Hellolost

I have been out of the car for over 2 hours with my nuvi and only gone down 1 bar. Rain might be a issue but it hasn't rained yet lol. I do carry plastic ziplock baggies. Also once I get the general area the nuvi gets turned off and stuck in the back pack for searching. I pull it out and turn it off if I have a issue with the area of search.

I use a nuvi for caching. I have found that it is great. It drives me street by street to the closest location and then I just follow the flag to the cache. Just make sure that it has a place to enter coordinates lol Here I am on one of our cache hunts with a new little buddy and my nuvi. As you can tell it does work off the city streets.

Read the logs. Make sure that it does not have a string of faces. That means a lot of people haven't found it. It will not be buried. It could be in a tree. Look for 1 difficulty first.

San Jose, CA 5 miles 364 10 miles 1152 25 miles 3355 50 miles 6354 GEEZ

We are writing a blog. It is a lot of fun to go back and read. Here is the latest entry from this weekend. Saz and I take turns. It was her turn to write. There is this hide we’ve spent hours looking for in a very pretty urban park. The dirt ground is swept clean, the redwood trees are awesome, lots of grass – nice park. With a horrible hide in it. We’ve hunted and hunted and left dejected and low so many times. You see, almost immediately after we give it up as impossible, another cacher would find and log about how easy it was. “Walked right up – maybe 30 seconds of looking – thanks for the easy hide!” Yeah yeah. So back we’d go. I find myself pacing the fence line, scanning every square inch of ground, glancing at Hello, hoping for a gesture of excitement. She often had her arms wrapped completely around the pretty redwoods, praying to the tree spirit for help I assume, or weeping quietly to herself. I couldn’t quite tell through my own tears of frustration. So that’s how we started the day. Spent an hour with more of the above. Giving each other grim looks as we passed by one another. Lots of innocent muggles in the park today, playing basketball, throwing horseshoes, running on the grass. Hello says we need a cover story, so we are looking for a tag that fell off the dog’s collar. Okay, works for me! So I am staring up into an oak tree when a man asks me what I am doing. So much for the cover story. I tell him we are playing a game, like a scavenger hunt, and something has been hidden for us to find. He was interested, asked some questions and told me how he came across one in another park. He didn’t know what it was, but he signed the log and put it back. Nice fellow. One muggle educated! That’s a first for us. An hour later, CRAP! I quit. Let’s go find something else and come back with a fresh point of view. So off we go. A couple of our hunts today included solving puzzles, which we aced because we are fabulous. We got a couple of hides in town, one of them in a cacher’s front yard! We sat down in his driveway to dig through it. Stealth, thy name is not Hellolost nor Saz. Have to work on that. There was one in a strange rocky park across the street from a garage band. They did not entertain us for very long, maybe a minute or so before they stopped playing some fast metal music that had me bobbing my head. Maybe they were watching us. We got this one after a bit of searching. I got a tiny thorn in my finger, too, that is starting to blister up. It still kind of hurts. But that was nothing compared to what happened at the bomb site. This cache site really did look like a bomb went off. There was a crater and huge chunks of concrete and twisted metal things and some nice soft looking green plants. Stinging nettles and Hello in open topped shoes! Ouch! Ouch! ACK! Get some real shoes! Okay! Ouch ouch ouch. In the car and wiping feet with antibacterial wipes. I shouldn’t have laughed, but it was kind of funny. There is a walking trail near eBay where we found one. Tree cover made nailing down