RokMartian

A number of years ago, I was in Washington D.C. for business. On my last day, I had a lot of time to kill until my flight, so I went caching. It was a pretty hot day and after a few caches, found myself a mess. I had stepped into a creek and was covered in sweat. I was soaked and looked and smelled awful. I decided I would change when I dropped off my rental car. I spent a lot of time in the bathroom changing, getting cleaned up and when I came out, I found that they were holding up the shuttle to the airport for me! They did not seem too happy. My bag was full of stinky, wet clothes when I checked it in. Later, when I got home and retrieved the bag, I discovered that my bag was picked out to be searched by the TSA. I could only imagine how horrified they were when they opened my bag to get a hold of a bunch of soaked, dirty and sweaty clothes. Not really exciting, but I still remember and chuckle about it every time I have a hot and stinky day of caching.

The cache page gives an indication of the size of the container. That usually helps me in figuring out what to bring with me. Crayons may not be a good idea, depending on where you are. I am here in Georgia and we are hitting the mid 90's right now. I have seen some well intentioned trades melt under the heat.

I am so glad to hear I am in good company. I also prefer to be alone. The sense of accomplishment is so much greater for me, when a cache is found by me alone. It is even better when the difficulty/terrain level is higher.

Ok - I think I know where it came from. I was visiting my son at school which is approx 20 miles east of Alabama. I think I did a search on my iPhone for nearby caches while I was there. (that would be the only kind of search I do on the iPhone app, other than saved pqs) I guess some Alabama ones were on the list somewhere.

Good luck! I use it as a therapy, sort of - I have chronic depression and the exercise and activity really helps clear my head.

Just to throw this out there - I believe that you can earn a souvenir just by running a search or maybe creating a pocket query for particular areas. I created a pq for an area in Alabama recently for my daughter to take with her on her visit there. I received a souvenir for that, although I never found anything there.

I'll echo the frustration over the gpsr. I still have a tendency to trust it too much. I've been able to take a few friends out on their first cache, and noticed that there was some disappointment on the contents of the cache for some of the young ones. I have learned to set expectations, and that giving and finding is the real reward.

In case anyone is curious - I posted a video about it - Actually, it wasn't my son, but my daughter - just in case she saw this, I wanted to throw her off I wasn't sure about the weather, so I created a 2 stage cache - the first one was really a time waster so that my son could drive the car to another location. After the first stage, we went to a place where a new IHOP was going in. (Her favorite spot) She found a gift card there with a note to go behind the barns. She was really surprised. Thanks everyone for the suggestions. Rokmartian (formerly XmasSockPuppet)

double post -- sorry.

When you go to print, can you change the scale to say, 110%? You may have to play with the scale % to get it to work. Other than that, I was going to suggest OpenOffice too.

I am growing a little weary of them myself, but found a few in the past few weeks that stand out: -- One was a hide-a-key stuck on the inside of the metal skirt. Not groundbreaking, but the first one I found like that and it threw me off at first. -- There was a nano stuck on the inside of the lamp pole - I found it on my second try and after using a little mirror. -- A bison tube tied to a fishing line that was tied to one of the bolts. It was hanging in a hole under the skirt. Didn't see that one at first. There was also one I found, that I first thought was under the skirt, but as I approached, I realized there wasn't a skirt to be lifted. There was a small oval access opening on the pole with a lot of wires hanging inside. There was a little yellow geocaching sticker above. I pulled on a wire that was stuck inside by a magnet and there was a bison tube on the other end.

Wow, I am just now getting into this thread and have learned quite a bit. I've been thinking about creating a signature items when I saw this. I have been playing around with an iPhone app, and thought a good application for GC would be to have a QR code on a cache page, along with the .gpx and .loc file. By scanning the qr code, it could automatically load up in my geoaching app on my iphone. Save a little bit of time when I want to download something from work or when I am not on my computer to load up .gpx files. Or is that not possible?

Why is that, Dave's not here? Wait -- dave is not here is right here. or not. Or something....

