TellMeIfYouSeeAChicken

My husband doesn't think the hobby is stupid - he just isn't a huge fan of being outdoors unless the conditions are Just Right. (Which lets out summertime.) He's accompanied me to some urban camo caches and run interference for me with muggles ("Oh crap... I think that homeless guy is at ground zero." "Okay, lemme go take a look. It's a film can?") He's also gotten impatient when I prolonged our ride home to look for yet another cache. My kids (as I've said in this space before) like caching if a friend is along, be it one of theirs or one of mine, caching pal or muggle. Otherwise it's just another thing Mom drags them to. Fortunately, I've met other cache widow/ers at events and voila! Company and/or commiseration.

I like multis and respect the effort COs put into developing and maintaining them. That said, time is an issue in my life. There is almost never an occasion when I leave the house and don't have to be back by a certain time. So I'll only really consider doing a multi if the CO estimates how long it'll take and if the estimate is under a couple of hours. Daylong drive-to-the-next-town multis are going to have to wait till our kids are in college.

Some co-cachers and I just hit 25 caches in a semi-remote area, and I wrote a different log for every single one of them, but that's because I like to write. I wouldn't have gone out there by myself; I've discovered I'm not a big fan of "drive to cache. Find. Sign. Drive to next cache." But that day was as much about friendship as it was about caches and I had a blast. When I logged the caches, I dropped the "was with A and B and C" since it was going to be obvious for each cache we were together, and just mentioned which of us found the cache. I hike and cache alone in regional parks because I like the peace and quiet, because I'm the only willing hiker in our family, and because some of my co-cachers have health issues with hiking terrains or duration. I *don't* hunt for (sub)urban hides solo, because I'm really muggle-sensitive and feel like I stick out like a sore thumb when searching certain places alone. But if I'm with my tweenagers or another cacher, no one cares. My tweens like caching if we have a friend along, be it one of my friends or one of theirs. Otherwise it falls into the category of "Mom dragging us somewhere again" and they get bored.

Over 300 finds, no FTFs, though I was 2TF on one in a regional park that involved hiking a couple of miles. I've got a muggle husband, two tweens, and a stereotypically suburban slate of activities. I can't/won't spontaneously go caching every time a new one comes out - especially when a lot of the locals ARE of the "we got the e-mail, grabbed the GPS, and ran out the door!" variety. This I know because by now I'm friends with most of them. There was ONE time I did stuff everyone in the car and go for a new cache, because it was one mile from our house in a region it takes some planning to get to - so I figured we had the jump on most folks. We pulled up to GZ, and there was the CO and the perceived FTFer, who are neighbors and happened to run into each other there. The putative FTFer opened the cache and unrolled the log... to find the signature of an out-of-towner who just happened to be driving through the area three hours ago when the cache went live. He'd written "Wow, FTF!"

Also, if there pinecones, keep an eye out for pinecones that don't belong on that particular tree - for example, a big barrel-shaped cone when all the others are tight and pointy. I learned this the hard way, but at least the CO (who was watching me search) got a good laugh out of it.

I've been there. I'm so glad to hear you are feeling better.

I'm 36, a married woman with kids. If geocaching as it is today had existed in the early '90s, my boyfriend at the time and I would probably have been into it because we were outdoorsy techies. We were 22 and 21 at the time. Both of us grew up in the suburbs. He'd done some family camping, but I had no outdoors experiences to build on. We had to be in our early twenties in order to 1) figure out there was something new we wanted to try and then 2) try it. When I was a teenager it never would have occurred to me that I'd like being outdoors. Treasure hunting, yes; hiking, no. Also: Where I live I think you would pretty much have to be 17 to have an unrestricted driver's license, and I haven't met any driving 17-year-olds who would choose hiking/camping/geocaching over driving to your friend's for video games/partying/church youth group/organized sports/or any of 14,997 other activities. But mileage varies. There are a couple of Facebook geocaching groups, and it might be interesting to see how many folks there are 21 and under.

I've passed up caches with unclear, unsafe or whither-legal parking. Yes, finding the location and parking is part of the hunt, but that's not the fun part for me! Yesterday I parked by a neighborhood park and ended up weaving all the way across it to find the cache. Today I ended up driving back and forth repeatedly on a narrow rural road trying to find a place to pull over. Yesterday was FAR more fun. "There are always other caches" - isn't that the axiom?

<---- There goes that chicken Thanks folks for the input! I did end up dipping the TBs into micros, with pictures. The coin became a nonissue when someone else found it. And the geotweens LOVE that chicken, MrsB.

1. I dropped a geocoin into a cache a few weeks ago and no one's grabbed it. Turns out I'm going out of town next week - would it be kosher for me to re-grab the coin and move it along? 2. Can I dip a TB if the dipping cache is a micro? It's a dog TB and I was thinking of dipping it at a neighborhood park micro, then posting a pic of the TB in the park to the log. Don't worry, I'm not thinking about dipping it into every micro in my bailiwick - just one or two for the miles and scenery. But I don't know if there are purists who would say "you can't dip a bug into a cache that wouldn't actually hold it." Thanks!

It's in the keywords under the post title that you see on the Geocaching Topics page.

>I have planted three geocaches that require off-trail hiking in the mountains... I'm wondering why these aren't more popular. They sound awesome. I look forward to doing some like yours... in ten years when the kids are off to college. Right now it's summer break and I can't even carve out five hours to do some regional park caches I'm dying to find. Probably plenty of folks are in similar boats.

