Team Dromomania

I figured it out. Size should be much better now. Thanks for the advise. I was about ready to burn these pictures!

Whoops. My images are way too big. I guess I'm going to have to figure out how to size them for the forums.

This past fall a large fire raged for a few days and swept over several geocaches. I was the first person to survey the damages to the caches at two locations. Each location required several hours of hiking to reach. The first location had one micro, one jar and two ammo boxes. The fire reached all of them. The two ammo boxes were undamaged because of their placements. The jar was also undamaged thanks to it's hidding place but everything around it was destroyed. The fire reached the micro and warped it but everything inside was fine. The next location had three caches. The fire missed the ammo box. The fire reached up to the cliff edge of the second hide but didn't climb down and under the rocks so it was saved. The third cache was tupperware and it and most was destroyed including a TB. Actually, only a "lucky token" survived.

I've been at this for about 1 1/2 years and placed my first cache a little less than a year ago. My personal rule of thumb is to use a cache as big as I can get by with. I have several located in the woods and on a couple of peaks. They all provide great views and lots of wildlife and wild flowers. Most of them take a few hours to complete. I also have a real container located near a Wal-Mart. I refuse to place one under a lamppost. Anything larger than what I'm using would be muggled. That brings me down to my three micros. Two are identical hides in different cities. One takes you to about the smallest city park I've ever seen. The other is a very busy local park with manicured lawns. Many people didn't know that we have a great boat launching spot in town. I couldn't figure out how to place large caches in either of these spots. My last micro (actually the first micro that I hid) is at a unique roadside plaque with a very unusual theme. Nothing should have been disturbed at the stop but a well placed micro worked out ok. Personally, I would (and have) hike a few hours to go for a cache on a peak (in one case, a micro) any day over a micro under a mailbox on a busy street.

Last year I took my first 3 week vacation ever and used it for a road trip. Of course I wanted to nab geocaches in every state we passed through (ended up with 15 states). I used the mapping tool to locate those caches. Do you know how long it takes to map out a 5,500 mile trip for caches using that method? I do.

I purchased the Palm Tungsten E almost a year ago. I wanted it for geocaching and for maps. I have yet to find a good map program for the unit and have given up trying. It works well for paperless geocaching with two objections - 1. Battery life is short - won't last all day. There is no way to change batteries. 2. A complete screen washout in sunlight. I've learned to adjust and cope with these issues but if I should ever purchase another PDA I'll be looking more closely at what it really offers. Like I said, it does work well for paperless geocaching and at the time the price was right.

How does the ink hold out? Does it fade or wash away in the rain? I wouldn't mind trying out the paper but it's not going to help if the ink doesn't last.

I have been freezing purchased bottled water for years and have never had one burst open or even leak after thawing. A couple of weeks ago after about about a 2 mile 1800 foot climb hike to a cache which hadn't been found for a year I found the cache with several fruit bars and power bars. It had been found several times by mugglers who all liked the idea and traded with the only things they had with them. I pulled all the food items and left a bottled water. Yes, I do drink water I find in caches. Although they were not Twinkies I was surprised that the food items were still good. I ate well that hike. The cache was located inside a small cave with poision oak at the entrance where you had to insert your upper body to reach the cache hidden by a large rock. Still, a lot more mugglers were logging this find than geocachers!

This is something exactly like I've been wishing we had. My wife and I make up one team. I do all the "paper work" while she just enjoys the hunt. After a while we can't remember which hunts we shared. And no matter how things really was - she always wins any arguments! I've taken my brothers, grandkids and nieces all geocaching and some of those have taken it up full time. The ones who took it up later have asked me if I recalled which caches we visited. Under this system each would have their own name under the Team name and they'll be ready to go. If and when they take up the hobby they'll have a few finds already under their belts. I think the player's individual accounts would remain exactly as they do in the present. The Team group name can be set up like a special class of cache. It can be transferred to another "owner" or dissolved without affecting any stats of the geocachers. Geocachers could also join other teams without affecting thier stats. I can join my own family team in California but when I visit Minnesota I can help out my Minnesota's family team. Hmmm, I don't know where I'm going with this but it does give one plenty of room to think.

