Drive-in

Just wanted to let Okies Kid know, I posted his truism to a reddit page (regarding surveying) with appropriate credit of course:

Geez, I can remember in the "good old days" 2001 or so. . . People Always took something and left something. . other than TNLN. . .

I notice that one thing that is totally overlooked is behavior of the lost person. One of the most important things that can be taught to a person traveling in an unfamiliar outdoor setting: When you discover you are lost, just one thing: STAY PUT. . . Don't get yourself more lost and farther from where you are supposed to be. . .

One thing that seems lacking. . on the part of both some geocachers, and some authorities concerns the "where" of some of these caches. Consider, in the good old USA, or even generally speaking when have you heard of of a bomb being planted in a PARKING LOT? Generally, they are observed with people who have nothing better to do than hatch the excitement of calling the police for a bomb. Besides, someone needs to remind the world that placing a bomb as a geocache would be a violation of both the geocaching rules as well as the rules of model rocketry. . . (Ok, that was intended to cause a chuckle. . ) But seriously, a little common sense when placing some of these caches would go a long way. Geez, my number is 18,638. . I've been doing this a while!

Lurker! I have to chuckle. . .I was looking at the users #'s logged in. Mine is 18638. It's sad to think I've been at this for more than 10 years. . .All right, I confess, I've not been active in a long while. . Wesley H.

I had tried that sometime back, (using rucksack as criteria for a search) and did not find the thread I was looking for. I was looking back at some old posts I made (Enter KD5RAL) and you will find. This posting was made about that same time as the "Whats in your rucksack" thread. I remember several years ago, finding a note that the old postings could be found (and it had a link) but I am unable to find that one either. . . . Well, a little more looking and detective work saved the day. . I asked the question back in 2007. . . (Of course, have not been caching since then either. . .and when you get older, well the mind. . . ah, what was I saying?) Its here: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=119896 Good discussion of what to carry. No doubt repeated ad nauseum. Thanks everyone!

The OLD Forums. . . specifically one titled "What's in your rucksack." (About 2002 or so)

I've always maintained there is ONE golfball cache I would visit. . . But it is about 240,000 miles away and has not been visited since 1973 IIRC. . (It is on the moon. . I wounder what that golf ball would be worth?) But one heck of a travel bug!

I've lost a few things. While taking a new cacher to see an amazing view cache: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...dd-2001964932de I dropped a new 2 meter radio off a railroad bridge into the mucky water. (this was back in 2002, and it was not even submersible. Needless to say, even after multiple attempts I could not revive it. . But before that, I had taken another girlfriend (at the time) caching and she lost a nice diamond earring. I went back the next day and found it after looking for about an hour. Lost the "Girlfirend" soon there after But that was probably a good thing! Was visiting this one: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...06-8f4f91f5c693

Well, I have a remote cache: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...e3-be22f39a8d77 Which is CHAINED to an abandoned rail care near a creek, and someone 2 years ago STOLE THE AMMO CAN. . .even though. I guess if they want it bad enough, they will get it!

Why do some of us quit or fade away from geocaching? Well as I was reading through some of the responses, I noticed that clayjar mentioned he started May 29 2001. . . My first find was Aug 11, 2001. . . I never really thought about it, but I guess that makes me a long timer. Not a cacher with numbers so big they don't have names, but been at it a long time at any rate. I have taken breaks from it on occasion and sometimes those occasions have been extended. Somewhere along the lines life takes over and leaves you with little time to do the "fun things." The nice thing about geocaching is that you can do it as a solitary endevour or as a family outing. When I started, it was almost totally solitary. But as time passes, I still get the urge and try to use it as a learning experience for the little ones. I have to admit, I am a lot more selective of the caches that I visit. It has to be a well planned cache, with a theme and purpose. Something that makes it interesting. I know too many cachers who fell into the "I have to be at the top of the leader board," and don't seem to take much consideration about any generic cache. I just can't get excited about visiting 150 caches a month if they are not memorable. Wesley H. Drive-in and family

RN since 93 REMT-P 77-85 Caching: Oh, since 2001

My hat is off to Thot, who listed several simular threads. Among his list at: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=119896 I found it! Thanks to all. Amazing how rusty you get after being more or less out of the game for a few years!1 Drive-in

Already tried the search function, with no luck. . . Thanks for the suggestion though. . Drive-in

Alright, so its been a little while since I have logged on here. . .(ah, well, ah about 2 or 4 years. . . but thats not important right now. . . ) What happened to the older stuff on the forums? There used to be a thread called "whats in your Rucksack" about things people carried with them while going geocaching. I am just now getting an enthusiastic 11 and 7 year old into this. I am letting them put together the things that they will take with them into the Hinterlands. . . That was a good thread. . . is it hopelessly gone? Wesley Horton Drive-in

One of the main reasons the no knife/scissors/etc came about several years ago, about 2003 If I remember correctly. Seems that a prison crew was cleaning by the side of the road and found the cache. Needless to say, the issue of a knife inside that a convict could find was not acceptable to some people. . . Wesley Geocaching since 2001

