Team Dromomania

They got me this week here. I'm still in pain from that attack. They could have got me a couple of weeks ago here. But I saw them first and stayed my distance.

The way that this is worded makes me have images of you chasing this thing around with a screwdriver and beating it to death. I didn't have to chase the snake. It coiled up in front of my escape route from under the house. Here I was, flat on my tummy (well, my rounded rocking tummy?) where I had to twist my head to look around i.e. no room under there. I spotted a short 4' board and used it to toss the snake aside then I got out of there fast! I've heard that a snake can only strike 2/3's of the length of thier body. I will say I was scared but I saw nothing else to try. My cell phone was useless in those hills. That snake was about 3 1/2' and almost as thick as my wrist. But the board worked. Anyway, the snake crawled back to near the opening and I still had work to do. I found something in the yard and killed the snake. No, I didn't blind the snake with the flashlight and then stab it with the screwdriver. (But that would make a nice story, wouldn't it I like snakes when they aren't a danger to me. My mother would get the shakes just looking at a picture of a snake and my wife isn't too much better.

Has a survey been done to support the statement that "large segment of geocachers" don't like micros? I've found good and bad of all types. The cachers I know (a small circle I know) have no problems whatsoever about a micro. So I'm just wondering where that "large segment" is? Perhaps it's regional.

My job takes me under houses almost every work day. A couple of years ago I was doing a tight crawl and something caught my eye about a foot ahead - a large rattler. It was crawling away but parked itself in front of the opening. And here I was with a screwdriver, flashlight all alone under a house in the country. I had more work to do under that house so I did kill the rattler. Later the owner said a couple of weeks earlier a grandkid got bit by one in the same area. He was happy I killed it. Sometimes you just don't have a choice.

That's just one more law that most people would have no idea about it existing. How's this for an example: Several years ago the brush was being removed from around the building I worked in. I came out of the building to find dozens of small gopher snakes were being killed. I told them that they kill the mice and rats and I was told if I wanted to save them then I should haul them off. They gave me my complete break time and I managed to grab about 2 dozen of them. I lived in the county next to a creek and was going to let them go there. My point being - they were killing the snakes. How were they to know what snakes are protected? They all look the same don't they! And IF there were a law against collecting snakes then I'd be breaking the law in my attempts to save them. Sideline: I took the snakes home in one large paper bag and sat it down on the livingroom floor. When my wife came into the room and asked what I had, I said, "take a peek." She did. (censored stuff happened) After about 1/2 hour I managed to capture all the loose snakes and my wife finally got off the sofa from which she had been standing on. <G> And the snakes lived fat and happy lives on all the field mice around my place.

If they are common in the area why are they protected by law? Were they once dying off and now need off the protection list? Just wondering.

I just checked the caches within a 100 miles of New Orleans. As expected there are no signs of normal caching within a 100 miles with only a few being done by FEMA members. Some owners are disabling their own caches until they can check upon them. I think things will work out on their own as they always have in the past. There is no need to invent new rules and regulations IMOHO.

I still disagree. For one I don't see an army of geocachers rushing in those areas. But the real problem is which caches would you archive? 1/2 mile in from the coast. 10 miles in? 100 miles in? Until a cacher or the owner can get into these areas nobody will know. As a listing agent Geocaching.com will list what they are told are out there and they will remove what they are told are missing. The way I understand things the reviewers will only step in when they get a complaint and/or can't contact the owner a cache. Of course, they know the rules much better than I. Last year a major fire burned through the mountains near me. The owners of several caches are out of the area. When it was safe I hiked 18-20 miles over hills and mountains to check upon the caches in the burnt area - mainly because I was curious. I thought all but a couple would be lost. To my surprise only one was destroyed and one slightly damaged. The fires did reach the others but various factors prevented damage such as the ammo box in an empty water trough. I found the trough's wooden legs burnt off and sitting on the scorched earth but the ammo box and contents were just fine. My armchairing was wrong. You can see some of the pictures here.

This I've gotta see. Got a link?

It's my personal belief that the prices are higher in California because "THEY" can get away with it. 0% of Gulf oil comes here and 0% of our oil goes there. Back to geocaching - it doesn't affect my efforts at geocaching. The prices have gone up 30 to 40 cents per gal. I commute and drive about 800 miles a week. My extra cost for that week equals about two McDonald's meals. I can do without a couple of McDonald meals but I can't do without my geocaching.

Go here to find out. i guess the sarcasim was lost in the smiley Whoops. Forgot my smiley: Go here to find out.

Go here to find out.