I'm also learning to use my new Legend HCx. What I found is that when I'm caching near home, or somewhere where the streets are familiar, or in a regional park, lack of roads on the GPSr is not an issue. Also it happens that I live in an area where new roads and freeways are going up every 10 minutes, so that was an argument against getting City Navigator NT. BUT... our caching quests are starting to take us into unfamiliar territory - for example, neighborhood parks two suburbs over. So I ended up getting CityNav for that, and it'll be interesting to see how to work with it in a couple of weeks when we vacation somewhere with long-established roads.

>I have also had people log a reply to my cashes and occasionally I will sent them a message telling them that I am happy they enjoyed it. I have never gotten a reply from them either. I just quit doing it because I thought it might be the wrong thing to do. I've been caching for a month and am one of those verbose diarist loggers. I once got a "Glad you enjoyed it!" from the cache owner after I logged a find, which was nice to receive. I didn't reply to her reply because I'd already expressed gratitude in my log and we were on the slippery slope of: "...the tree was gorgeous. Thanks so much for the hide!" "Glad you enjoyed it!" "Yes, thank you - again!" "No, thank YOU!" I may actually start re-thanking people...

Also, have you considered bringing one of her friends? Maybe you could go on a simple caching trip in a regional park. Send your daughter and her friend in the direction of an easy cache (maybe one you've pre-scoped out) while you and your husband go find others, and agree to meet back in the truck in an hour, then go back to your house and friend spends the night. That way she can enjoy caching without being, sad to say, annoyed that she's tagging along with mom and dad. My girls usually love caching with me. They're nine and eleven, so not at the same social/hormonal place that your daughter's in, but I know one of the big keys for Hamachi is that her best friend caches with her family too. So that elevates geocaching to "something to do with my friend" instead of "yet another thing my mom drags me along to do." Good luck! I think getting her the inexpensive GPSr is a great idea.

Yup. I'm 36 and voted. My usual cocachers are my 9- and 11-year-old daughters. They don't have a separate account so... uh... is that why that age group isn't considered in the poll? I've heard tell of 8-year-olds and 11-year-olds who have accounts and log finds. Eight-year-old with Girl Scout troop, and so on.

>I like the country caches much more than the urban caches. I don't mind the micro or even nano caches, I just get tired of Muggle watch. YES. I'm really hypersensitive about having muggles around, although paradoxically I just logged a find during a city festival when there were lots of focal points other than me. I've pretty much given up on any cache that's off of a roadway with cars speeding by. I also usually cache with my nine- and eleven-year-old daughters, and it turns out: One or both of them can be quick; one or both of them can be stealthy; but they CANNOT be both quick and stealthy. So I like the country/regional park caches as well, because chances are we'll be the only folks around and we can actually call out to each other. >I just don't see the point in some of the parking lot caches other than to demonstrate a different or unique kind of container or hiding technique. Parking lot caches may be a pain to me personally, but somewhere on this board there's a great post that I'm summarizing from (a failing) memory: the cachers are husband-and-wife senior citizens with health issues who can walk around, but they can't go tromping through the woods for miles. Thus, they seek urban caches - the caches they can get to. And they LOVE it. They take the part of the sport that's literally accessible to them, and figuratively run with it, and I thought that was awesome. >I have started doing the urban micros early in the morning Have to admit - I was pleasantly surprised at the number of muggles who go for 6 AM constitutionals, either with or without their dogs! Bad for my cache stats, but good for their health.

I appreciate the comments and the hints. Mr Chicken and I did find one under a lamppost skirt the other day. All the same, I want to smite myself when the logs say "Quick find. TFTC" and I have no idea what I'm looking for. Over the past two days I've sought micros in muggle-filled shopping centers, which doesn't help. How do folks who hide microcaches in shopping centers (seriously. I think one is outside Starbucks) have the confidence they won't be muggled?

How old are your kids? My geotweens are 9 and 11, and it's not a coincidence that I find more things on my own (or with Mr Chicken.) I also have a niece/they have a cousin who's 12. Right now my solution is to look for things that are in a neighborhood park so that they have equipment to play on after they get bored with the search. I also scout zip codes before we go; strangely *I*'m the one that gets the most bent out of shape with micros. If logs, hints, descriptions and so on refer to "the large tree in the corner of the park" or "took pin; left TB" then we gravitate toward those since they'll be a bigger payoff for the girls. I realize my words may not be terribly helpful. But you're not alone.

We're about 70 miles east of San Francisco on the very edge of the Bay Area, and I am seriously considering renaming us "Can'tFindAnything" - we're 1 for 6 over the past two days. "We" are a nine-year-old, an eleven-year-old, and a frustrated 36-year-old who feels like her main role so far is to stand around and watch for Muggles. I lurk because it's intimidating to not be able to find anything, then read dozens of posts and logs from cachers that say "Drove up. Quick find."

grr... timeout error led to a duplicate post, now deleted.

Thanks Neos2 - this is the perfect kind of advice for me. I too am shopping for our first GPS unit this weekend and love your practical examples. Another question for anyone: Once I buy the unit, do I then have to subscribe to anything - for example, a map-updating service? We just started geocaching Monday evening via a spur-of-the-moment Navigator download for my Katana phone, and haven't even made it to a bookstore to read up on anything beyond geocaching.com!