Boot Group

I've noticed a lot of people just do Members Only for FTF or for the first few days of a new cache, and then change it.

Most of the Nano containers I've seen are magnetic and are about the size of a pencil eraser. They have a tiny scrolled up log book inside. Sometimes, it's easiest to bring tweezers to replace the log book once you've unravelled the log. These containers are often hard to locate so since you're new at this, this may be a hard one to find when you're starting out. I'd try to look for small or regular sized caches to start. Have fun!

Wow! A cache within walking distance of your house! That's a great way to get started. When I first started there were two in my town, and not walking distance. Have fun. I geocache with my kids and they (usually) enjoy it.

Merry Christmas! from Southeastern Massachusetts (near Cape Cod )

For all of you who received a GPS today: Welcome!

39, teacher 11 8

Great! I've seen locked ammo cans where you have numbers to solve the combination. I've seen them with the key hidden nearby, and I've seen a lock that instead of numbers, it was letters so a word solved the combination. It was a 5-stage multi cache, and each stage gave you the coordinates to the next stage and a letter for a 5 letter word that opened the lock. All were fun caches!

It's so funny. When my Magellan lost reception in Maine for at least a half and hour, I decided I should buy an etrex because my friend has one and she hardly ever has reception problems!

Kid friendly to means that the trails are nice. Fore example, if the trails are very rocky or have a lot of roots many kids trip over that stuff. I think kids aren't designed to watch their step because there's too much else to look for. Now, I've brought my kids on plenty of trails like that, I just don't know if I'd put a kid friendly attribute on the cache if that was the case. I've also been down plenty of trails that are fairly even terrain and have hills. Perhaps the trail was an old fire road or something, so it's wide and reasonably free of "trip" hazards. Another thing to consider if you use the kid friendly attribute is that some might be pushing strollers through. I agree that kid friendly should mean that there's some interesting features along the way like a big rock, a cool bridge or boardwalk, a playground or birdhouses (anything really).

I'm excited that D.C. is what prompted this post. I'm going to D.C. in August and I hope to find many of the virtuals while there. I enjoy virtuals myself. Many have taught me very interesting history lessons, and have stopped me and prompted me to read over monuments and such that I would have otherwise just glanced at.

Lucky you! You put in a zip code and saw lot of caches! That means there's lots of caches nearby to find! You might want to start with the 1/1 difficulty/terrain to get your feet wet.

Yes! Great Question. This cache is by far the best cache I've ever found. Take the trip to the Big Easy. It'll be worth it! View Carre Cache

Right. Muggles is a word from the Harry Potter books. A muggle in the books meant a person not part of the magical community. In geocaching, a muggle is anyone you encounter while geocaching whos not part of the the "magical" geocaching community. When a muggle is near, you usually suspend your search because your "abnormal" behavoir of searching through bushes and under rocks may be suspicious to a muggles eyes.

I'm not as high tech as all of these people. I just read the hint ahead of time and keep it in mind as I go for the hike. Yes, I confess I read all the hints. I can use all the help I can get!

I agree with everyone. Wait at least a couple of days because the people may be on vacation and away from the internet. If you see them logging caches past the date you found the TB's and not the TB, then go ahead and grab it. Sometimes people just forget. Here's a link to the main page of GC that tells you all you want to know about trackable items: trackable items

You probably mean travel bug. Here's a link to GC's front page, where you'd click on trackable items to get more information. Some people buy items that have trackable numbers and then they can give their item a mission. Other geocachers will move the travel bug around for you. There's also geo-coins that can do the same thing. trackable items

Well, I found a LPC at (yes) a McDonalds. My log? I McFound it.

I've been FTF once I think. I now can't remember what cache it was. So, nope, I'm not a FTF nut. I do, however, like to go to new caches and often try to go within a week or two of a new cache.

Ok. I did it.

We have a local hider who likes to hide a "fake" cache in a real obvious place near the real cache. It's nothing fancy. Just a small container, so you do a happy dance thinking you found the cache, then open it to find a note saying "No-not this one!". It makes me laugh every time.

I often geocache with my kids. It's a great family activity and while it may be possible to see some of the items you mentioned, I see it as more of a rare occurance. I've never seen needles, although a couple of times I've seen condoms, especially where parking is off in the woods a bit. I don't think my kids even noticed it, and while I noticed, I just made sure to steer clear of the area. Once I took them to an urban style cache, and got back in the car and left without searching because of all the trash. Mostly, though, I've been able to show my children amazing things outside like beautiful waterfalls, beaches I never knew of, beautiful nature preserves, many species of birds and butterflies, and other wildlife. I see it as a great way to spend some quality time together!

I thought this was a new L.P.S. thread. Last Post Standing. Wait until AV sees it. As far as LPC---they're ok. I've only found a few thus far (and hid one after a trip to Florida and at the time thought it was a unique idea). They're not that common around here, so once in a while it's nice to just get a quick and easy one.

I recently learned that there was a forest fire near on of my caches called Alternate Parking. Luckily, it was in a big clearing, so the whole forest didn't go up. The place where my cache is hidden is about 50 feet from the fire. I was out there recently and could still see the evidence of the fire, although the Boy Scouts did a good job clearing it.

Once you're all set with a GPS, you'll probably only want to try 1/1 caches. That means 1 difficulty, 1 terrain on a 1-5 scale.