the coordinates hard, but the area was not very large and we got it. We walked around the water district's perc ponds, some we hadn’t been to yet, so that was good. This was a small walk and a clever hide. We saw a lizard here that was about 18 inches long. I thought he was icky – too snakelike. So of course, Hello adored him and wanted to pet him. He ran for it, lol. Another clever hide was found along one of the prettier urban trails beside a clear and free flowing creek. We’ve been along this creek many times already and it’s one of the nicer places to have a walk to see what you can see. There were two pretty mallards floating in a peaceful tree covered spot, and that’s about all I saw besides hordes of muggles enjoying the trail as well. In fact, as we stood beside the trail to check our location, two bicycles went by and one definitely said “geocachers”. Gotta work on that stealth bit. Honestly. We did some hunting up near the famed albino colony of Shannon Road. They may also have been murderous cannibals. There are stories. We looked for three caches along the hilly dirt trail, possibly amongst poisonous snakes and plants. My favorite! The first near the trail head has likely been muggled. We found a movable brick in a retaining wall, behind which was a hollowed out spot that must have been made for a cache. So we went down the trail to catch the second one. We had to leave the trail and Hello spotted the poison plants, so we managed to avoid those. I made some noise with my feet and kicked pinecones and stuff around, no rattling rattlesnake, so we felt free to examine the off trail area and it was found fairly quickly. We were on the upper part of the trail and the view of the south valley below us was gorgeous. We also saw a few lizards, the ordinary short ones that I think are cute, poppies and pink flowers, but no albinos. The next one was at the bottom of the trail, likely an hour walk down the mountainside, so we hiked back up to the car. Which was parked on top of a steep hill about 300 feet from the trail entrance below. Again. Why do we keep doing that to ourselves? I think it’s a subconscious quest for exercise. So we hauled ourselves up the hill and drove off in search of refreshment. We headed into a rustic area with no water. Again. A couple of Big Gulps and we were off. The third cache near the bottom of this trail, we didn’t get it. We might have, we were absolutely in the right spot, but it was also directly on the trail head on a residential street. A woman suddenly appeared in front of a house. When she was not staring at us, she was staring at a bright yellow fire hydrant. Just absolutely studying it. It is either the most interesting and coolest fire hydrant in town and she was afraid we’d steal it, or she was keeping an eye on us. Likely the latter, so a bit creeped out, we left this one for another day. We finished the day with our old nemesis amongst the redwood trees. Pacing, muttering the hider’s verses, hoping for a lightening bolt of inspiration, cursing him and his evil hide anyway. Crap crap crap. No friggin’ idea. We have to ask for a hint. Done for the day. Mr. Hello took us out to eat as we brooded over that darn hide that every cacher but us has found so easily. We part company and Hello logs our finds and begs for a clue. We were happily obliged the next day and we ran over there to try, try again. We had a smaller location to search and the approximate cache size. I swear, we spent another hour combing through just ONE CORNER of this park and if you don’t think I felt dumber than a block of concrete, you’re wrong! I did find an arrow, which I thought would be fun to poke Dr. Jekyll with if I ever met him. It’s in the car just in case. Then…then…we found it! We both went right through this spot so many times. ARGH! It was very anticlimactic. We should have had the sucker four searches ago. Oh well. We went and spent some money on swag and felt better. I might not poke Dr. Jekyll afterall.