An interesting development today for an Oklahoma history theme cache. The cache, 1906 Transportation disaster, is centered around a buried steam locomotive in the Cimarron river in Oklahoma. In 1906, the river flooded and washed out the bridge, causing a spectacular train derailment. As of today, March 5, 2004, the river has once again flooded and caused a derailment which was seen on the 6 pm national news (CBS). This time the derailment was approximately 3 miles south of the original derailment. The geocache, which is in a military ammo can, was chained in place to a railway car that was on the bank of the river from another spectacular flood in 1957. The status of the cache, is needless to say, unknown. It may have floated away, or be under several feet of mud. Read about it here: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=22238

I do not believe that NGS would mind in the least, provided that people do not start redundant logging of benchmarks to the NGS data sheets. If you find one that has not been recovered for some time, list it as a recovery. BUT the NGS site is not for playing games of anysort. The NGS database is important tool. Log anything you want to geocaching.com though. Wesley Horton

I'm just waiting for someone to post the location of the ill fated flight 19 as a virtual. (Even better, as a regular cache, I would love to visit that one!) Needless to say, I would suggest a rating of 5/5. Wesley Horton

I'm just waiting for someone to post the location of the ill fated flight 19 as a virtual. (Even better, as a regular cache, I would love to visit that one!) Needless to say, I would suggest a rating of 5/5. Wesley Horton

I saw one at the local Academy sports store the other day. I got to spend several minutes looking through the manual and playing with the unit. It looks very impressive. Most capabilities seem on par with the Meridian Gold, but with a smaller screen. The entire unit is about the size of one of the Etrax units. It seems like it has 24 MB of memory for uploading maps and such, but the base map seems to be reasonably detailed and accurate. The only problem I could see was the price. At $269.00, it seemed a little on the high side. I have called Scott Ferris at GPSdiscount.com to see what sort of a price he can get, but have not heard back from him yet. Wesley Horto

I saw one at the local Academy sports store the other day. I got to spend several minutes looking through the manual and playing with the unit. It looks very impressive. Most capabilities seem on par with the Meridian Gold, but with a smaller screen. The entire unit is about the size of one of the Etrax units. It seems like it has 24 MB of memory for uploading maps and such, but the base map seems to be reasonably detailed and accurate. The only problem I could see was the price. At $269.00, it seemed a little on the high side. I have called Scott Ferris at GPSdiscount.com to see what sort of a price he can get, but have not heard back from him yet. Wesley Horto

Well, I should say that I too am a RN who works 12 hour shifts and as a result have 4 days a week free to geocache or whatever. I usually go by myself because there is no one else free on the days and times that I like to go. Recently, I had somthing happen which caught me off gaurd. I was checking on a remote cache which was suppose to be in an area not frequently visited. Low and behold, while at the cache site, I encountered a couple looking for "mushrooms" and a guy who was mountain biking. This in the middle of the week. Seems that some of those caches are not so remote after all. I would recommend caution while geocaching and always at least have a cell phone and preferabably a means of self defense at hand. Granted most people are benign, but it only takes one. Wesley Horto

We had quite a spirited discussion of this entire topic at the Oklahoma Geocachers meeting tonight. Good points were made on several fronts which in many ways, mirrored the comments here. There is a reasonable question about the number of caches that will be public vs. private in the upcoming months. One good point was that as a geocacher, if I place a cache, I want people to visit my cache. As many as possible. I guess we will see. . . Which raises another point, will we have access to the numbers of "MEMBERS ONLY" caches vs. public caches? Jeremy mentioned that he wants the endevor to become profitable. OK, reasonable. Would Jeremy mind too much giving us a timeline about what we can expect in the future? Will you need to be a member to view the forums in six months? Will the membership cost suddenly jump to $50.00 in six months? What if more caches are private than public? Will it become a costed item to place a cache? Regards, Wesley Horto

First of all, I would like to thank Jeremy for taking the time to address many of the concerns I outlined in my posting that opened this thread. I would really like to see someone address the question that has been sidestepped since the begining of this debate. Namely: How are MEMBERS ONLY caches going to stop or reduce pilfering or vandalism? It is sort of like the question: How is making alcohol illegal for people under 21 going to stop underage drinking? (It has not) How is registration of automobiles going to cut down on drunk drivers or auto theft? (It has not) Simply put, making things less accessable to the public has not reduced the misuse of such items. Conversly, Members only caches will not be free from plundering or vandalism. Let me state categorically, I am not opposed to paying per se, and $30 a year is not much but that is not the question. The question is what is going to happen to the availability of "PUBLIC" caches once people have the option of placing "MEMBERS ONLY" caches. Over time, (and I am not going to guess how long.) the number of public caches will shrink while pay per view caches will increase. -I'll bet you on that one. When I mentioned this, Jeremy remarked: "That may be true." I would hazard to guess, it is most likely true. Geoquest remarked about the issue: "Speaking for myself I know this is true. I just joined and the first thing I did was make two of my caches members-only. Any new caches I place will be members only. I figure I coughed up the 30 bucks, I want all the features that entitles me to." I am going to be honest here, if I join, that is exactly what I am going to do. "Let the newby's try out on someone elses cache," is going to become a prevailing thought. One thing is for sure, time will tell. I seriously hope this thread stays open a while as I would like to see the opinions of many of the other OLD TIME CACHERS who were placing last year and before. (As opposed to the new CHARTER MEMBERS. Many who are posting fervently on this issue have never posted before. . .Humm. . . ) Regards, Wesley Horton