side note, I personally feel that caches in place in Poison Ivy or Oak should be explicitly stated in the rules as illegal. Just like buried caches. However, I'm betting I'm in the minority on this one. And one last thing, long pants do nothing for preventing poison ivy. As noted in a previous post, the oil stick to your pants, you touch the oil and it's 6 weeks of pure joy from there.

I was looking at some TBs and ended up at log that would be an excellent post for this thread. Before posting to this thread I searched out a bunch of the members logs and quickly realized that ANYTIME he posts he uses the "Found It" selection. He has a LOT of finds...bug dips, notes, checking his own caches, maintaining his own caches, didn't find it, discovering bugs in caches he'd previously visited, etc. ALL logged with smiley's! Frankly I could absolutely care less. 5 finds, 5000 finds means the exact same thing to me and it's absolutely worthless as this thread proves. I wish GS would just remove all public displays of find counts. This thread does make for some very entertaining reading and it's fun. My personal favorites are cachers who in this very thread post... "Oh duh, I've only posted a find a few times where I didn't find it. Once was when I found parts of the cache but no log book......., etc." Most likely they didn't read the whole thread or they simply don't realize everyone is making fun of them. Fun stuff!

I ran into the same problem with Google Earth. My solution: I noticed that the along the route will not only accept a .KML file but a .GPX file as well. The mapping software that came with my GPS (Delorme PN-20), Topo 7 can create routes that can be converted to .GPX files. Not only can it create routes but I can easily manipulate them to go anywhere I want. Just like in your exampe, from A to B then to C, then to D etc. instead of the standard (quickest A to D route that Google creates). So I created a route in Topo 7 traveling exactly how I wanted it. Converted to .gpx and then upload that to the "Along The Route" and bam it spit out a nice list of waypoints along that route for me. I don't know what GPS you have but if it came with some mapping software perhaps in can do this. I'm betting the Garmin software is capable of doing this.

I'm a new cacher so I'm still in the "find the 500+ finds within 20 miles of my house" mode but the few earthcaches I've done have been my favorites. Once I finish the caches in my area (a year or two) I'm sure I'll start specifically targeting earthcaches for my "long" trips and then just do traditional caches around them. So...for now, frankly I could care less about an earthcache forum however I do support one (it boggles my mind why anyone wouldn't). I feel like I'm at work. Oh boy, today I have a 9 o'clock discussing the proposed change of handtowels used in the restrooms. But more importantly, Kitfox mentioned it in a previous post and I posted it even earlier than that. This frankly comes under the radar of just plain stupid. It takes like 30 secconds for a moderator to add a new forum. And why wouldn't they just do that and be done with it? Maybe they don't realize that if it starts WWIII or the apocalypse they can just remove it with the same ease? Of course they would have to take the time to write the following post on the general forum. "Due to "Insert your favorite reason here (lack of use, the incredible amount of time, energy, monetary resources needed to run such a conterversial forum as earthcaches, etc.)" GS has decided to remove the earthcace forum." When I first joined, I thought these forums were very poorly moderated but now I'm starting to change my mind. I bet the moderators aren't allowed to just open a new forum without permission. If that is true, it explains a lot and is not a good thing overall, in my opinion.

You don't get a smiley face. You can still find the cache, post a note, have an experience and play the game though. See #1 Above or Ask any 16 year old kid with a myspace account and they'll show you how to master taking a picture of yourself. Wear a mask, funny glasses w/ nose, etc. People do it all the time. Your own creativity is your handicap here.

Not as many as would have guessed. I'm in SW Michigan: 5: 3 10: 26 25: 424 50: 1903

Well, if you wouldn't do that in the woods and save it for home, you wouldn't need to fear me , I did have a knife, like I said I usually carry one hiking, but I wasn't out to hurt the guy, just label him. At the time, I was living in the U.P of Michigan. The U.P. is literally a different dimension. You learn to be very careful how you treat locals, you treat them with respect and as your equal, you NEVER look down on them, or they will ruin you. Actually, how you should treat everyone but you have to be extra careful in the U.P.

Thanks for your help.

Darn it! I thought I was in the website forum. My bad. They'll catch it and move it. Unless someone knowd the answer and then we can just end the thread . Yeah, Legal was a bad choice of a word, but you know what I mean. Does anyone know if this is acceptable within the guidelines? Thanks.

