ladyleo191

I'm not male and I'm definitely not a techno-geek. I can barely input coords into my GPSr. I am, however, an avid outdoor person. I've been hunting and fishing since before I started school and have always prefered the outside of a house to the inside. I am the only cacher in my house, but it's okay. Hubby will occasionally drive me to a cache, but he would be perfectly content to ignore every piece of Tupperware hidden in the world. I can't say if the ratio around here is even or not. I've never met another cacher in the field and the other 4 I know personally are 2 of each.

If you install a lock, are you going to have a way for cache hunters to open the cache?

Toaster, you may want to reconsider letting your son go alone. I'm with the others who say some parks are not places he should be. I would seriously worry about his safety in those places and in some urban areas that are squatting places for derelicts. It is all too easy to say he has a cell phone and had good common sense, but that doesn't necessarily translate into being able to defend himself against a larger aggressor, or more than one aggressor.

Toaster, if you have to climb on the limbs and take a chance on breaking or damaging them, I probably would pass this one by. I just won't damage plants or tear up landscaping. If you truly think it is in the nest, look for other ways of retrieving it. Don't focus on the nest, though. I can think of half a dozen other hides that would fit the size in the listing that might be in,on or near a tree, not to mention the parking lot or sitting areas. Good luck!

ROFL, been there and done that! Now, next time, you can log "I've seen this style before."

Ralitaco, I've got a Camo and used it for several months til my Sis started caching. I bought a Vista and loaned it to her. She does fine with it. We're low-tech and don't mind putting coords in by hand, and since we read all the pages and take notes, going paperless isn't really a priority for us. For $50 bucks, which is about what I paid for my Camo, you'll be able to find out rather inexpensively if you want to invest more money in the hobby. I hope you do enjoy your little Garmin.

OP, the cache listing says it's a pill bottle, so if you have ever taken meds, you know the approximate size and diamter of the cache. Two things that new folks tend to forget- first, things are not always what they appear to be and second, all caches are not on the ground.

OP, what do you do for a living? Ya think maybe something you do 5 times a day at work might be easy for you and maybe terribly difficult for me, a complete novice? Same thing applies with caching. The first time I saw a pill bottle covered with camo tape, it was "Wow! I can't believe this!" It was hard to spot. Now, since I've seen a few, I can almost walk rihght up to one and pick it out of the woodwork. It all depends on how many of a certain type you've found. Knowing your hider helps, too. Most folks tend to use the same hide techniques over and over. I have 2 hides. Both are in non-muggle areas, so I didn't have to camo them much. They are kid-friendly and I wanted them easy to find. If you have ever found a Folger's coffee can, you'll spot my hides right away, and your Find log will say, "Easy find. Just walked right up to it." Next year, this time, when you've found everything from drilled out bolts to fake animal dung, they will all be easy too. I do know that 'needle in the haystack' feeling, but soon, you'll figure out what type of hides you like to hunt and just pass by those that don't look like fun. There aren't any rules tha tsay you must find all the caches in your area. That statement made caching lots more fun for me, 'cause it took the pressure off. When it's not fun anymore, it's time to stop hunting that particular cache.

A whole lot of it depends on the type of hunting you do and the type of cache you hunt. Recently, I hunted a cache in the woods. It was in an area that is wonderful to wander around and just enjoy the scenery. I took pictures and spent some time at the site. My next find that day was about 18 miles away. Again, it was a quiet, country area and I again spent a bit of time on site. No rush to leave and no stress about finding a certain number of caches. Could I have found more caches that day? You bet. There were more than a dozen Micros in parking lots and on streets on the way to my first find. I simply didn't want to look for them. It's a bit easier to find 30 or so caches in a day when each only takes a few minutes to locate and you don't stop to "smell the roses." Please don't worry about numbers. Enjoy the trip wherever you go and let the caches, however many or few, be icing on the cake.

I got that error, but when I did get logged in, there were only 4 members and no anonymous users in the forum I wanted to read. Edited to remove that silly E that fell into the post.

I'm glad you posted this thread. I had thought about doing a cache at my home. I have pygmy goats and a few friendly hens, and had considered a cache for children that included some small bags of chicken and/or goat feed, so the little folks could feed and pet the animals while Mom and Dad signed the log book. Thanks for giving me a new perspective on it.

3.9 miles from my house. It's a guardrail micro. I frequently drive within a mile of it on my way to find caches.

Try to concentrate on larger caches to begin with. The kids will enjoy them more and without a GPSr, micros are going to be twice as difficult.

Hubby and I are a two GPS family, because it lets us be together. He has wanted a GPS for the car for several years. Since we live in an area that is well mapped and has paved roads, there aren't many places we couldn't find our way home from when we go. Once I started caching, he decided it isn't one of his favorite things to do, but would go with me on occasion. Each time, he wanted to use the Garmin while in the car as well as on the ground. Simple solution? Got a Garmin for the car, plugged in the coords and he contentedly goes caching with me on a regular basis. The only drawback is that woman has an attitude! When she says "recalculating" I can almost see her rolling her eyes and giving one of those exasperated sighs that we women do.