I enjoy the hunt but I have found it is much more fun to find a actual container that I can look through. We are planning 6 caches. All ammo boxes. We are in the process of getting them camoed. Setting up the swag for each of them that matches the theme and the location. The bigger ones are just more fun.

Is there anywhere that explains puzzle caches. I normally consider myself fairly smart but when I start looking at some of these it is like I go brain dead.

How horrifying that lake picture is. Makes me ashamed to be human.

Bring antiseptic. You will get scratched. If you end up going the wrong way on a mountain.... turn it into an adventure. Bring water with you. (found this out the hard way going the wrong way up a mountain on foot.) Take a moment to stop and enjoy the beauty of the area you are in.

OK... so I found a cache that had been muggled. All the "treasures" were on the ground. I put everything back together and rehid it in the proper location. I logged this as a find even though the log book was no longer there. I touched it. I fixed it. I rehid it. I was really really new and had no idea that I could replace the logbook or I would have done so. I logged this as a find. But if I am reading this correctly most people think I shouldn't have. Is that correct?

And is it weird the more I look at it the more I like it

Coo Coo For Caching They are actually really cool looking. They have a bird searching for a cache in a tree on one side and on the other he is searching through a ammo box. lol Very nicely made

They came with something I ordered. I realize I have no idea what I am suppose to do with these things. They do have a tracking number and are unactivated. I understand the whole travel bug thing but these... I am a little lost. Am I suppose to activate them? Not activate them? Drop them in caches? Save them? I am pretty new to this hobby and a little embarrassed to post this post Also what does it mean when you "discover" a coin if you have never even seen it?

Ditto

When the tv show Lost first started I wanted to join the message boards at ABC. I had been reading a while and was dying to talk to others who enjoyed it as much as me. So I started to create a account. Only every name I tried was already taken. After about 10 different names I finally got pissed off and with giant heavy fingers (ok kind of smashing the keyboard) I typed in HELLO!!!!! LOST!!!!! without the exclamation points and the stupid computer took it. Now it has been with me for so long that I answer to Hello. LOL

I picked up a travel bug yesterday who is on a really long journey. I would like to take it at least another 200 miles on a trip I am taking. However I am not going until June 21. Is that to long to hold it? Should I just release it around here again? It is trying to go to as many states as possible and I would be moving it almost to the border of another state it hasn't been to yet.

Saz and I purchased a ton of swag items. From the useful to the tiny. We actually have filled up two fairly large bags with items like emergency blankets, blow up pillows, insect repellent wipes, ponchos, Splinter removal kits, etc. We also purchased Fun toys like squirtguns, figurines, keychains, etc. For the smaller caches we purchased tiny toys, dollar coins, pretty gemstone rocks, dimes, etc. We decided after the first one that we would always try to trade up. So... we keep the swag that we find. For example I traded a light up keychain for a rubber neon worm. I have a little area at home that I keep all the stuff. And you know what... I love that worm because it means I got off my rear end and went out to play!!

What kind thing happens when you are out hunting that makes you think YAY!!? The other thread is all about the stuff that you hate but how about a thread about what you like? 1. I love ammo containers. Why? Because it took effort. Effort to fill, effort to hide, effort to purchase. When I come across a container that is camoed I know that person wanted to make my hunt fun. Not only did I have to look but when I got to it, it was interesting. Not just some tiny piece of paper. 2. I am loving the fact that I am finding parks I never knew existed. That I see flowers, baby ducks and beautiful views. I appreciate those hunts. 3. I appreciate the DNF's that end up being a adventure. I just had one of these yesterday where I ended up walking around a mountain on accident. Oh I cursed the hider pretty darn good as I was climbing up but once I finally got back to the car I felt great. I would NEVER have made that walk before learning about Geocaching. 4. I love a large log book. I enjoy sitting down and reading the logs. Even if it is just signatures. It is interesting to me. 5. Clever hides. I love coming across something that makes you think. We found a birdhouse that had a lock on it. We had to figure out how to get it open. That was one of the most fun hunts of the day. What about you?