I have a smugmug account (similar to flickster if you are more familar with that site). It is a photo hosting website. When I log a cache, find, dnf, etc. Can I provide a link in my log to my photohosting site that has all my geocaching photos? Thanks.

Good post. Only one comment. I'm too lazy to look up the agreement you check when you became a member but my guess is the reason they don't notify you when they post "your" photos.....Is because they aren't 'YOUR' photos. They are THEIR photos. Again, I think I make the mistake of seeing thousand of posts below people's user names and assume what I believe to be general knowledge, is not.

I'll say it again. Someone needs to create a site (maybe even GS) where popular requests are listed and you can rate those requests 1 to 5 depending upon how bad you want to see them implemented to the website. Of course you could only vote something like once a month, blah, blah, etc. This would be beneficial to both GS and the forum users. [Rant On] Stop staying ridiculously silly things like "I don't want people to rate my photos". It's like you guys just discovered the internet yesterday! But, we know it's not true because you have thousands of posts combined and I'm sure are very internet savy! For JIMMINY CHRISTMAS of course you will be able to ENABLE or DISABLE the feature. And I know you realize this, it's just like your trying to stir the pot. On the page I'm typing right now ALONE, I can ENABLE/DISABLE emoticons, signature, email notifications and I"m sure I'm missing a few! Not to mention the HUGE list of other features you can ENABLE/DISABLE on most pages/accounts/logs/cahces, etc. you visit.[Rant off] I think the real discussion lies in "Is the amount of work required to implement this feature balanced by the demand" My solution would give at least an indication.

The one thing I'm excited about (and this thread is just exellent PROOF) is that people have FINALLY hit a breaking point. I've been waiting since it was $2.50 a gallon. When it was in the mid $2 range in our area and rising (It's amazing how recent this was) my wife insisted that when gas hit $3 per gallon at the national average we would see large numbers of consumers making changes and the laws of supply and deman would kick in. I wasn't so sure if $3 was the crying point or not. It turns out I was right . I bet if this thread had been posted when the national average was $3 you would get the bulk of the replies saying "whatcha ya gonna do", "I haven't changed a bit", etc. But now that it's at $4 almost every single post is admitting to make some changes to reduce the amount of oil they are using. Once the entire country starts doing this (and we may well be there now) I think the steep rise will begin to level and it just might even reverse it some (at least I have my fingers crossed). A very interest thing is the company offering gas for $2.99 gallon if you buy one of their cars. Those guys/gals might not be as dumb as you think. Time will tell.

Billy, The biggest thing is you need some finds under your belt. A lot will be much clearer once you get out there. Just in my short little caching career, I've run across caches where I walked away thinking "Why, the heck didn't they just add ONE simple sentence to the cache page. This would have been such a better experience." In none of those cases did I walk away thinking "Boy! Oh Boy! I learned that if you park here and walk into the woods you can't get to the other side of the river without walking back to my car, driving 23 miles out of my way and starting over. Boy Oh, Boy!" Especially in a part of the world I'll probably never return to again. It might be useful if I fished in that area often but you have to realize, not all cachers are local and/or care to learn "you must approach from the east" the hard way. The only thing I think you might be making a mistake on is your simplfying it a bit too much. Like I said in post earlier, you are going to find many many examples where "hand holding" is used. You'll have to be the judge of whether or not you like it or not. And yes, you'll discover as the hider, it will be your choice on what experience you want to create. If you want to put out a cache this is very confusing to get to through (various driving in circles), approaching the river from the wrong side, coming up against a cliff face with no climbing gear, etc. and not providing any of this info in the cace description then it is perfectly within your rights as a cache hider. I believe most people will even defend your decision. I certainly would BUT, another thing you haven't probably considered. Expect a hide like that to have VERY few finds per year. Also, be aware that hiders quickly develop a "reputation". If you want to be known as the hider "who give no information, all his caches are a goat herding contest, because he feels I should explore the area" and you are comfortable with this reputation, then great. Probably, some local cachers will love it and pat you on the back everytime they see you, but be prepared to be ignored by the bulk of the local community. However, if you put clear instructions like "Finding where to park for this cache can be a real challenge, use all your own necessary resources (Topo Maps, Plot Maps, etc), be prepared for dead ends and unpassable obstacles not only on the road but on foot, etc, etc." then I think you'll be a much more sucessfull hider, in my opinion and still create the same experience you were hoping for. Going to do a cache, having a very frustrating time and not even getting started would probably rank up very high among cachers as a miserable experience. However, a few tips on what you're getting yourself into goes a very long ways.

