Gambrinus & Crew

Thanks Tirediron. I should have included that I have a Garmin Legend GPSr. There really isn't any open area around there, but there is one place that is more open than the rest. I'll let the GPSr sit there for a bit to get synced up as much as possible while I look around in places outside the immediate area that I've been looking before. Thanks for the suggestion (and the wish for good luck -- I'm gonna need that)!

I solved the puzzle for a mystery cache and have the correct coordinates (verified with finder), but after 3 trips to the area, I haven't found the cache. My GPSr seems to point me almost to the exact same area each time I'm back there, but it is under very heavy tree cover and I don't know whether to trust it. Last time, I checked the accuracy and it said 36 feet (at one point anyway). When under heavy tree cover like that, can I trust the accuracy, or will the accuracy measurement be innacurate, too? Thanks.

Thanks Adam, I saw your other thread on GPS Visualizer and think your app is great, but didn't know if it could handle this. I'll give it a whirl and let you know how it goes.

Is there a mapping website in which you can enter a single set of coordinates (or even multiple sets) and have it show up on a map? I'd like to plot out coordinates associated with a cache, that are not the main ones for the cache, to see where they are. Thanks!

Hi Bassmount, Welcome! I'm new at this, as well. We started a couple weeks ago. I'm close to your neck of the woods, in Winston-Salem. I don't have any info regarding how different GPSr's work in this particular area, but I bought the Garmin Legend (the blue one). It wasn't the low end and wasn't the most expensive, so we went with it. It has worked great so far. My wife and I were even up in the mountains with it Monday and it worked great there, too. As far as being something fun for the family, if your kids are anything like mine, they'll love it. They're bugging us most evenings during the week to get out and do it. Even my wife is really into it, and I wasn't sure how much she'd like it. Aside from the mountains on Monday, we've done all caches in our local parks here -- we have a few cachers who have placed a lot, so there are a ton to look for here. I'll echo winseyguy and suggest paying attention to the difficulty ratings on the caches you do, doing easier ones first. It will give you a chance to learn what kinds of things to look for when you start going for the harder ones. Enjoy geocaching -- it's kind of addictive.

Hi, I got some travel bugs in the mail the other day and am thinking about how to use them and have a couple questions. First, what kind of life expectancy is reasonable to expect for one? I've read through Snoogans' tips for Longevity and promise to make it not too cute, small, worthless to collectors, etc. Any idea on average how long these things make it? Is it too much to expect it to still exist 6 months from now? 2 years? 3 weeks? Also, with regard to the goal of the TB. I found one this past weekend whose goal was to have it's picture taken in Mexican restaurants. We thought it was cute and obliged. Is that kind of thing common for goals, or is it too much to ask the finder? Should I stick to goals based only on moving from cache to cache? Thanks much.

We picked up a TB last weekend that I thought was pretty funny. It was a stuffed mouse (from www.spicemice.com) that "talks" -- Miguel Raton was his name. It was setup similar to what New England n00b spoke of above in that it had the goal with it. It was in a zip lock back with a piece of paper with info about travel bugs in general and about the goal for this one. It said that Miguel is a big fan of Mexican food and wants to visit Mexican restaurants and have his picture taken in them. The kids enjoyed the pictures we took of him when we went out to eat and we posted them in the log for the bug.

Thanks for the help. Now I'm wondering if the user had the same mistaken conception of the answer to the question that gave me the minutes figure for the coordinates that I did, and that my original coordinates were correct. The area this is in is highly populated and developed and it seems unlikely that I would be a mile off, yet still end up walking around in the woods in a park looking for the thing. I've sent the hider an email to find out if indeed my coordinates are wrong. I appreciate the responses everybody -- and the link, Leprechauns.

Hi, Just found my first 3 caches last weekend and both the kids and I loved it. I know I read a thread touching on at least part of this subject sometime in the last couple weeks, but I can't find it and am not sure what to search on to get a good hit (sorry if this has been covered many times). I found a local cache for which I had to answer trivia questions to get the coordinates. I did so and went out looking over lunch today. I didn't find it and when rechecking my answers upon returning to the office, found that I had one number wrong. I probably won't be able to get back to the park before the weekend, but I'm wondering how far off my mistake had me looking. My error was in the North coordinates. I had this: N36 05.149 It should have been the following: N36 04.149 I read somewhere that the numbers after the degrees represent minutes and seconds (MM.SSS). If this is correct, that means I'm 1 minute off. Is that right? Also, how far did that minute put me from where I should have been looking? If there is a website that explains this kind of thing that you can point me to, that would be appreciated as well. Thanks for any help you can give me.

I agree. I'm a newbie-wannabe (ever since I found the site and started reading about this intriguing hobby) and have been researching this for a couple weeks. All the votes for the Legend have won me over. Thanks for all the input, folks!