There is no breach of etiquette in helping a cache you come across that needs it. A full log or damaged log prevents other cachers from logging too, so if it is practical, adding an extra sheet or an "emergency" log book is not only okay, but usually appreciated. If it is a micro or too small to add something, then don't force it in there. I don't think taking a full log of a cache is a good idea, unless I was the CO or know the CO personally to give it to them. It is often recommended to keep some cache maintenance supplies in your geoaching bag, like extra ziploc baggies and emergency log books. COs will appreciate it. Check out geocacher-u for some printables, like emergency log books. http://geocacher-u.com/?page_id=51 Tim P.

oh thats right, thank you This might be too late, but I changed my name yesterday and I did not have to re-register on the forums. It took a few minutes, but the forums eventually updated.

I've been married for over 20 years now, and we both consider each other as our best friend. My best friend takes priority over anyone else. Kill 'em with kindness - dedicate one evening a month for them to come over, have dinner, game night etc. Bring up all the great journeys you both have discovered together and regale them with that highly amusing fight to get that lamp post skirt up to get that elusive micro. My guess, is that they will last 2 months. Take care - there seems to be a lot more real friends on these boards then out in the wild. Tim P

I've never really fully been bitten by the bug until just recently - I think part of it was a little frustration on my part in not finding some of the really "easy" ones. I started thinking that maybe this sport was not for me. I started geocaching again a couple of months ago and I thought I was running into the same rut. I decided I would try a particularly difficult micro (4 stars) but told myself not to expect to find it. Sure enough I couldn't figure it out. About a week later, I went out early on a saturday morning and had an incredible amount of success finding every one I went for. On my way home, feeling more self-confident, I thought I would stop by and try that difficult micro that eluded me last week. Yep, the gpsr was right on top of it and I found it. Ending the day with that find gave me a ton of encouragement to keep going and I have been enjoying every minute since. Thanks!

My thought was that the extra height may warrant an extra star on the difficulty rating, instead of the terrain. I am contemplating the same thing, so I would be interested in what others have to say.

Yep, me too. A couple of weeks ago, we had to go out of town a little to move my son into his dorm room. There was a cache on campus only 400 ft away from his room! She promised me she would go with me on this one. Little did I know that her idea of accompanying me was to sit in the car, while I ran into the woods to grab it. I'm not giving up just yet. I've been a member for a while, but just started back up a month ago after a 2 year hiatus. Since I started back, I have lost 4 inches in my waist, and I am attributing it all to getting out of the house via geocache. I think she is starting to get jealous and will be with me soon. Regards, Tim P.

Yep, me too! Good Luck!

Have you tried using Basecamp for Mac? This works pretty well for me. Its free on the Garmin site.

I just installed basecamp, so I am not claiming to be an expert -- but I had a similar experience when I tried to run google view. The error I received said that it could not find Google Earth installed in my applications folder. (I am on a mac). So, my guess is that perhaps Basecamp is looking in a specific folder (i.e. C:\Program Files\) and you might have it under a different named folder.

Broken happy meal toys - the herpes of Geocaching. (Just when you get rid of them, they pop up again )

My kids are in their teens, so my experience may be a little different. I would recommend doing a couple of caches by yourself (or with a partner) before doing it with your kids. That way you know what you are doing with your gpsr. The first one I tried to do with my family, I had no idea what I was doing and I was really frustrated - I spent half an hour trying to figure out my gpsr and my kids quickly got bored. Now they really do not want anything to do with it, no matter how hard I try to talk them into it.

I stopped caching just over 2 years ago, and I just started back. I didn't have a real reason for leaving - My father died a few months prior and I let my health go. With my depression and weight gain, I just lost total interest. I am finally making a turn for the better - I am coming out of my depression and have lost some weight. (My doctor gave me a good talkin to ) To get myself back into some semblance of exercise, I am trying to get back into geocaching. I figure it will at least get me out of the house. I went out and found 4 caches today - and it was exhilarating! Glad to be back, Tim P.