RoyalRed

I believe this is the cache that raised all sorts of hell in our local geocaching group's first travel bug race. A few racers got wind of this cache and were logging race TBs into and getting outragous mileage to and from the station. This ended up raising cain with others and sparked a nasty war of words for the duration of the race.

I don't see any real valid reason to restrict caches in playground areas but I really do not like searching for caches in such. I find it's really too difficult to search a playground area without looking like some sort of stalker. Get really nervous in these hunts and usually bag the objective much earlier than I would like due to pressure from parents of nearby kids. Think anything near playgrounds increase the difficulty by an order of maginitude due to the kid issue.

Wow! Just was thinking about about placing a cache that required tree climbing.

Seems to me you are being the ultimate "cacher Kop".

YES...I would love to see virtuals reinstated. Some of the best caches I have done were virtuals. Virtuals will get you into places where placing any cache container is banned (like National Parks). I live in eastern PA and have completed a number of virtuals in Valley Forge (no caches allowed) and one truely awesome and educational cache at the grave of Mad Anthony Wayne. I have also completed numerous caches at revolutionary war cemetaries that I would have never even known existed except for Geocaching. Why these caches were exiled never made sense to me. Okay so there is no log to sign but this triffling requirement is excluding our searches from some pretty damned good locations. I am not interested in splitting finds between two different web sites. Would very much like to have everything on one site. BRING BACK THE VIRTUALS!!!!!!!!

Why don't you make a series of caches and have the Cheque Prize go the FTF? Advertise the caches on your own to the target groups and do not even mention the FTF in the cache review. This will avoid all issues with GC and allow you to briefly publize the sport and your cause.

Open the rules for one group and you have to open it up for all. As harsh it sounds it is a reality. Once the rules are breached for a single group you will open yourself up to every other group that may want the same. These groups may be very offensive to a great majority of the membership. So no matter how harsh the rules seem in this case they are justified and only trying to limit exposure of the rest of us to more offensive ideals.

Try hooking up with SEPAG. We have lots of caches in your area and any member's cache will give you a link. Try looking at one my cache pages and you will find a link to SEPAG and all of our activities.

Hey you forgot to mention finding your most memorable geocoin...Royal Red's SEPAG coin!

Yeah...I think that's because it was cut down! I grew up with high power line running right behind my house. Never had any health problems but I am now 156 years old!

All of my caches I have ever placed are within 20 miles. All of mine also have a "backdoor" access point that lets me drive to within a couple hendred feet for quick and easy maintain access. Was thinking of placing caches further out but figured I would not be able to maintain them properly and quickly enough. 100 miles would be way too far for me.

Wll be in Reno this July for business from Pennsylvania. Looking to do some caching and excited about the prospect of caching in a non-tick infested area for a change. Anyone have suggestions for "must-do" caches. Will not have a lot of time so only looking for 4-5 caches of high quality. Thanks for your suggestions!

I'm with you on this one Nik... The chiggers are so small, that you cant see them until it's too late. They go right for your ankles and waist line, which means it will be very painfull to wear a belt or socks for days after getting them on you.. Mythbuster??? I heard if you had Lymes Disease in the past and got treated for it early enough, that your body will have the anti-bodies in place to fight it if you get bitten by another infected tick in the future. Has anyone else heard of this? Sorry but I don't think you build up any immunity from prior Lyme infection. I just got my first dose of Lymes two weeks ago. Caught very early as I was lucky enough to find the tick and had an early bulls eye rash. Doctor told me that Lyme is very strange in that I will have antibodies in my blood now that may trigger a positive reaction to any blood test but will not ward off future infections.

Sure appears that way doesn't it? Guess everyone would rather spend their time beating each other up on these forums.

Just got my first case of Lymes disease this week. Know exactly where I got the tick bite and even pulled the little critter off of me. For some strange reason knew immediately that this was the bite that would get me. This was the seventh one I pulled off of me. Fortunately for me I appear to one of lucky people who immediately (within 7 days) display the classic bulls eye rash. Doctor took one look at my 3" diameter, ringed welt and declined to even do a blood test. "No need for that type of work up...I'll just get you hooked up with the antibiotics regardless of the blood work results". So 21-days on medicine. Feel pretty lucky that I least got an early indication and that old Doc feels there shouldn't be any issues with this (due to the quick treatment). The bite location (on the front of my left shoulder) is pretty sore and sensitive and the lymph node in my armpit is the size fo a golf ball. Just a reminder...DEET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Are you married to a non-cacher and have non-caching kids? Something to think about when hiding a cache so near your home.