Well let's see. What did we do first? I know I am going to screw up the order, so please feel free to set it straight Ms Hello. I think it was old Calaveras Road, because I was pretty sure where we were going, but didn't end up there. Now I know how Hello feels, lol. We've mostly been hunting in her area and we'd get there and she'd say, this isn't where I thought we were going lol. We drove around a bit for this one as the GPS sent us in a wide looping circle around the site before directing us in. Each with a GPS in hand we tracked it down. Mr. H got a handheld eTrex working and it worked pretty good, too, after I got the hang of it. We would miss the turn by turn driving directions without the other, but for the search site itself it was very good. And we found it! Yay us! Let's go get another! Then I think we went to the park with the tennis balls. It's sort of a long park, with tennis courts on one end and grass and a jogging trail on the other. We were at the grassy end, but there were plenty of tennis balls about anyway. I expected trouble with muggles in this one as the park is usually packed with soccer and football players, but very few folks were around. And we found it! Yay us! Let's go get another! The next was in a smaller park, with some little kids playing right near the search site. I meant to be stealthy, but it wasn't long before I was on my hands and knees pushing leaves around and poking into tree roots. Not suspicious at all, not me LOL. Anyway, we got it! Yay us! The next was in juniper bushes. Actually, it was in one juniper all by it's lonesome. We had already searched the sticky pokey clumps of juniper a bit and decided we hate junipers. I was trying to read the cache log again for a clue and my fingers were sticking together and to the paper. Sticky junipers. Anyway, the name of the cache? Uno Juniper. And where did we find it? In the lone juniper. Yay us! We go back to the car and break out the hand wipes and plot our next victim. This one, okay. I may have mentioned this housing community that I am sure is full of zombies because it was built over an old paint factory, there is a high wall all around it, and only one way in. There is one other entrance, a huge metal gate in the wall, for the fire department's use. This gate is where we were headed. After some looking around we found the hide on the side of the gate in a magnetized container behind some funny clinging plants. Woo hoo! We're awesome! I'm not sure if we had lunch now or hunted one more. If we ate, it was Taco Bell. It's comical when we see that we are both slightly nuts in similar yet different ways, which is of course so much fun if you like to laugh at yourself. Hello lays out all her sauce packets side by side, those that carry the funniest sayings of course, and I lay out my burrito and break out the spork. If I were at home I'd be using a knife and fork. I know. So we had our Taco Bell our way, with a very tasty apple thing for dessert. So next, or before that, or later, I don't even know, we went to a water station to notch our next victory. We walked around quite a bit on this one, trying to get in the right spot. None of the usual suspects were right. The trees, the bushes, the large power boxes.....we'd been from one end of the lot to another and, it seemed right, but it wasn't, so we were leaving the lot to try and find one workable coordinate next door when Hello suddenly spotted it. Sitting all alone and in plain site, a water sprinkler with nothing but concrete to sprinkle lol. That was a new container siting for us. Woo hoo! The next was in a business park next to the railroad tracks. We didn't have to hunt much for this one. I tugged on a strange little post to see if he was hiding something underneath and he was! Somehow this one got water in it. The log book was soaked, but still usable, so I recorded our names, put it back, and off we went. I believe this was when we got cocky enough to head into the hilly county park. There are some serious hiking trails, but also some nice walking trails, and there were two caches along one of the trails. I hoped it was one of the nice soft lake trails. We, uh, ended up in the friggin' outback. By accident of course. We could see the trail entrance on the right side of the road, so we parked and walked back to the entrance. Along the roadside. Cars whizzing by. Guess what was right beside the trail entrance? A GD parking lot. <sigh> LOL So we enter the trail, and we've got two choices. A trail to the left and a trail to the right. We are at the junction of two different trails. A woman on a horse was guarding the trail on the right. I guess. Who knows what they were doing. Just standing there being weird. So we went left. We went as maybe as 100 feet, not having any success in picking up a coordinate. It's further along one of these trails. This one or that one? While we are standing there considering, the woman on the horse comes walking by. "I guess she thinks you need some help", says the woman as they pass by. She attempts to converse with us but the horse has no interest and soon she's out of sight. Before we go any further up a trail following an animal who craps every three minutes, we decide to try our luck on the front part of the other trail. Nothing. We aren't even close to either coordinate. We'll walk down the trail a bit. It's rustic but not much work. Pausing every minute or so to check the GPS and hope for something encouraging, we pass a snake's skin lying on the trail. Hello: do you know what a rattlesnake sounds like? Yep, I answer, wondering if the maniacal running screaming from a snake was at hand. This would be a good spot for a serial killer to live, she remarks. Buzzards and vultures and hawks are stalking us. Horse poop everywhere. Now we've got imaginary murderers and rattle snakes to worry about, too. The trail starts uphill. I am fairly sure we have no further to go to get to the car than we've already been, so there's no point to turning back unless the trail is impassable. It's severely rutted but okay for walking, so we haul our asses up a steep climb and when we finally get to the top, my heart is trying to bang straight through my chest and I am so out of breath and I can feel my face flaming. If we had proper caching packs, we'd have had water with us. We didn't have a frickin' thing. One day we'll get set up right. The walk is easier now that we've got to the top and I am breathing slow and deep, trying to get back to where I can speak without huffing and puffing. There is a man ahead of us on the trail. He stops to inspect little houses along a fence just off the trail. A cacher! Let's follow him! He inspects every little birdhouse looking thing, and when he's left we check it out. I can find no way to open this box, but up the trail we can see him and it sure looks like he is opening these little houses. I have no idea what he was doing. We come down the trail into the small lake area where we left the car. Guess what's directly on the left? The other trail. The one we left to try the demon trail instead. What must be a shorter and easier walk, a shortcut, if you will, to the loopy piece of s*** that we just finished. The caches have to be along this trail, but neither of us have the heart for it right now. We walk into the lake area, take a look at what's going on, take a look at the lake. Hello points out a swirly spot where she says a big fish is. I watch the swirly spot and pretty soon I do see a big fish! Kind of light colored with brown spots in very shallow water. Maybe a catfish? So we get to the car. Admonish ourselves for heading down the trail with no water, even though we had no intention of taking a hike like that, but refuse to call it a failure. It was the horse's fault. We'll take the right trail and outfit for it next time. This is a hold, not a giving up. We picked up about six more caches after this. One was hanging in a tree, one was in a field under a rusty piece of sheetmetal (must get a tetanus shot), under a bridge, under a giant fake rock.....we got them all.

