Jennifer&Dean

Great to see you are back! Hope you get up and running and finding again! Jen

Well, that may work for some but my first name is somewhat unusual and doesn't easily denote my gender. Also, because of it's uniqueness, I prefer not to post it openly on the board. I am trying to role-model internet safety to my youngest one afterall. In that case, make up a female sounding name and post using that name. Or be understanding that that personal pronouns will always be a little interesting when folks refer to your posts. -J

I never thought of you as either. I think of you instead as a "they." Isn't 'Trio' plural? Yes - good to point out. And therein lies some of the issue, I think. I cache with my husband and daughter when they are willing to go out with me. But I am the only member of my trio that posts on this board. Since folks never really know WHO of a group name is posting, my advice, learned from years of posting on boards is to try to always signify which of you is the writer of the post. -Jen (see!)

O'Brien's Celestial Surprise In Montana, has a lot of "guardians" along the trail to the cache. All over the hillside and hidden in little grottos on a section of private property that the trail passes through. Is always an interesting walk! Jen

A couple of years ago we got some logs on one of our caches that mentioned a mess at the cache site. So we stopped by and found a backpack full of books and stuff that basically had been ripped apart and left at the scene, with tons of pages scattered everywhere. And library books destroyed. While gathering up the trashed stuff I found a Student ID card that came from a nearby High School. And another piece of paper with an home phone number on it. We called and left a message at the phone number and then dropped the backpack off at the main office of the High School, explaining that we had found it and it's contents scattered near the Veteran's Cemetery and that the owner probably was looking for it. The next day we got a really neat call from the student's parents- he is a SPED student and some other kids had taken his pack and destroyed it's contents as a cruel prank. The school had been planning on making them pay to replace all the books that were destroyed as there was no proof of the prank. But when we turned in the "proof" they stopped trying to get money from the family for the books. J

I have no idea who those teams are... But the Griz are gonna be playing Saturday at 2 against Appalachian State and if they don't screw up too badly, will be headed for Chattanooga, TN again. So they can lose there again. But they are 13-0 this year so far. Jen

I travel for my job and often cache alone in urban, suburban and rural areas. I stay aware of my surroundings and am have no problem walking away from an area if I don't feel comfortable. The only time I've ever regretted caching alone was in Florida at a cache near a graveyard. I was signing the log when a voice behind me asked what I was doing. An older man who was pretty odd looking was standing about 15 feet from me. Then he asked if I could spare any money. Luckily for me there was a Where's George dollar in the cache and he went away when I gave it to him. That was the weirdest-oddest encounter yet. Made me MUCH more aware of my surroundings after that. That was probably 3000 finds ago though. NOT a common occurrence at all. I have decided against caches several times when the parking areas and surroundings did not make me feel safe. For example, I have decided against caches when they were in a Highway rest area where a co-worker had been raped three weeks before and I didn't feel safe even getting out of my vehicle upon pulling into the lot. It is a personal choice to cache in areas that feel safe to you, so have fun and be aware but don't let fear keep you off the trail and out of the game. Jennifer

I see three on my closest unfound list every time I browse caches that way. The 3 disabled caches all sound like nice ones to find. One has been disabled since April, the other two since August. We even stopped by the one that had been disabled since April while doing cache Maintenance on one of our caches that is further along the same trail. Owners have been caching and finding caches all summer and fall, but no maint. But I can't throw stones... I've got two disabled right now for maintenance issues and one disabled for the season due to an area closure. And I have been caching instead of fixing the broken ones. But on the other hand, we visited 10 of our caches in the last month on yearly maintenance visits! Jen

If you run the my finds query through GSAK and run one of the Stats Macros on it, or drop the query into itsnotabouthenumbers.com you may find that you have inadvertantly double logged a cache. 2 find logs on a cache will only get you one cache when you pull that query. Also, if you drop the query into GSAK you can scan down the caches looking for cahces with 2 green dots instead of one green dot, those would be the double logs. That is usually what causes caches not to show up correctly in My finds pulls. We have several instances of this due to moving caches that we logged as finds multiple times and see this issue in our query. Good luck! Jennifer

