yogiabb

I have a nuvi 500 that I can load with caches so I use it to navigate to a good parking spot thine use MEGC to go find the cache. That system works great. My only problems with the MEGC are the slow to update problem that everybody talks about and I'm trying to figure out the value added of the Vantage Point software. It appears to be useless. Other than that I love the small size of the MEGC, the great battery life, and the large capacity of caches it'll hold. Overall I'm pretty happy with it. I've had two Garmins and two Lowrances and this is my first Magellan product.

I buy magnets at the Michaels hobby supply, Cheap and plentiful.

I have no problems of cleaning out overfull containers of junk without leaving something in return if it is causing a problem with the cache such as making it hard to close. That is the beauty of caches in parks. They all have trash cans. On my caches when I visit them I'll clean out all junk. Some people get a little emotional about it. I tossed out a used brillo pad once andf mentioned on my visit note that I thought putting a brillo pad was a dumb idea. The guy that put it there emailed me and said that he thought it was a unique and funny idea and didn't appreciate my dissing him about it. (I had no idea who put it in as there was no online logs or paper log entries taking credit for it). Of course I didn't bother responding to him. What could I have possibly said? Trash is trash and needs to be treated as such.

At least the reviewers now have the tools to see if mystery caches interfere. I have a mystery cache in Tulsa that I placed maybe three years ago. Within a few months somebody placed a micro within 30 feet of it and it go approved. I didn't complain since I know how much work goes into placing caches and it doesn't seem to be causing any confusion as far as I know. That should be avoided since you have to enter the coordinates for the physical cache location.

Snoogans logged "Tribute to Courage" in Texas. Dutch Safari also logged it, as well as "Sylvester's Cabin" in Tulsa. I logged "Sylvester's Cabin" in 2004. So, degree of separation of 1?

My wife doesn't like geocaching very much. She doesn't even like me talking about it. So I go about once a week with my son who is pretty neutral about it so I try and schedule regular size caches for him. Otherwise I go during lunch at work and on business trips. When the wife and son are gone visiting her parents I make the most out of it. So I don't think it affects the marriage much either positive or negative.

I was checking one of my own caches and found a used brillo pad. I took it out and threw it in a trash can. When I made a maintenance log I noted the brillo pad and ended with "... what is up with that?" The person that put the brillo pad in the cache emailed me and took offense with my offhand comment. He thought that it was a unique trade item and didn't see anything at all unusual about that.

A good rule of thumb is to not do any caches you don't want to do for any reason at all. There are always other caches to go after.

Reviewer Jones!

I have had very good luck with the black paint used to repaint charcoal grills. It sticks tight, doesn't come off and has a nice matte finish. I've used it on everything from lock n lock containers to recycled plastic pickle jars with no problem. My favorite for lock n lock is the camo tape shown in a previous post. Works great and stays on.

Amen brother preach it! I think creativity has more to do than how many caches have been found. I waited for about 100 finds before I placed my first but that was just me. I don't put myself high on the creative list.

I think this is so cool. I love to set up puzzle caches but I worry about people going out on wild goose chases. This should help out quite a bit.

Personally I don't do the dipping thing. I had never heard of a "personal tb" before though and it sounds interesting and may end up doing something like that. I have seen people do a "pickup and drop back in" in cases where an owner of a very difficult cache puts a jeep tb in a cache to entice people to try to find it.

I agree with everybody about the health benefits of geocaching. My advice is to avoid the bugs. Last summer I had a massive allergic reaction to fire ant and other little critter bites. I had to go to the doctor. He thought I was crazy for going out in the woods that time of year. I am certainly more cautious now.

Actual: 25:1 (301 finds, 12 hides) 30:1 is about right for me. It seems around here the finds per month per cache level out at around 30. Plus it is getting to the point where cache maintenance on muggled or damaged hides is taking a big % of time.

My 7 year old son (SuperPizzaBoy) and I have been geocaching for 2 years. He doesn't like it so much anymore which is OK but he would rather stay home and play videogames, which is not OK. He goes with me because he likes hanging with me and I bribe him with geocaching lunches at his favorite places plus money for the caches we find plus bonuses for ones he finds himself, but basically we're going to start doing something else that we can both enjoy. Anyway, I love it, he doesn't really care for it so I do more geocaching at lunch during the week plus we'll do a few on the weekend. Doing things that he enjoys doing with me is the most important thing so we won't be doing near as much in the future.

My employer recently bought me a Palm Treo 650 so I started using my personal Palm M130 with gsak and cachemate after nearly two years of killing forests with paper. I wished I had realized how much more fun geocaching would be going paperless.

I was a cub scout and a boy scout, didn't come close to making Eagle but we did lots of camping. I'm an assistant Den Leader for my son's Wolf Den.

Yep its changed my life. In the last year year and a half. I know where all the parks are in town. I know the routes of all the creeks. I know downtown better than anybody at the office and I know where the homeless people hang out. My family has been camping for the first time ever. We've been to all sorts of State Parks we didn't know existed. We've hiked for miles down great trails. I've learned to not to be self conscious in public and to ignore people who stare at me. I've encountered all sorts of helpful public servants and property managers in getting permission to hide caches. I've met a lot of great people. It has been great. What can I say.

I've used paper for a year and a half. Not a problem for me. I use a palm at work and love it but holding paper and entering by hand is ok. I take my 7 year old along and he is good for about 4 or 5 caches anyway. Then we go do something else.

On my second mystery cache, the first log started out, "Awesome cache!!! This was a blast!... Simple as that was, it made my day.

Me and my 7 yr old are going caching tomorrow. Yahoo.

Out of 160 some caches I've found I don't have an ftf. I don't really try that hard but I go early when I think I have a chance. I've been second and third a few times. When I get my first ftf I want it to be legitimate, not a fake one. In the area where I live there a just a few individuals who get to the caches first and I think that they deserve it. I don't care if they are retired or work nights or whatever. Who cares! They are there first.

I tried it once but didn't complete it in 5 minutes. If it were in my area I would definitely do it. Great job!!!

I get permission where it is required and it is obivious who to talk to. Where I live that is pretty easy as the city and county parks both have policies and contacts who are easy to contact and are supportive. The only problem I've had, and it is not a bad problem, is a city organization responsible for the public lands downtown. They suggested I talk to the city attorney for permission to place a cache. I didn't bother. They acted like I was better off not contacting them and just do what I need to do only do it discreetly. So that is how I handle my downtown caches. I make them inobtrusive and obscure as possible (using micros and and puzzles) and have never received a complaint.