workerofwood

The SF Bay area Jeeps are being delivered to Hemlock, who is in contact with the GBA (Geocachers of the Bay Area) for re-distribution. You can get updates on these via the GBA website at www.theGBA.net. In addition, 36 WJTB's were distributed in San Jose over the weekend to attendees of the "Little Shop of Horrors" event. Nearly 80 cachers from all around the Bay Area attended, and the TBs were raffled off to assure fair distribution. All members present commited to moving the TBs from cache to cache and will be watching them to see that they keep moving.

We went through the same panic out in California last week, when we found Cheaperthandirt was out of the can business. We palced an emergency backup order thru Cabellas which arrived today (nice quality, just .68 more per can than before after shipping). But what we did to solve the long term problem (and all our suppliers say there is a shortage and price hike), is to work a deal with our local surplus store to do a group buy in the future at a lower price (around 3.25 per can). We agreed to buy in bulk (more than 100 cans) and pick them up to distribute ourselves. I imagine most surplus stores would be able to work the same kind of deal.

Coins have landed in San Jose, Thanks for the quick service Sissy!

Kealia gave her a nice tour of Quicksilver, then put her in touch with Marky and I on the road home from the Ape cache. Gave us something to do while we were trying to avoid stopping at every cache that we came near The article will be in Wave magazine...

I've been trading my wands for personal coins if you are interested (I think there are quite a few owners on this forum...). Photos are on the Fisur site. I also have quite a few extras on state coins (and a coin or two that have not been announced here), send me your list and we might come to an agreement.

and if I can figure out how to do it, I will therefore close the topic here...

One last thing before I head off to bed for the night... There's this cool little new site ya'll might be interested in visiting http://www.theGBA.net The web site for the Geocachers of the Bay Area. just thought you might like to know

Thanks Jester, glad we delayed it till after it opened... Too bad we'll be a week after the Iron Horse event!

...hmmm, just might have a bit of that nice burl left lying around. Not sure I kept the dimensions though! Might have to stop by with a tape measure...

Must have been all those (8- count em 8) full size caches he chased after this morning... he had a craving for micros and went on a binge...

You know, while we're at it, maybe we could throw in a few other features...

I've also thought about posting some of my extra state coins on ebay, but have mixed feelings. There obviously is demand since many of these are otherwise unavailable if you can't arrange a trade. (and it would help fund my coin habit). But I am concerned with what happens if too many start fetching these kind of prices... will that make the coins already in caches too tempting for thieves? Or since that is already often the case (coins removed without a fair trade), could it get any worse? How would you be able to tell if the coins for sale were legit? I suppose that if you sold them under your actual user name, at least you would be held accountable. Numbered coins would be traceable too. It's tempting, but could start a trend with unforesceen consequences...

Ok, I've stopped salivating.... Give it to a new collector, let them have something to brag about!

Sure, why not, gimme a day or two. I know this real hot shot web site developer...

I run a query as my home page that includes all unfound caches within 100 miles (FTF fever only extends to 10 miles, but you never know). The upside is that I see events from here to Monterey and the valley. What we need is a local calender for everyone to post to that would cover all this, don't you think? Wonder if we could whip up something like that...

I hear you have a REAL nice coin-rack there... when you gonna post a picture of that thing eh?

Anyone out there planning to head up for the BADGES picnic on the 7th? If you are, please sign up so they can get an idea of what to bring! I hear there will be several new caches too, of course. I'm looking forward to a day caching in some virgin territory. Anyone want to carpool?

I'm still fixated on doing this trip, got to do some crazy caching thing every now and then to remain certifiable. I now am looking at the weekend of 5/20-22 (the same as the GBES rally, I know). Does that make a difference to anyone? As an alternative, I am driving to WA for a vacation in June and will probably leave on the 25th. We could caravan up and I could bid you farewell after the cache.

Sorry for the proliferation of posts, I have all this built up posting energy after a week unplugged.... I have heard the concerns about power caching trails many times in the last year. I have kind of accepted it as a given that it was something to be concerned about, but I just am not so sure now. I look at the finds on my caches, and those on the power cache trails don't have a significantly higher count than those out by themselves (4 star terrain excepted). If you walk a trail to get to a cache placed 4 miles out, you inpact the trail no more by stopping at a few intermediate caches than if you had skipped them. Yes Quicksilver has something like a million caches now, give or take a few (and not counting stages in insane multis). How many people has this brought to the park? 50? 60? In 12 months? Is this really a cause for concern? Personal opinion follows, please ignore as required: I like to have a few extra caches as a break in the deathmarch, keeps me from focusing on my sore feet. The fact that many of these are small or even micro doesn't bother me, there are always plenty of full size caches out there too, and I can't trade with them all. I've hiked 9 miles for a single cache, and hiked 9 miles for 20, I've enjoyed each hike. To be honest, I do intend to place more caches in Quicksilver (I have some cool spots picked out that no-one visitsyet). I think the park can handle it. From the limited interaction I have had with the rangers, I think that our willingness to volunteer will be much more important in the long run than how many caches are there. I'm going to spend Sat. at Sammydee's event, and I hope there are a lot of us there. ok, that's all, I'll go back to trading geocoins in the TB threads....

May as well just throw this out there... IF we were to organize the bay area cachers a bit more and have a website etc (and you know we will), what would you call it? Bay Area Geocachers Society (BAGS)- um, BAGS?? Well, think CITO, and it is the most natural name. We could all run around carrying BAGS bags.... BADGES- It's already out there, we all are familiar with it, probably doesn't really matter that "dining" is not really a central focus ("3M" is well known and who cares what IT stands for). And that BADGES badge is cool... Geocachers of the Bay Area (GBA)- short and sweet Bay Area Society of Geocachers (BASG)- BASG?? ???? Whatcha think?

On to some good news. Think I mentioned before that REI is starting some caching courses this summer in all the bay area stores. Last week I was hired to teach these. I could use some suggestions for parks to visit during our day trips. The areas I am unfamiliar with are Santa Rosa, Berkeley and SF. Parks should be scenic or otherwise interesting, have some cool caches, and not require a deathmarch. We will also be doing daytrips in Concord, San Carlos, Fremont and Saratoga areas. I am hoping this will lead to improved relations with many of the bay area parks commissions.

I keep a personal list of spots to hide caches, crossing them off as others discover them, but I'd be happy to share a location or two with any newbies who are having trouble finding a place. There are still plenty of spaces out there, and you can hide big caches if you get creative about it.

And I wasn't aiming my comments at you either BB, and I admire your commitment to keeping up the cache quality around here... so now that we have all apologized we can go out and find some caches!

MotorBug and others, I know I am late on this but in my opinion, a FTF can be shared. ND and I have found several caches together and both counted them as FTF. I believe I've found a cache or two with Kablooey that was FTF for both of us as well. If it's found at the same time by two people, why can't they both have FTF? How would you figure out who would get it, if not both? JMHO. This horse may be on death's door-step but, I would gladly share FTF bragging rights with someone if we set out as a team to find some difficult cache. I've been on hunts where we divided up the search area to make it easier, and that would make the FTF kind of a matter of luck. But since it's not a stat that is tracked, I prefer to keep my FTF list to myself. It's just a matter of personal satisfaction to race to a cache. No different than trying to find something without hints or descriptions, it just keeps it interesting.

So enquiring minds want to know - Can you? /Lefty I for one, have gotten worse at finding caches as time goes on. Must be making too many assumptions