Waymarking has me so torn. I love the concept but I haven't been able to grab a hold of it yet. The search and the log in geocaching is such a key element for me. However, I'm new to geocaching and I think I just need a lot more time and I might begin picking up Waymarking. The one thing that does kind of irk me is that some of things are just so common. An example, I search Waymarking.com a few days ago on a "closest" search. I noticed that someone posted a travel agency in the town I work in (because it has a neon sign). I just thought "well, yeah I've been there, kind of, I drive by it a lot" Then I did a search of my photgraphs (I take a lot of pictures) and I even had a picture of the building (and sign) in the background of one of my pictures I had taken awhile ago. Meh. With geocaching you never get this. The fascinating thing to me and my family, is that we can go just about anywhere in the U.S. and there are geocaches everywhere. Yet they are totally unseen to a HUGE portion of the population. I believe this points to why a lot of waymarkers seem more about creating than finding. I mean really who wants to find a KFC or a Travel agency. Yes, it's cool to create a "game" to find every KFC you can but let's face it, for the most part, the bulk of people will never get in to that and those waymarks will essentially never have more than a hand full of discoveries. However, on the flip side, when a cache is posted, it is found within hours or less. And almost ALL the regular cachers in the area will find it within the next month. Even LPCs. But waymark a monument downtown and you're more likely to have the FTD be a person from out of town who was visiting and it took 6 weeks for the first discovery. I'm rambling....off to look at Waymarking.com yet again.

I think your going to do just fine. You do need to apply some common sense, though. But yes, there are times when you will need to hold someone's hand and there will be times when you will need your hand held as well. As you begin to find caches you will quickly understand. In my opinion, this game is really about good hides. They certainly don't have to be this awe inspiring, sensational experiences but there is quite a bit that goes into making even the simplest of placements a good hide. It isn't as easy as it sounds, as I soon discovered. I'm sure others will list good examples of where hand holding is needed (private property issues being the most obvious and important). Another example: If you place a cache in a great spot that requires a one-way hike of 4 miles and you know the trailhead parking is a major pain in the butt to find and GPS units usually route you to the wrong spot, causing the finder to drive around something (river/mountain) a considerable distance to get to the trailhead then you have to ask yourself. Do I make my hide experience "A lot of frustrated driving, landing a frustrated finder at the trailhead, not knowing they are about to embark on a one-way 4 mile hike, followed by a difficult hide that you did not explain" ? Or Do you give them explicit directions and a waypoint to the parking area, warn them that this will be 8 miles of hiking and furthur warn them that the hide might be a toughy. To me the second scenario is the experience I want. If we just listed a set of coordinates and yelled "Go find it!" I think this game would have died a long time ago. What it has evolved into now, mostly is because of a necessity to make this a fun game for most people.

So where can you get Permethrin. Anyone know a box store that definately carries. No REI near me. I see someone mentioned permenone at Kmart. Same stuff? And if yes, can someone confirm Kmart definately sells it. We're picking up a lot of ticks this year and I'm getting sick of looking for it.

Interesting thread. Less than a handful of "odd/threatening" situations in my life and only once would I consider it "outdoors". We were at the trailhead of a mountain bike/hike park and we were just about to start our hike. We spot a pervert in the woods with no pants on doing his thing. He spots us, we immediately turn around and start walking towards the car out of his site. I returned with my paintball gun and got him twice before he out ran me. He was fast. I was just blasting away though, never let up on the trigger. It was hilarious. I remember everyone laughing when I told the 911 operator he should have orange paint on his stomach and back side. I must admit I've given very little thought to my personal safety in all my years in the outdoors (mostly hiking and fishing). I almost always have a knife (really a muti-tool) and a whistle but more for survival reasons. At least this thread has made me think about it.

1. It doesn't matter. 2. A real life example, that just happened to me. I adopted 3 caches from another owner that I had never found. We completed the adoption process via email from home. So I went out and found them to make sure I woud know where they are to provide proper care for them. On the way home, I was thinking and the "find" dilema occurred to me. Then I quickly came to the conclusion "Of, course I'm going to log them as finds." My search was exactly like any other search I've ever done. I had no prior knowledge and/or extra hints. I just took the cache page and found the caches. This fits MY definition of a find...it might not fits others but I could give a rats butt less, your entitled to work up your defination of "find". But, of course #1 overrides everything else. As long as the word "find" remains undefined in the geocaching world the discussion is circular and without end. Personally, I hope it remains just the way it is. People play the game for different reasons and play it different. This is one of my favorite things about geocaching. Also, I love the fact that the numbers are absolutely meaningless to anyone besides the person who creates them.

