the hermit crabs

Yep -- I've found lately that one of my favorite aspects of geocaching is taking pictures of travel bugs (both mine and others' bugs). And after realizing how pleased I was with the pictures that Old Riches took of our bug, I think I will focus on the picture-taking aspect even more now.

I'm still a relative newbie, so I don't know if this is the best way to handle this issue, but this is what works for me: when I'm pretty close to the cache (close enough that the arrow makes those sudden 180-degree turns), I just switch from the arrow screen to the satellite one, and watch the lat/long numbers on the bottom. Say, for instance, you want to go to N42 25.500, W071 36.300, and the satellite screen says that you're at N42 25.485, W071.36.310. In this case, you need to go a bit further north and a bit further east. I do a rough estimate of one pace per .001 minute, so my first attempt in this case would be to walk 15 paces north and 10 paces east. (This will vary greatly depending on how big your strides are, and, in the case of the longitude, how far you are from the equator.) If it's overcast and you have no compass and have no idea where north is, just start walking in a random direction and watch to see whether your lat and long numbers are going up or down, and then re-aim yourself accordingly. This works for me.

In addition to the things a lot of other people have listed (two GPSr's, packs, hiking shoes, ammo boxes, trading items, travel bugs, miscellaneous gadgets, etc.), we've made two other purchases: (1) Memberships to the Sudbury Valley Trustees and the Trustees of Resvervations (conservation groups in Massachusetts). We've gone caching in several spots owned or managed by these organizations, which led to us reading about them; we decided that we appreciated what they were doing, and are now supporting them. (2) A cell phone. Arg. As part of our hermit-crabbishness, we had resisted getting one for years, but finally broke down and got one since one of us often goes caching alone. As part of being dragged kicking and screaming into it, though, we got a pre-paid, no-bills / no-calling-plan type of phone. And we haven't given out the number to anyone.

This isn't a happy ending, but rather a very happy beginning. We recently released our first TB, "Ramblin' Boy", in honor of our disabled nephew. He has only been picked up by one cacher so far, but check out the pictures that that cacher logged on the bug's page to see what a great adventure he's having already. No matter what happens to the bug beyond this point in his travels, we'll consider this one a success.

It's probably because it's freshest in my memory, since we just did this one last night, but right now I'm proud of solving the "Starry, Starry Night" cache in about an hour, after other logs mentioned that it took some people days to solve it. (It's a puzzle cache that's doable entirely from home, so anyone can try it, regardless of their location.)

I recently logged my first DNF on a cache that I gave up on because I had searched everywhere I could think to look. All the previous logs for that cache were just a bunch of smiley faces, so I felt rather silly. I thought I must have been missing something really obvious. But a previous finder went and checked on it after my DNF, and confirmed it was missing. The cache has now been disabled. Two other caches took us a couple of tries. We didn't log DNFs after the first attempts, mostly because we weren't done looking yet -- we had just run out of time in one case (it was a 3-part multi that we were attemping during a work lunch hour), and it started pouring raining in the other case. I don't feel guilty about not logging DNFs for those, because we eventually did go back and finish them. (We mentioned in the logs that it took a couple of attempts.) I don't think it's necessary to log every pause in the search as a DNF.

We came home from a particularly trying day at work (after several other equally trying days in a row). We were stressed out and cranky and crabby. The phone rang and we didn't answer it -- we just sort of muttered "Leave us alone!" at it. That night I changed our geocaching name to the hermit crabs, because it just seemed to fit. (Now, even when we're in much pleasanter moods, the "hermit" part is still quite appropriate.)

I have a $25 discount card to a New England-area pizzeria chain (Bertucci's). It's good for $5 off on each of 5 separate visits. I used to go there a lot, and when I did, I would have been happy to have this, but I rarely go there any more -- maybe once a year. I had been planning to let it gather dust until it expires in 6 months, but now I'm wondering - would this be a reasonable trade item, or would it fall into the "crappy" category? (I didn't pay anything for it; they gave it to me free when I bought some gift certificates.)

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trying again

testing new avatar

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I'm still a newbie too -- only 7 seven finds so far. Today is the one-month annversary of our first find. I'm sure lots of experienced cachers will give you some excellent advice, but I thought you might appreciate hearing from someone who is just about as new at this as you are, since I have some learning-by-mistakes so fresh in my head. Here are some things I've learned so far: (1) When you're just starting out, read the cache page (a couple of times) and all of the logs. Read the hints, if there are any. Look at pictures people have posted for the cache. All of this information can be very helpful, and I wouldn't consider it "cheating" at this point -- it's just training wheels. Once we get good at it, we'll rely on this information less and less. (2) For the first few, pick a cache where a lot of the logs say "easy find" or "found it in a couple of minutes". Don't start off with one with a lot of did-not-finds or "got it on the fourth attempt!" log entries. Save those for a later challenge. (3) Use your GPSr to get you within the general vicinity of the cache, but don't expect it to land you right on top of it. Don't worry too much if it seems to be taking you in the wrong direction -- trails can loop around. For instance, for one cache that we were hunting, the instructions said that it was about 50 feet off the trail. As we walked down the trail, the arrow pointed in the general direction of the cache. The closest we got to it was about 500 feet, and then the trail started taking us away from it. After a while we were almost a quarter of a mile from it, so we backtracked to the closest point, and started heading through the woods. That turned out to be a mistake: finally we went back to the trail and found that it eventually looped around, bringing us to a point where it really was only 50 feet from the cache. (4) When you get fairly close (like within 30 feet or so), put the GPSr away and just use your eyes. Think to yourself, "Where would _I_ hide it?" (5) Don't just look down! Most caches we've found have been at ground level, but a couple have been several feet off the ground (in rock walls), and one was over my head (up in a tree). (Never would have found that one if we hadn't read the hint!) (6) If you've looked everywhere and can't find it... look again. More than once we've looked right past the cache, and only saw it on a second pass. (7) When all else fails, don't be afraid to ask for help. We were a bit stumped on a recent multi-cache, and finally emailed the cache owner, and he was very nice and helpful and steered us in the right direction. Good luck!

Several of the reasons already given apply to me, so I won't duplicate them here. The only one I haven't seen so far is this: we (spouse & I) are not very sociable people, so this is the perfect activity for us: we get to feel like we're sort of participating in something, without ever having to actually meet any of the other participants in person. (I also like reading logs after I've been to a cache, to see if someone trades for the items we've left.)

I have a 2002 Subaru Outback VDC (sedan) with about 56K miles, and I wouldn't buy another one. It's extremely noisy inside at highway speeds (it's basically impossible to hold a conversation at high speeds). The climate control system is the absolute worst of any car I've ever had. And the interior feels just sort of average, although it was an expensive car (expensive to me, anyway, about $28K). We just get yet another safety recall in the mail last night (this is I think the fourth one in less than two years). The one thing that is great about it is the feature we bought it for: the ability to get up our extremely steep driveway even when it's covered with ice. Our previous cars couldn't make it up the hill in winter.

It looks like the Garmin Etrex Legend might do what you want. www.offroute.com is currently selling it for $169.95, if you get there from geocaching.com's home page (to get the discount).