Here is a coming attraction spoiler of our trip today. This is a post I made for a dnf on a cache page... Hey Saz...Here is what I posted on those two we missed. Welcome to our nightmare cache. This was one of those hunts where everything went wrong. Where you curse the hider while you are hunting but forgive them after you FINALLY reach the car and give yourself a chance to laugh! We didn't see the parking lot at the trail head. Totally missed it. We ended up parking at the park .3 miles up the road and walking down the road to the trail head. That was our first mistake. Cars wizzing by. Ugh. Then we started up the trail and for the life of us couldn't find the coordinates. Of course we were totally distracted by this woman on a horse who kept walking it by us telling us the horse thought we needed help..What? Weird? Finally we figured maybe just maybe we were on the wrong trail since it had split earlier. Off we went around the mountain. Mistake #2 We started walking... and walking... and walking. Then we were walking up a mountain. And UP a mountain. Of course we didn't bring anything with us even though we had promised ourselves we would be bringing water and such. Mistake #3. After some pretty hard core up hill hiking in what we hoped was the direction of the car I turned to Saz and said this is where people make their fatal mistakes right. Then a giant vulchure flew over our heads and we laughed. Then it flew over again and again. I told it that we were not dying even if we looked like it. By this point we were so darn far from the caches on this trail we put the gps away and prayed for the car. We kept going in the same direction and finally emerged at the total back area of the park we had parked in. We were so darn happy. We walked around the lake. Looked at some fish and finally made it back to the car. At this point we pretty much hated the hider lol. Once we got back into the car and got something to drink (almost a hour and a half later) we laughed and decided today was not the day for going back up the other side of the trail. We WILL be back for these two caches... after a while.. Oh and we don't hate you anymore LMAO!!!

I am actually using my cars garmin to find caches. Works perfectly Lol

I believe I am sold!! Thanks guys. I am still not sure about the pocket thing.

See that's exactly what I mean by SWAG CRAP LOL Who needs a rock? Me? If the rock is pretty then I will take it. One mans treasure is another man's trash. Of course you aren't going to like everything in the box. But someone else may LOVE that thing you think is crap. Probably me lol. Trade up. I do.

Being new to this sport/hobby/totally fun adventure I have came across listings that are premium member only. I passed them by because I couldn't access the information. Two days ago Saz and I went on a hunt on a creek trail. Mentioned in one of the blurbs for the cache we were seeking was a member only cache right in the middle of the two we were looking for. We wanted that cache lol. So I am trying to talk myself into the membership. It is not a lot of money for a year but I am trying to figure out exactly what is in it for us. Besides the random caches that we can't see.

There was a woman on this site that had a clickable link under her name. There must have been at least 20 or 30 of the coins she had up for trade. If it is a trackable item why would she (or anyone) keep them for trade?