SerenityFound

When I have taught this to teachers in workshops, I like to do a little demo. I'll talk about what it is and what can be taught (geology, geography, math, social studies, etc). Then it's brake time... earlier, I put an ammo can with a log and some snacks in the can. I hide it at the edge of the property very simply (under a low branch tree, behind a rock, etc). We then get a volunteer to run the GPS. I give them the coordinates and have them find the cache as a group. There's a first to find prize in that there's one better snack than the rest (like one large candy bar and a bag of mini's for the group). After we find the cache and pass out the snack for brake, I use the opportunity to talk about why food in a cache is not allowed and also tie this into the CITO concept. We then go back in and go through setting up accounts for those that are interested.

Mine is an homage to the show Firefly and movie Serenity. Plus caching is a very serene activity for me... a chance to step away from all of the craziness. BTW - you can watch the whole Firefly series at www.hulu.com for free. Awesome show.

If the caches are being ripped off to be replaced somewhere as their own, I think tagging the cache container could be helpful. I bought a cheap engraver for $10 at radioshack. I put two or three custom marks on the cache in out of the way areas. If my cache ever disappears, I'll just start looking for new placements and checking for my insignia on the new placements.

Ok... that cache is amazing. I was pleased with my camo job turning one of those snow-plow warning flags into a simple cache and hiding it in plane sight. Now I must hide my head in shame... I'd like to read the cache set-up to see how the finder comes across the tone.

Slight thread hijack here... I'm interested in setting up a reflector-based night cache but I'd like some feedback from folks with more experience. The only one I have seen was on a large private piece of land with soccer fields and woods. Because he owned the property, he could do what he wanted and set up a very nice course. The coords got you a spot where the first reflector was visible and then you had to track through six to get to the final location. For those of us who don't own a spare wooded lot, where are these usually set up? Parks are out because of the after-dusk closing. Urban areas would be tricky because of the lights (although I think that would be kind of interesting with some creative placements. Just curious... I want to make one that's fun and challenging but legal.

This is quite nicely done. Thank you...

No being a big fan of the whole awkward feeling when there are lots of people around, I have figured out a simple but effective way to obtain these caches without that "this is weird" feeling in your stomach. I pull up with my buddy who happens to own a bright yellow hazmat suit with hood and respirator. I just say something into the bullhorn like, "Department of Homeland Security, people. Please move along." We get a solid 30 minutes of quiet time. Ok... not really but I've thought about it.

Thanks for the email to sms tip... I was unaware of that.

Nice - POI Loader does work with my Venture... Great tip.

It's happened to me quite frequently in the past month here in Pennsylvania. I have both found trackables where none were listed and not found what should have been there - the later being much more predominate. Drives me crazy...

500. While it's not as many as some of the GOS units with expansion memory slots, that should at least keep you busy for the day.

There was a 1/1 small very close by that we just could not find on two separate outings. My neighbor sees me coming home after a day of caching and we start chatting about what it is and how it works. The next day when I sit down to log my DNF, I see that my neighbor has logged my nemesis cache. He didn't even own a GPS at the time. It wasn't so much what was written in the log, just that it was logged. very depressing...

What about purchasing a sheet of the latest collectible stamps from the post office and a bunch of small plastic bags. Cut the stamps individually and bag them like little collector's items. Love the dollar coin idea... I may use that!

BINGO - that was it! Thank you very much

Wow... thanks a lot. Reading this post just cost me $15. These are are really nice.

Wow... you are right! They are there if I zoom all the way in. I mean ALL the way. They only show up on the highest zoom setting. So when I'm driving, they are out of my view unless I am driving over them. Anybody know how to change the default level that POIs show on a nuvi 650? I'm going to try the MapSource suggestion above later tonight. Thanks everyone for the suggestions... much appreciated! This place is great. -jon

I've been caching with a Garmin Nuvi 650. Things have been swell. Pre-premium membership, I would bring up an area we would be caching in on the map inside geocaching.com, click on the all of the individual caches one at a time, and then click "transfer to GPS" for each cache. A little tedious when we'd be looking at 50+ caches but it worked. And, when I drove around, all of the caches appeared on-screen. I mean, as I am driving around, I can see caches near the roads that I am on... lovely. So I recently decided I would upgrade to the premium membership. Anxious to be able to pull 500 down at a time, I ran my first pocket query. With a little tweaking, I got it loaded to my Garmin. But they are only in the POI area... so what the heck do I do with that?? I did a little research and it looks like that's just how garmin does it. POIs do not show up on the map. I mean, it was awesome to get all of that detail in one file and all uploaded to my GPS but I must be missing something. The way the POI files are working for me now, I might load say, 10 caches for a local park. When I show up at the park, none of the caches at the park are on my screen. I can go to the list of POIs in the Extras menu and see all 500 caches but how do I know which ones are nearby? I know I can turn on the proximity alerts but is that as good as it gets? I'd rather load them individually and have the caches on my screen. I must be missing something... I have a Mac & a Windows XP machine so I don't care which software package. I just need some advice. I've loaded the POIs with the Garmin tool from the mac side and the XP side; I've used the very well written GSAK program in Windows which pulls a ton of info over (much more than the Garmin POI Loader). But I can't seem to get them to load on the screen. Any savvy advice from a veteran NUVI cacher?

Having just hid my first cache, I now have a greater appreciation for the log. I mean, why would somebody spend the money, time, and effort to hide a cache if they weren't interested in the contribution to the game. My first cache is a week old and I love the feedback. I plan on being much more creative with my logs. For me, this was a shift... at first it was about how many I could log. Now it's about contributing to the game. TFTC is nice but I plan to try harder now.

In addition to all the normal stuff, the most valuable thing I take with me is a 14 year old who has the energy of a Labrador after a dozen lattes and the motivation to always get, "just one more, dad!"

Actually, it looks like it hit 11,000 members as of today.

I'm in York... just cutting our teeth with 60 finds and one hide. This area has some really nice caches...

OK... I gotta ask. Radiation suit?

I'm just curious... is there such a thing as extreme caching? Caches that are pre-identified as having a very high terrain difficulty (not so much in terms of camouflage & general hiding trickiness). Maybe a cache in the middle of a rock climb or in extreme conditions. I mean, there's marathon running and then there are the nuts that run for 100+ miles at a time (I say that affectionately as I have a friend who's a total nut when it comes to running). Does the geocaching community have something equivalent?

I'm thinking that all of those weekend soccer games along the east coast just got a whole lot more interesting... we're in a different state every week.

A three foot machete and a roll of duck tape. OK... not really. Just a Leatherman Micra and some trash bags.