Boot Group

Standing in line is a waste of time (unless you are lining up 2nd graders, then it somehow seems appropriate). Sitting in traffic is a waste of time. Waiting in a doctors office is a waste of time. How could someone see that taking in fresh air, getting excersize, and finding a hidden treasure a waste of time?

Thank you to all who answered this post, or read this post.

We would like to hit 30 soon. That's our goal, as silly as that sounds. So many local caches, so little time. When Little League and Spring Soccer is over, it would be so nice to quickly progress to 50! We have 29 finds since 1/1/04, and one dnf. That's 29 times this family has spent time together, so 30, or 50, or 100 is just further proof that this family will find time to improve our numbers and enjoy time outdoors.

Massachusetts is a great place to geo-cache. We are still fairly new at this, yet it will take us a long time to cover all the caches even within a 25 mile radius. New caches pop up in this area often, so even once we canvass the whole area, we will have to keep up with the new ones.

Since we already RV, caching in the area that you RV is only normal. Our RV is a 25 foot trailer, and we travel in 3-5 hour triangulations due the dynamics of our family. Now that we are geo-cachers, we can't possibly ignore that there are caches ready to find in the area.

First, your GPS may be off. Ours is sometimes dead on, and sometimes 20 feet off or so. We find when we stop moving it gets confused, so we start circling the area. Were you looking for a micro when you thought you should be looking for a larger container? Also, after 45 minutes, it may be good to use the clue. We often "encrypt" the clues to print out, but will only read them it if we are really stuck. So, if at first you don't succeed, try and try again. At least you got some fresh air and excercise!

Well, our daughter woke up with a fever, so we had to skip church so we didn't infect the other kids. Even though she had a fever, I felt sure we might be able to to to a local cache that's not too much walking. After all, fresh air is good for you right? Then, we made it to my son's soccer game at noon, where it proceeded to pour for the entire game. The poor kid was soaked and it was a raw 52 degrees out. They won though, 4-0. It was still pouring when we arrived back home, so we thought we would wait it out for a while. By the time the sun came out at 3:30, it was too late because our Mother's Day company were due at 4:30. So, we didn't get to our 30th find today. So that's the bad news. The good news is I have two adorable kids who presented me with the cutest hand made mother's day cards this morning. My awesome husband made waffles with heated Vermont Maple Syrup and some thick bacon for breakfast. For dinner, we had a mixture of ribs, scallops, and salmoln all prepared by my husband and neighbor. They even did the dishes afterwards! So, we didn't get to cache today, yet it was a great mother's day nevertheless. I hope all of you had a nice day too. Now, hopefully the person I'm rooting for in Survivor ends up winning!

from what we've learned by reading these forums, you sometimes end up telling a passerby about the sport if you've been caught. If you explain it with great enthusiasm and also talk about how we cachers respect nature, I think most people would then just leave it alone. You might even interest someone enough that they end up joining in on the fun. I don't think the owners of a cache would be very happy if you removed it.

We also plan on cooking out with our neighbors. We're having my husband's famous dry-rub ribs and our neighbor is making his famous grilled scallops. I hope we have time to do one or two caches. We are currently at 29 found, so it would be nice to get to 30! I have to be home by 8 as well for Survivor!

That is great. There are many caches where you may be feeling lost or confused, yet you must trust your GPS.

The Boot Group dad recently asked what I wanted for Mother's Day. I replied that I wanted to go caching on Sunday. It's a busy day though with church, a soccer game, and little league practice. How many other moms want to cache on Sunday?

As the boot group mom, I confess that I am an avid scrapbooker. I used to sell scrapbooking stuff through a private company to my friends and family. Now, I just happily use the stuff I didn't sell for myself. I sometimes place scrapbooking "treats" in caches like special scissors and little page kits. As far as caching, well the boot group dad introduced it. Since our kids are pretty young, we are "fair weather" cachers, although we had a number of finds over this past cold New England winter. When the weather isn't good enough for caching, the scrapbook pages get done!

Thank you all for you thoughtful comments. I will go back soon and look "up", "around", and consider micros. There's actually not very many micros in my area. It's more than a park, it's a historical site. The message board mentioned explains the historical significance, so if all else fails I may still try it as a virtual. I think I may try to e-mail a cacher from my area that comes to my town a lot for advice as well. Again, thanks to all who answered!