Another use for MOC is to limit the amount of traffic in the area. For example, if a "geotrail" has begun to appear then limiting the number of visitors may limit that problem.

Back in the 80's I got hooked on a BBS game called Trade Wars. After some research I settled on the name DROMOMANIA. That is a medical term for the compulsive urge to travel. I thought it was a pretty good name since in Trade Wars one was traveling around the universe. When I took up geocaching I went by my real name for the first 50 or 60 caches until I recalled that old name. Thus Team Dromomania was created.

I have a cache that's been out almost a year. I hid it among some concrete blocks but it was muggled. I then camo'd a new flat tupperware container with a thin layer of driveway patch over everything but the lid. It was moved to a nearby spot under a bush and it was turned bottom up where I wanted it to look like a piece of discarded concrete. This worked pretty good but the patch began to flake off after a few months. Last month I did exactly the same thing except reinforced the patch with screen and provided a better way to support the patch on the tupperware. It "feels" much better, still has a very low profile and I thought I had the problem licked. But after checking on it this week I found out water can enter and it's getting that yucky mildew smell. I think the weight or strain of the concrete patch has warped the container. An ammo box would be too tall even on it's side. I wish I had one about half the width of a 20cal box. Here's what I think I need: A shallow dish type cache container which will remain water tight when placed lid down. Metal or stiff plastic perferred. Any ideas?

US Navy 1970-74 as a Radioman. E1 to E5 in 2 yrs. with no push buttons. All 4 years at Skaggs Island, CA Volunteered for Viet Nam but was never sent. Offered $10G to remain in the Navy but I wanted to go to OCS. Too old - got out. I really liked the time I spent in the service. God bless those still serving.

I like clever puns and clues given in geocache hints. But I'm wondering what kind of creative hints have been given where the cryption and the decryption both seem to make sense. For example, if I want to give a clue that my cash is hidden among the green colored signs I may give the clue "GRN ONES" The encryption will read "TEA BARF". That just might be the color of green to look for <G> Have others attempted something along these lines with their hints?

Cemetary caches have taken me to several places where unusual graves are located or famous people may be buried. A lot of these are in small out of the way cemetaries. There is a lot of history buried in these places. For me, the whole purpose of a headstone is to have a memorial for that person buried. For brief moments of time I give many of these graves some thought about what thier lives may have been like. "Murdered by indians", "Died in birth", "Bowled a 300", "loving mother", "Killed in train wreak", and many others give little bits of history during their lives. I enjoy finding and visiting the old cementaries which geocaching has led me to. As for the cache itself, I think the worst I've seen is one that has a holloween theme. But most are small micros whos main purpose is to get you to the interesting cemetary and graves. Death means different things to different people. I wouldn't mind strangers visiting my grave or even walking across it to visit others. I don't like the idea of a dog doing its business on my grave. But in the end, the graves are for the living. I'll be long gone to that great geocaching place in the sky - or not!

I do a lot of wilderness hiking alone in Northern California. Bear and mountian lions abound in these areas. I seldom see people past a couple of hours into a hike. I've have yet to see a bear or a mountian lion although I've seen their VERY FRESH tracks. The only weapon I carry to shot with is my camera. I hope to get a photo of bears and mountian lions one of this days. I know some people can feel threaten by the tought of wild animals and can feel safer with a firearm. If it makes them feel more relaxed to enjoy the experience then I have no problems with that person or their firearm. As for myself, I don't want to carry the extra weight or go through the red tape to own a piece. I also know that the odds of my injury or death from a wild animal is just about the same as winning the lottery. I'm just not worried about it.

About a week ago I hiked alone and grabbed a cache in a mine and met up with bats. The cache's web page suggested somebody wait outside while the search was made. I thought that meant "don't get lost in there" when it really meant "if no fresh lion tracks are present, enter, but leave somebody outside so one won't follow you in". Mountain lions weren't even on my mind. Bats in caves don't brother me .. but LIONS!