We've taken alot of road trips and love planning geo-Vacations. Our favorite places so far are: Las Vegas- the parks and mountains just outside of town are amazing! Seattle, WA- neat parks and hikes not far from town and lots of cool places in town as well Spokane, WA- Great hikes in the hills and along the river plus Coeur D'Alene is right next door for even more hiking close to a town. St Louis, Mo- Lots of little parks and some great areas to explore in the suburbs and just out of town. Neat history too and some cool cemeteries to visit for Waymarking. Chicago, IL- The Des Plains River Trail system is great for caching along and I have enjoyed all the little parks and historical caches in the suburbs. North Jersey/East PA/South NY- outside of the big cities there are lots of forests and caches to explore. I loved hiking through the different parks and seeing the historical areas and old houses. Huntsville, Alabama has some great parks and hikes plus the Monte Sano park sill rent cabins. I absolutely loved the weekend I spent hiking in their parks. We just started looking at Hawaii, specifically the island of Oahu for a week in February. Lots of nice caches there that we are looking forward to finding. In truth, pick any place you might be interested in visiting for non-caching reasons and you will find some amazing caches in the surrounding region. Buffalo, NY was a great surprise for us this year- Niagara Falls was awesome and the caches in the surrounding areas were pretty sweet. Especially the Eternal Flame Earthcache which had a nice hike to a natural flame appearing under a waterfall. Just plain cool. Jen

When we subscribed to this magazine, it was more to see if it could get off the ground than with the expectation that it would last. My copy of issue one is cherished and I consider it a collectible... money well spent if I can sell it to someone far, far in the future. It just pains me that even after things started going south, he still took subscriptions from people. J

We've been following this thread too. We have gotten more safety conscious the last few years, especially after Raynebeau got hurt while bushwacking with us through the Palisades during one trip. Dishman Hills is one of our favorite places to cache in Spokane, it is just beautiful and the hills are so much fun to explore. Yellow Alligator pretty much said what I wanted to say. Our condolences to the family and friends of Mr Anderson. Jennifer&Dean from Missoula, MT

Someone could make a mint if they did with trading cards what they did with pathtags.... Uh, and if MY post gave YOU (the royal you) the idea, how 'bout a deep discount for 'ol Snoogs. Would be cool to see someone set up a site where you could submit a photo and some stats and have a card made. There are a few caches in the MT area who made cache-stats cards for all their caches and then have a personal card that is for events. But I haven't seen anyone doing those for several years now. J

If I am caching alone while on a business trip I often sign logbooks and the online log as Jennifer of Jennifer&Dean from Missoula, MT. Dean follows the same pattern if he is alone. That way there is no confusion over which one of us visited the cache. When we are together and out of our caching region we try to log online as Jennifer&Dean from Missoula, MT. I got stuck out of town a few years ago while on a business trip. Had to stay a weekend unexpectedly. Luckily for me there was an event to attend in the area I was working. And Dean went to another event in Montana. Our logs for that day show us attending 2 events, 1000+ miles apart on the same day. And doing a bunch of caches in MT and PA. That was the only time I gave any thought to splitting our account. But I didn't bother, it is less work to keep it as one account and not worry about a few odd days here and there. Jen

Missoula usually throws it's event in January so folks have time to recover from the December Holidays.

