dingermcduff

Here in northern Minnesota the cache quality seems to be pretty high whether they are country or urban caches. Never seen a cache that involved a lamppost, parking lot, hypodermic needles, gay cruising, or any of the other usual complaints. I know we have some cachers that like to up the ante, but we also have a LOT of public land--though a fair amount is closed to caching. Somewhere around 40% of the land up here is public. That gives hiders a lot of room to work for placing great caches. Seems to me the most important thing cachers can do for this sport is advocate for agencies to aquire more public land and vote for candidates that are in favor of increasing the public land base. All you have to do is look at the party platform to find this out--they don't hide it. Of course no matter where I lived, I'd prefer at least a mile hike to a cache.

here we go again...

One more shot

Thanks, but that's what I've done over and over again without any result. I don't know what the problem is. It's not like it's a big deal, it's just that it drives me nuts when I can't get something to work.

I'm getting a little annoyed at this. I signed up for a premium membership and logged on. I'm able to do pocket queries, but none of my forum benefits are working. I can't show a signature or forum title and there is no premium member designation. I've tried everything, gone to all of the frequently asked questions links, did a search of the Getting Started forum, the help menu is not helpful for this. I don't know what else to try.

Hmmmmmm...

D'oh!

kjyfiy

I've been bringing my son with me since he turned 2. He's about to turn 3 soon. It can be a lot of work. Sometimes he just gets tired on long hikes, then I have to carry him. I don't know how you'll fare with 2 kids. And sometimes your kid will decide at the worst time that enough is enough and you'll end up hiking out 3/4 of a mile with less than 1,000 left to the cache. He is to the point now, where if the weather isn't hot he can go for up to 2 miles without being carried. I will bring him to caches with a terrain rating of up to 3.5 I always bring plenty of Gatorade and water and snacks with carbs. One of the joys of bringing my son is that it forces me to make frequent stops. We pick berries, check out views, catch frogs, and of course, kids caching make the best pictures. He shocks me every time we go caching. He knows a lot more about how the game is played than I would have imagined. And you would think that he would be all about the swag, but often he tells me to leave the toys for the "other kids". He's all about the find, so once I locate the cache, I call him over and give him the thrill of finding it. I also let him rehide it (though I generally have to fix it a little after he puts it back.) My son actually prefers finding benchmarks over caches. Now when he sees anything round set in concrete (like those water caps or manhole covers) he gets excited, "a benchmarket Daddy!". When we don't go caching, I'll take a pencil box, fill it with a few toys and a logbook and hide it in the bushes or under the stairs or in the yard and let him find it. I even have a broken GPSr from work that gets every screen and functions normally except it won't actually aquire satellites. This is HIS GPSr. The bad news is, at the tender age of 2, he knows how to turn on a GPSr and change screens so I have to worry about having him delete important waypoints if he gets my GPSr. It's tough sometimes, but geocaching with my son has been one of the best experiences of my life.

A lot of people like the easy, short hike caches. Personally, I like caches that offer as many of these as possible, in this order: -a view -a mental challenge -a physical challenge -a uniqueness I think that multicaches often do the best job of this. Multicaches are a great way to lead the cacher around on a leash and make sure he/she experiences everything you plan on. That's what I did with the 2 multis I hid. This hobby is one of the ways I get exercise, so I like the longer hikes as well. What I don't like are caches that are placed simply because a piece of public land exists there. A good way to entice cachers to try both cache types is place an easy and a difficult cache both in the same vicinity. You will learn a lot about the local preferences.

Well I just took my first dose of Doxycyclene tonight in case there is an infection. I have to take 2 tablets a day for 14 days. The stuff makes me pretty nauseous , but so far I haven't had the other side effects. I think I'll do a better job of checking for ticks now.

qwerty

I generally don't trade, but if my little boy sees a McToy he likes, I generally carry some packs of swivels or snells. You can find stores where you can get packs of 6 or 8 pieces of kid-safe fishing swag for a quarter a pack. I wouldn't recommend packs of lead sinkers unless you want to inspire a lead thread. Plus they make your pack heavier.

Eek! Lyme disease! I just pulled a DEER tick off of my shoulder and I wasn't outside today at all, so it was probably there for a while. It had some blood in it, so I may have to get tested for Lyme this week. I'll admit, I'm taking a chance by not using repellent. I'm mixed about what to do about my son when in the woods. I cringe when I see parents instruct their small children to hold up their arms while they douse the kid with chemicals. I had a fairly traumatic experience with DEET that involved much vomiting and a call to poison control. Ever since I haven't gone near the stuff. Don't take my advice.

I'm not upset if the coordinates are within a couple hundred feet, and I probably wouldn't correct coordinates on a "regular" sized cache if they were within that distance. If they were say, 1/4 mile off, I think the cache owner should make the appropriate correction. I've found a few caches where I think the owner deliberately provided off coordinates to up the challenge. Nothing wrong with that. I don't want to get too terribly accurate with the coordinates I take on my caches either.

OT- By the way, briansnat, I notice today is your third caching anniversary. Congratulations old timer. Is the traditional gift batteries?

I did have a cache where someone had folded a fake large bill and tossed it in. When I opened the cache I thought I had hit the jackpot.

That's the county I live in. Let me tell you, even though the non-lakefront property is cheaper up here, hardly anyone who lives here can afford it. The local job market and wages are NOT good.

If there is still enough volume above the hollow area, they will be cut for pulpwood (paper). That's primarily the type of cutting we have here.

Your thread title confuses me...friend or Foe??? Always Foe. I live in northern Minnesota where the mosquitoes come in clouds and I NEVER wear any type of repellent. I don't think it's healthy. If you tough it out enough times they really won't bother you much after a while. If they are *unbearable* I will sometimes wear a long sleeve shirt. I used to avoid bringing my young son with me when the mosquitoes were bad but then I realized that he's blessed--they never bite him anyway. I've had mosquitoes all over me, looked down, and not a one near him. So now I take him to every cache with a terrain rating under 3.5 and he's gotten maybe 2 bites all year.

That's one of the reasons I use metal containers exclusively...we got bears.

It seems like often the best place to hide a cache is among the biggest trees. Of course, in this neck of the woods big trees mean logging. I've been nervous about where I place caches (I always use metal containers) because I am afraid of them being wrecked by logging activity. If the logging was a thinning treatment I might notice the marked trees before the actual logging, but I might not see the boundary paint if it was a clearcut. Does anyone have experience dealing with this? A cache totaled by cut trees or logging equipment? Clever ways to "loggerproof" caches. A logbook signed by amused/confused loggers? Could a metal container in a hollow but live tree be a safety hazard for loggers?

I enjoy reading and writing thought out cache logs myself. If you're having trouble coming up with stuff to say about the caches you visit, become a birdwatcher. I nearly always spot some interesting bird on the way to a cache, so I simply report what species of birds I see and what they're doing. Other things I often write about when "nice view" or "nice hike" are all that come to mind: -funny or cute things my son does when he accompanies me -benchmarks I looked for on the way to the cache -the weather If you're creative, you'll find a million things to write about on nearly every hunt. (You can tell there aren't micros in my neck of the woods. )

t'sall good now

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