I've seen them in Walmart. I use Energizers which charge pretty quick - under 1/2 hr. It seemed a 4 battery set was around $20-25. I'm usually wrong (ask my wife) so the next time you're in Walmart just check them out. One note: rechargable batteries put out less voltage than regular batteries. If your GPSr has a setting for rechargable batteries then use it. Else you'll be getting low battery warnings way before they need to be changed.

Thanks for the comments. I'm not TRYING to adopt these caches as much as I just want them to remain active. I'll be visiting them in a couple of weeks and will leave logs of the visits. I also plan to try once again to contact the owner myself. If nothing is heard within a few weeks then I think I'll let the approvers do their thing with the option of me adopting. I do like the area and while on that adventure of repairs I think I'll place another of my own at a nearby peak. The views are great. Thanks again.

In the mountians near me are three caches placed in 2002. I was the last to find them a little over a year ago. One was in very poor shape and I noted that in my log. Since that time a major fire went through the area and I think another may have been destroyed since the plastic container was in the path. Several logs by others have inquired of the owner about their condition. I have e-mailed the owner a couple of times directly. There have been no replies. His profile says he hasn't logged on since last November and he hasn't been active in placing or finding caches since 2002. I like the area and plan to do the 9 mile round trip 2000 ft climb hike to the caches in the near future to give the caches some service. Meanwhile, I don't want these caches to go away. But I don't want to "steal" them either by requesting transfer of ownership - at lest until I speak to the owner. Which brings me to my question: At what point does a cache become orphaned where one can take steps for new ownership without feeling guilty? Until then I'll be perfectly happy to do the housekeeping on them. Team Dromomania

A coin like this should not be owned but rather it should be shared.

I don't know how to change data in your PDA web page listings. But you should be able to manually enter the new coords into the GPS unit even if it is part of the PDA. Just edit the existing waypoint. If you can tell us your model perhaps somebody with experience with that model can give you more specifics.

The Quo Vadis site is still down but I found a 3rd party web site with the demo. I also downloaded the demo of Mapopolis. I've only put about 10 mins each on those programs. I work in Napa, California and found it interesting that Quo Vadis included the demo maps for Napa. Did I just luck out or did it grab my zip code from somewhere? Anyway, on the surface I do like the look and feel of Mapopolis better of the two. Zooming in and out, the details given at street levels and being able to have maps on my card are a big plus. But Quo Vadis isn't out of the picture yet. I want to go to the main web site and see what else it may offer or what feature it might have that I'm missing. Can .loc files be converted and uploaded onto either of these maps?

Hi NightPilot, Yes, now that I have purchased this PDA I found that out. So I have to work with what I have. I am looking for a maping program which allows me to import and view the location of caches down to the street level on my PDA so I can plan my drive. I am not trying to connect my GPS to the PDA (that'd be nice but I'd most like wreck my car trying to view the screen rather than the road) I just got off a 3 week road tour. I had StreetFinder loaded to get me around in several cities but it turned out to be almost useless since very little detail (like street names) was given. A program that gives street names on the Tungsten E screen and which allows points of interest (caches) to be imported would be my ticket (I think) I guess I wrote all of that just to say all I want to do is view maps.

There are two times I really need to use the maps to get me close to caches. 1. In the cities...One way roads, limited or no parking, rough neighborhoods to avoid, dead end streets, etc. I just want to get in close enough to park then let my feet do the work. 2. In the country...In my area there are several caches hidden in the mountains. You can either hike the 10 or 20 miles to them from the normal paved roads while avoiding cliffs, private property, rivers, a mountain or two inbetween, etc. or you can look on the map for jeep trails, fire roads and the like to get within a few miles on public land to do your search and hike. Each person has their own way of doing things for their own reasons. IMOHO I wouldn't call that lazy. In many cases it is just the plain smart thing to do. You seem to have the most fun at this game doing it your way without the aid of maps. Other's only geocache at night. Some don't log their finds. That is one of the great things about this game of geocaching - Each person can have fun in their own way while playing it.