We always see a drop when school starts up and then another one when hunting season begins. Between that and the recent cold snaps and the fact that the locals have already found most of the caches in the area, we don't expect finds to start going up until after the holidays. When the newbies are trying out their Christmas GPSrs. On the other hand, we've basically slowed down on caching unless we are traveling. Looking forward to driving up to Kalispell, MT Sunday for an event and caching our way there and back! J

We've got knitted hats that a geocacher in Washington makes as signature items. And I've put a cross stitch pattern online so folks can use it. Check out the pattern at: Jen's X-Stitch page

Got my hopes up that he was back. *sigh* J

Thank you, I added them to my list. However I don't know what tribe owns the land they are on? Do you? I am much more familiar with the lands in my part of the country. Reservations in Montana The first cache I mentioned is on the Flathead Reservation. The second is on the Crow Reservation. We've found caches in Cut Bank, MT which is on the Blackfeet reservation and I know there are more on the Fort Peck Reservation. Jen So all of Cut Bank is on the Blackfoot Reservation? If so it would be easy for me to search there for caches. I would just have to put the city name into the geocache search engine. Thanks for the additional info. I will be using it. I checked further and Cut Bank is just outside the boundary. But there are 3 caches within the boundary, one near Cut Bank and 2 at East Glacier- try GC1FJ2E. On the Rocky Boy Reservation I see around 5 caches- try GC1T4DB. On the Fort Peck Reservation there is one that I spot, a real nice write up about the tribe is part of the description- GCQD5Z.

Thank you, I added them to my list. However I don't know what tribe owns the land they are on? Do you? I am much more familiar with the lands in my part of the country. Reservations in Montana The first cache I mentioned is on the Flathead Reservation. The second is on the Crow Reservation. We've found caches in Cut Bank, MT which is on the Blackfeet reservation and I know there are more on the Fort Peck Reservation. Jen

He'll never see this but I am SO proud of him so I had to share it! My little brother Swolf12000 hit 500 finds last weekend after the Cache N'Grub 6 Event in Hamilton, MT.

In Montana I know of a few on the Res. For the Reservation between Missoula and Kalispell center your search on Ronan, MT. There is a cache there called Wok in the Pok- GC1W066 we found it last weekend and it has enough room for a coin. If you use the Tiger Map link from that cache you can see the extents of the Res and get a feel for all the caches there. For eastern MT, try the Plenty Coup Cache in Pryor as a search starter: GCM6JF Jennifer

I've got a bookmark list that is linked from my signature below. While not all are in the NW, many are and you should find some of them that will fit what you are looking for! Have a fun trip! It is already snowing up here so some may be harder to get at now that roads are closing. Jennifer

As Nate said, you take a risk every day just by leaving your home. Dirty needles- Being aware and careful when reaching into bushes and areas you cannot get a good view into is always important. We have encountered needles about 5 times since we started caching. You definitely need to be aware of your surroundings when searching and always be willing to walk away from caches with which you are not comfortable. Robberies- Not something we have ever even worried about. If we aren't comfortable searching in an urban area, we walk away from the cache. Or come back later with a large group of friends so we all look silly at once. The likelihood of a robbery happening at the same time you are caching is probably pretty low. But if you aren't comfortable with the cache, find another one. We've talked to Law Enforcement Officers about 4 times since we started geocaching. Twice because we were in areas that were being watched due to drug activity. They were OK with us caching once the game was explained. I've even heard of officers helping to find the cache. Things we actually worry about/have encountered: Car breaking down 4+ miles from anywhere in an area without cell service. At night. Spiders (go ahead, reach into that dark hole and grab the cache...) Poisonous snakes Bears (especially mothers with young) Moose (especially mothers with young) Falling and having to limp back to the trailhead with something badly broken/damaged. Running out of water on a long hike during the worst summer heat. Falcons protecting their nests from cachers. Jennifer

Our odd story- The other day we were at Starbucks ordering our drinks and they asked for our names. So we gave them. Standing right behind us was a guy we had never seen before and he suddenly says "Hey! Do you guys Geocache?" Turned out he had geocached with his ex-wife several times a few years ago and hadn't gotten back into the activity yet. He had just found his GPS and was looking forward to getting back out. So we wished him luck and told him how to update his username or re-log the previous finds so folks would know what was going on. He was really sweet. I go to out-of-state events when I get the chance and always have a blast meeting cachers who I have seen post on the forums or whose caches are among the oldest or most recommended ones in an area. Jen