When I discovered caching, of course the first thing I did was punch up the closest caches to my home. Much to my shock there was a cache across the street from my house at the public access for our lake. My daughter and I walked accross the street and found it. Our first find and that is how it all started. I'd have to punch it up on my GPS but I'm guessing it's under 200' away from the bottom of our driveway. Maybe 300' from the center of our home. We check on it every now and then.

What do others think about caches that are like this one? I could flippin' care less! Who cares, seriously. The guy/gal has a memorial cache that has to be removed during the winter because the cemetary makes them, is this really that big of an issue? I just don't get it. You say you want to ignore it but the second time it was posted you went and found it again and LOGGED the find. So which is it? Do you NOT want to find it AGAIN or DO you want to find it again? You can't have it both ways. It's been relisted TWICE in THREE YEARS . You're really getting tired of this? How do taxes make you feel? How about brushing your teeth? Is that starting to wear on ya? I clicked on your profile and read your biography where you started telling me how you play the game. I love that, how people play the game differently is one of the aspects that fascinates me about geocaching. But then you used your biography as a pulpit to look down on me for discovering a coin at a cache I've already previously been to (which I don't normally do by the way). My geosense tells me you may have issues beyond geocaching. By your own admission, people play different ways. Who cares. Maybe your search for other "similar" issues came up empty becasue.......you might be alone on this one? Perhaps? Or in a very small minority.

My geosense kind of told me that others might be putting the cart before the horse. That is why I asked "What kind of GPS do you have and how are you using it?" Sorry, I can't be of any help, I started geocaching with a GPS and have no experience on caching without one. However, back to your original post. I would say a 20% find rate for a newbie without a GPS is pretty darn good. Will it get better? I just don't know, but I would suspect not much unless you get a GPS.

I apologize in advance if I go too basic here but a couple questions. 1. What kind of GPS are you using and "how" do you use it. Proper use of the GPS can make a huge difference for a beginner. 2. Caches, even very easy ones are hidden well. It's not like you get to within 20' of caches and say "oh, there it is" in most cases even containers the size of lunch pails will be unoticable to almost all people when they are standing within a couple feet of them. Again, I apologize if you already know this but some new comers might not realize just how well hidden most caches are. 3. Pick and choose your caches carefully before you go. Print out the sheets and take them with you. Look for caches that have a low level of difficultly, large containers and hints that say stuff like "Under a pile of rocks on the south side of the big oak". This will help quickly build your geosense. You'll become familar with hiding techniques and typical containers. 4. Make caching your own game. Some cachers, cache to make caching as challenging as possible. They don't ask for hints, they don't read the hints, they purposely seek difficult finds, etc. However, others cache just to make finds. And of course others cache for every reason in between those two extremes. But be aware of this one thing. The HUGE majority of caches are placed by hiders who WANT you to find that cache. So never be afraid to drop them an email and say "Hey, I couldn't find your cache, could you give me a nudge in the right direction." Almost always they are more than willing to help because they know some people just like to visit cool spots, and getting to sign their name saying "Hey, I was here!" is a cool little bonus. And of course, you don't ever have to do this if you choose. I just want you to be aware most hiders WANT you to have an experience that fits your definition of fun.

Another PN-20 user here. If you can stretch your budget a bit, the PN-20 is a geocaching machine. As you will soon discover the Garmin models out number all the other competitors. They've been in the game a long time and make good units. However, with any Garmin you buy you have to factor in the additional price of the software, it ain't cheap. What I love about the PN-20 is that it is in the same class as the Garmin 60SCx, includes the software and can be used for "near" paperless caching (800 character limit). The general concensus is: -the 60SCx is a slight superior unit compared to the PN-20, -the PN-20 maps are slightly superior to the Garmin maps -60SCx won't paperless cache -after buying the Garmin software you'll have a lot more money into the Garmin. If I were in your shoes, I'd wait a month (or whatever it takes) so my budget could go from $250 to $300 and get a PN-20.