Way too much flaming going on in the forums lately. So how about something new? Here is your chance to post the cache, or description of the cache, that most resembled your vision of the Garden of Eden. That perfect place that where you almost have to cry when thinking back. Raw natural beauty, significant historical value, bonding experience with a child or significant other or just a damned good job of nabbing a total ball buster of a cache. Lets hear your story and bring back some positive experiences to the forums.

WOW...too many logs to read all of this. Wasn't the point of this whole thing to bring people to some significant location of historical value, natural beauty or just a plain cool location? How in the hell does finding that many caches in one day even come close to that ideal? Perhaps there needs to be separate records. This one, and all others prior to this of simular nature, need to be tucked away in the extreme catagory. The real caching records are the number of times you are standing totally stunned at the shear beauty of a location that someone you don't even know brought you to, that you had no clue even existed and find it hard to leave the location. I am betting that this record will be the most difficult to achieve and would bet that not many cachers can even boast of having a dozen in their caching experience. I can say that I have only experienced this 5 times in 3-4 years. Have fun with your numbers. I will admit that I do go after numbers at times but only having under 400 finds (most of which I will admit are not worthy of my definition of a record) there was never even a chance of ever approaching 25 finds let only the numbers quoted here. Just a rant from a contented cacher. Now get out those flame throwers and torch me!

Great urban caches I have done are usually multi-caches that take you to a number of interesting areas. These do not have to end in a micro or even use micros throughout all of the stages. Urban caches are tough to hide due to the usually high muggle traffic in the area. But a regular-sized cache can be hidden and when set up as a multi can be very popular.

Wow! Sounds like maybe you need breath mints, deoderant or a bag over your head!

Another idea for a night cache that one of my cohorts has is to make a UV night cache. This type of cache would be a multi-cache where each coordinate leads you to the next stage. Each cache container has a UV flashlight that you can use to serach for the coordinates to the next stage written somewhere in UV ink or paint. The UV ink or paint will only be visable under UV light (sort of like dissappearing ink) so the coordinates should be well hidden during daylight hours. Of course with this sort of cache you will have to make sure that the batteries in the stowed flashlight are always good and hope that nobody walks off with the flashlight.

I have a night cache of my own and have found several others. All of the ones I have done use "Fire Tacks" to illuminate the way with a flashlight at night. The absolute best one I have done was called Stinson's Run Owl Walk in eastern PA (I think this was name...it's owned by Ed Scott). This cache was different from all of the others (including mine) that I have seen. In most night caches you can see the next reflector from the one you are currently at and the prior one you have pasted from the one you are at. This cache only placed reflectors at 100-meters past any point in the trail where there was a turn. If you traveled down the path past 100-meters without seeing a reflector you had gone the wrong way and had to back track. Of course nobody in our group had a clue how far 100-meters was so this made for many wrong turns that we explored far too long. This actually added to the fun. Nothing better than being out in the woods in an unfamilar area at night! Would suggest that you do not make it too easy but do not make it impossible. The cache I have mentioned led you on a an approximate 1-2 mile hike (hard to tell exactly since we were all over the place) where you may have to hike for quite a while until you spotted the next reflector. The path to the cache was marked by the only place on the trail where you could see two reflectors at once. Then you followed the reflectors into the woods off the trail (now you see one reflector from the other) until you got to a grouping a two reflectors together which marked the general location of the cache. The most important part of creating a night cache is to specify the color, shape and approximate size of your reflectors. In eastern PA there are a ton of deer hunters who also use reflective tacks, tape and cable ties to mark their paths to their tree stands during hunting season. It is very easy to get off on the wrong path when your trail might cross one of the hunter's trails. When I put out my night cache there were no other reflectors in the woods at all. Within 1-2 months my trail was crisscrossed many times by multiple trails of hunters that totally confused all cachers.

Have a business trip to Poland coming up this weekend. Will be in the Katowice and Lodz areas for the entire week of May 8. Have already plotted out several caches to go after in my down time. Anyone have any experience or advice for caching in Poland (most specifically in the aforementioned areas)?

Planning? I always keep the 20 closest caches that I find interesting on my GPS. When I decide to go out I just go after whatever one is closest and then the next closest, etc. Sometimes I can bag 10 or more caches but most days I get one or two. Usually I have weeded out all of the ones that do not fit my bill as "fun" and have a great time no matter how I find or do not find.

Geocaching would not fit a typical terrorist's ideal location. Are they going to go through all the work of making their pipe bomb, dirty bomb, biological or chemical agent spraying bomb just to injure or kill one person who happens to open the box in the middle of the woods?