The Constitution doesn't protect pursuit of happiness. That is a clause in the Declaration of Independence and was written by an individual. It doesn't carry the weight of law. It is a declaration of intent. However, that is not the point. I'm not talking about the right to hide caches...and never said I was. I was talking about the right of Government to not be hindered in their use of whatever they deem necessary to protect the citizens they are sworn to protect. The time-honored test of an individual's rights is the "arm swing" test. Your right to swing your amrs ends when my nose begins. The same thing applies here. Your right to have a cache ends when my safety (as an uninformed and responsible individual) begins. The bottom line is that we place objects on other people's property (whether the property is used by the public or not) and others have the right to call LEO. When they do, LEO has the right to blow up the cache if they feel the object has the possibility of being dangerous.

I think we all have to realize that this game is just that...a game. That's all it is. It is not a God-given right and it isn't covered by the Constitution or local law. We have to operate with that premise in mind. On the other hand, LEO take an oath to protect citizens and part of that entails trying to keep them safe, whether from within or without. If that means that a film canister, PVC pipe, (insert cache container here) gets blown up, then it is something that just has to be chalked up to experience. It's just too bad. We play this game knowing full well that some of our hides are going to be noticed by non-gamers. That's the way life is. Telling every LEO in the world about geocaching won't change the fact that caches will be seen, reported, and more than likely, destroyed.

I appreciate that advice. It has happened to me more than once and I had absolutely no idea how to prevent it, so I thank you.

Hi, Cheryl and Welcome! I've been caching since July and I don't use downloaded maps. I just enter the cache's coordinates (and I'm so low-tech I still do it by hand) and go hunting. You can download the coordinates from the site, but since I needed to learn how my GPSr worked anyway, I just entered them by hand and kept doing it. It only takes a minute. One thing I do find helpful is to either print out the cache page, or take a few notes on each one that I am hunting that day, including the hint. I also look at past Find logs, to see if there may be some helpful info in them and make notes of that,too. Barnabus really gave you some good advice, especially if you are not familiar with some of the cache containers. They can be a small as your little fingernail and really take some hunting. Also, try to look for ones that don't require stealth if you are taking kids. Part of the fun for them is being able to laugh and giggle and celebrate when they find the treasure. Those guardrail micros in sight of a busy shopping center don't usually have the same appeal for kids. Once again, Welcome and Happy Hunting!

Even if LEO is aware and understands, there is more to it than just that. I don't know the exact location of every cache in my county, so a cache not identified is still a problem. If a citizen calls and the cache isn't known to that particular officer, then it is still a suspicious container. LEO doesn't have the time, equipment or inclination to go surfing the web when a situation is presented. Why isn't it just a better thing all around to hide caches so they aren't going to cause undue attention from non-cachers?

It isn't the responsibility of LEO to know or understand our game; it's our responsibility to hide caches in appropriate places and with appropriate permission, so as not to have the incidents happen. Permission of managers and landowners would greatly decrease bomb squad involvement, because most private property owners would soon notice a bunch of cops and simply go out and speak to them. Public land managers (if caches have been properly permitted) should be aware of all cache locations. The problem lies in the fact that some hiders and finders want to play Secret Agent and skulk around like some cold-war spy. This leads to citizens noting our behavior, or leads to hides in inappropriate places or methods. All those lead to news articles like the one cited in this thread.

I don't always log a DNF. It just depends on my experience while looking. If a football game is being played at GZ and I don't bother to look, then I don't log it. If I searched, and I think there may be a problem at the site, I log DNF for the owner (even though most ignore my DNF). If I have a safety or guideline concern, I log the DNF and mention that. If I searched and didn't find it, then I'll come home and see why I didn't. A 1/1 with 3 out of 5 logs being DNFs, I get the feeling that the CO gets some perverse pleasure in watching people not find his cache. I don't give him the pleasure he seeks. As far as a DNF being some measure of my self-esteem, it isn't. I don't log Finds for the smileys, I log them for the cache owner to read how much I enjoyed his effort. I log Finds for the cachers who haven't found it yet, so they'll know how much fun I had and will seek that particular cache, too. I think Thoreau had the right idea about different drummers. It fits cachers to a tee.

I usually use some variation of the following phrase: "hey y'all, it's over here. Look at this camo!"

Micro or Regular? Regular Traditional or Multi? Both Mystery or Earth? Mystery In a group or alone? Either, but prefer alone Hiding or Finding? Both Virtual or Webcam? Neither Letterbox or Wherigo? Either Favorite GPS? Garmin Social(event) or not? Yes FTF'er or not? Nope Podcast listener or not? No Out of state or In state? In "Extreme/Hardcore" or Layed back? Laid back Urban / Rural? Both, prefer Rural

I think hubby is a good term. He knows about it, sometimes even accompanies me, will paint or camo containers for me, but has zero interest in registering on the site or signing a logbook.

Joshua, instead of walking in circles...try walking in a figure 8 pattern. We call it the drunken bee dance (like honeybees dancing for the hive) and we all do it all the time.