Any TB's I own I'd like to see them travel - not be holded up in a cache. IMOHO I think a cacher who moves TB's SHOULD GRAB all that they can move on quickly unless the TB's owner has a reason not to move it along. Any type of "hotel" for TBs puts the cacher owner in charge of the TB's goals and by design limits the TB's movements. That being said, if the cache owner is also the TB's owner then of course he can set the rules. But I don't really see such a setup lasting for very long even if it is a neat idea. It's just the nature of many cachers NOT to read the fine print. If I had that many personal coins I think I'd set up a cache nearby and leave ONE coin. When that coin is grabbed, I'd drop off a new coin, etc. until I have no more to hand out. The advantages: All coins will start out from the same location making it interesting to see how they fan out over the world. The coins are more likely to fall into the hands of many different cachers (spread the wealth) who would send them out on different courses. If the cache is raided, you won't lose the whole lot of coins.

I did a search of New Orleans caches. There are a little less than 700 caches within a 100 miles radius. Since last Monday there have only been a few finds within that radius and they were made by a FEMA person taking a break 70 miles away (direct line) in Baton Rouge. I give a big NO to disabling any of those caches. When geocaching returns to that area the owners and cachers will determine what needs disabling. There is no need to do any armchair guessing about their status. A final note: If I were with FEMA, Red Cross, Military, etc. I *WOULD* search for caches on any free time I might get (I know that's very unlikely) - if for nothing else just to see if I could find some that survived. But if they had been disabled then my PQ wouldn't pick them up for me to do a search.

Yeah, a little awkward. I asked the same question in this topic, but nobody responded. I too wondered about this on this topic. Discussing what happened, what's happening, and how this storm will affect geocaching in that area of the country is a geocaching subject. I know people are going to have to rebuilt their lives, homes and towns. But at some point they will resume their normal life styles. Part of that for me would be to go geocaching. But in order to do that one must have caches to go find. I did a search on New Orlenes and was presented with a list of over 600 caches. I'd be interested in which caches survived. I pray that the survival rate of the geocachers is 100%.

I see this as only starting online fights about who was REALLY the FTF cacher. I know the owner has the power to delete logs and such but as a owner myself FTF's are something I really don't care about so I won't be showing any interest in trying to determine who was the FTF cacher. I just don't think such a feature is needed or that it would work IMOHO.

US Navy. RM2 in early 70's.

I'll take a easy to find ammo can in the woods over a well camo'd micro in a parking lot anyday. I enjoy the hikes.

I haven't seen too many FTL's around here. And I'd have to agree that the "one sided" competition can be entertaining at times. I do recall seeing somebody's home page with a FTF, STF, FTL, etc. stats listed. That's one neat thing about caching - we can pretty much choise what we want to keep records of. I use to keep a log of the items I traded and when they were picked up just to see how long the swag would stay in one spot. But after a couple of hundred caches it was just too much work for results which really meant nothing. I finally saw the light and gave that part up.

When I was a kid my grandpa would spit tobacco from his chaw on my stings to "suck the poison out." I don't recall that it really helped at all.

Any stats I keep are for my own curiosity. I don't cache for FTF's. This week alone I could have claimed about a dozen FTF's in my area without any problems at all. Instead, I wait until I have a reason to pass by, then I grab them. If they happen to be FTF that's fine. Even then I don't say anything about FTF in my logs any more. I did attempt and find four of those new caches this week and 3 happen to be FTF's with the 4th one being FTF by another cacher about an hour before I arrived. But some cachers just gotta get that FTF. On the way to my work place a few months ago I stopped at a new cache and just happened to be the FTF. I made a trade and left a TB then signed the log. About 10 hours later when I got home I went online to record my find. There were already some other cachers who had made the find that day. And one was claiming FTF. That's fine with me but I was curious as to why. I could have emailed and asked but I just wasn't THAT curious. Let the guy have his glory is my motto. This is a game which I enjoy playing. There is no reason nor desire for me to police or control how others play the game. Nor is there any reason to allow any actions or lack of actions of other players to take away the joy I get from caching.

Perhaps for a temp event cache but there are too many things going against it for a regular placed cache.

Just curious, does moving a TB to an "unknown location" change its mileage?

That's pretty much what I was thinking. The attribute says, "wheelchair accessible" and not "person in wheelchair accessible". I just didn't want to put that attribute on my cache and have a person in a wheelchair go for it then enter a complaint it can't be reached. On the other hand if there are wheelchair cachers in the area I wouldn't want to keep them away by not using the attribute. I could have posted a note stating the cache is on the ground but that would give out a clue I wouldn't want to do on this cache.

I like hiking a few hours to grab a cache. Of course, I just like hiking. The swag doesn't matter. Like buying a home it's location, location, location. Give me a new trail and I'm there. That being said, I enjoy difficult urban caches IF I don't have to act the fool in public. If mugglers are around I'll give the cache a try for a minute or two. If nobody is around I might spend 1/2 hr or even an hour looking.