I found a public property in my town where I would love to place a cache. I haven't hidden a cache yet, so I'm looking for advice. I've visited the spot a number of times in the past month to figure out where I could hide a cache. It's a small park, yet it's a nice place to visit. I can't find a place to hide a cache because it is a place that is visited regularly, year round. In the winter there is very little cover. I'm thinking it's a place that I should turn into a "virtual cache"due to its size. The site has enough information on a message board that I could easily ask questions for a virtual cache. I've been reading the forums for months now, and it seems like cachers normally like to find caches rather than just finding virtuals. So, should I continue to look for a hiding spot, or should I just go ahead and try to get it approved as a virtual?

Thank you for the input. Now we know.

We have seen Geo-Coins traveling as travel bugs. We've seen them mentioned in forums. We noticed we can purchase dog tags for a travel bug of our choice, but there's no mention of geo-coins that we have seen. We have also noticed that geo-coins have a special section in the travel bug logs. So, what are they? Do they have their own tracking numbers in lieu of the dog tags?

We always have the kids with us. In fact, our 7 year old son finds about 1/2 of them once we have told him we are within 50-100 feet. We avoid caches that have high terrain difficulty ratings. Sometimes on caches that require a lot of walking, the four year suddenly loses her legs. She will all of a sudden put the breaks on, and say she doesn't have two feet, and that she's not moving! After taking a rest, she ends up trudging right along, though. This is why we can only log a few caches per weekend. We love logging them in though. It's a visual proof that this caching family is spending lots of time together. This coming weekend (weather permitting) we are going to head out on a camping/caching weekend. We wanted to get some early Spring caming in, and found a cache-rich area to go to. Hopefully the four year old's feet will hold out so we can get 5 or more done in one weekend!

So far, we've been able to contain all of our Geo-caching stuff in one backpack. In it we keep our goodies bag, with a sharpened pencil to sign logs without them, a first aid kit, 2 bottles of water, our digital camera, and all the printed sheets for the caches we are planning to try that day. We just "summerized" our camper on this beautiful Patriots Day weekend so I suppose we should start a second bag to keep in there so we are always ready to go.

We just ordered (waiting for the shipment) some wooden nickels so they could be our calling card.

The boot group agrees with all that have already responded to this forum. We are getting outside more to places we didn't even know about in our own community and elsewhere. We are getting exercise and time outside. We love the thrill of the hunt and trading cute "stuff". We enjoy the virtual caches that often teach history lessons and lead us to amazing views. We also recently enjoyed meeting other cachers at a local event cache. The thing that we like about caching that hasn't been mentioned yet is the logs and logging on-line. We like to read the logs at the cache for pure enjoyment. We must admit, however, during the cold months we didn't write too much in the logs since our hands were cold. It's like reading a secret diary. We also really enjoy returning home and logging our cache on-line. Sure, we love the on-line proof that we have found "x" number of caches. That's a numbers game. I'd love to have our numbers be 3 digits (or more). The thing is, the numbers are proof that our family has spent "x" numbers of hikes together. Sometimes we do more than one cache a day, but the number on-line still represents that this busy young family has spent that much time together. We also love picking up travel bugs. We pick and choose the ones we want and go to the cache only if we think we can help the bug along. I've seen some discussions in the forums about bug ethics. For example, some say you should only take a bug if you have one to swap. We feel that bugs should be moved along according to the owners wishes, and only take one if we can help it. We also make sure to leave something in the cache, even if the only thing we took was the bug.

I was surprised while reading the logs of this forum that virtuals are not that highly regarded in some instances. I have found that the virtuals in my area are just as exciting as regular caches. One virtual I saw is in a place that has a National Monument, so I think it comes under the no National Parks rule. It was a great spot. The others I've been to have been places where there are lessons to be learned through the cache. For Example, one was historical, and another gave me an excellent art lesson about a famous sculptor. The owners of the caches were also very thoughtful about making them meaningful. For example, two of them I had to do further research after caching (local library), and another the "owner" of the cache provided further information about the cache once you answered all the questions. May be I'm just lucky, and live in an area where virtuals are not that simple.

It might be difficult to find places where you are allowed to put a trash can or other object. However, if you are determined and find such a place that grants you permission than maybe you could erect something smaller, like the size of a bird house. Then you could set up a multi-cache with the first find being a key to unlock the bird house size box. The third step of the cache would be to replace the key. A key and new coordinates could be hidden anywhere, like under a park bench.... This is just brainstorming, but I wanted to share my idea. This would be fun for both wheelchairs and regular cachers.

I suggest going in search of Whispering Giants. Look up Peter "Wolf" Toth on the internet. I imagine many Whispering Giants are "virtual caches". There is one in zip code 02360.