Gimpy13

There is a cache here in my part of the world that is a book cache. It's hidden in a secluded, (potentially) romantic spot on a river bank and it's meant to hold .... romance novels. It's been there a long time and I think there are a few people who visit it regularly just to trade books.

We met a rattlesnake about a month ago down by the Brazos River (about an hour west of Houston). It was playing "I'm just a stick" until my partner got a little too close. Then it played "I'm a deadly beast". We pretty much left that cache alone and agreed to come back for it in February... I'm guessing that when we go back that my heart will still be laying there on the ground where it landed when it jumped out of my chest in terror.

OK - gotta bite on this one. Exactly how much time do you spend at freeway exits, and why?

I encourage you to continue with your practice. I don't think anyone has said they have anything against golf balls, just that it's a little quirky sometimes. I was initiating a new cacher a couple of months ago. The first cache she found totally on her own had a French 2 franc coin. She kept it as her "first cache prize". I think foreign coins are a fun idea. I always leave something even if I don't take something. I hate to find a cache large enough to hold even small trinkets but find that there's nothing there but a log. Don't get me wrong - I love the hunt. I love the logs. But I also really enjoy swag. One day I came across five caches that had these little rubber frogs in them. It was fun because I knew I was following a route that some frog-leaver had followed before me. I always leave little silver flower charms - and if there is room in the cache I also leave larger stuff. -Carol

What part of the world are you in? I'm in Houston, Texas and I have a cache that is at least 8 miles from the nearest golf facility but someone left a log asking why there were all those golf balls at the cache. I thought... HUH??? By the time I got to go check on the cache, they were gone. I spoke later with the person who had seen them and he said there were about 5 of them, stacked in a little pile, right by the cache's hiding place. I have been stumped on this one so it makes me happy to learn that the golf ball phenomenon puzzles others, too.

I doubt that Groundspeak has anything to do with this but something I've noticed is that, in urban caching, some parts of town have nothing at all in them while other parts are well stocked (occasionally lousy with finds). After examining this phenomenon in four larger towns I am familiar with, I've come to the conclusion that this is a pattern that has been created by the hiders themselves. The parts of town that are bereft are "bad" parts of town! It makes sense. I wouldn't place a cache in a neighborhood that I wouldn't feel safe in, or where I would be concerned for the safety of fellow cachers and/or their cars, the cache, etc. I think this is kind of a useful quirk! When traveling, if I want to know which parts of town to stay in, I'll choose the parts of town that are cache-rich not for the hunt opportunities, but because they are likely to be the "better" parts of town. Sort of like our own personal Rand-McNallys.

Sorry, Dude. You lost me at "don't want to spend the whole week drinking Hurricanes." Seriously, though. While I try not to follow my GPS as if it were a geiger counter, sometimes yeah - I'll just walk around like I know what I'm doing, openly following the little arrow. I know a lot of people are all "oh be stealthy". Just how stealthy can you be when you're crouched in a pebble garden in front of a building examining the back of a huge chunk of lava rock that has a bison tube stuck in a nook? I just get down to business while not being too aggressive. If someone is looking at me I smile and say "hey" just because that's what people in the South do. If you didn't, you would stand out and draw attention. While we might think that we're really interesting, the truth is that most people just don't care that we're there or what we're doing. Last weekend I was going to a cache that ended up being in front of a church. It was obvious that the cache was hidden in a small rose garden that had been planted under the church's sign. The garden was raised about 3 feet off the ground and encircled by bricks. When I got there, I found two women at the roses - one sitting on the bricks! I could have just left but instead I walked right up to them. They looked at me a little funny until I got close enough to talk with them, and I said "Hey I'm not here to bother ya'll I'm just looking for something in the roses." They asked what I was doing and I told them about caching, showed them the film canister and the log when I signed it. They said "Oh that's interesting." But I could tell they were being polite and really thought I was a strange bird. Then I was off to the next cache - which turned out to be a bison tube stuck between some bricks in a mortar joint on the side of a very old building next door to a skyscraper.

Oh!! I like torn asunder, but without the torn part. "My cache was asundered." "Look - are they asundering that cache?" "Hey! Watch out! It's an asundererer. er. er." I'm also fond of "Decimators".

I'm not going to bash you but I am going to wonder about the serious marketing of a pro sport. Hmm. How much did Tiger Woods make over the last ten years as a serious athlete shooting "birdies" and "bogeys"? Basketball has its "alley-oops" and its "Nellie Balls". Football? How about "Hail Mary"? That's not only not "professional" but can also be religiously offensive to some folks. And don't even get me started on "pigskin". You know what? I have a good friend who is really - I mean REALLY - bothered by the word "moist". Go figure. She copes by not using the word. Now, you can say "I like my cake to be fresh and damp", but it doesn't really do the job. :-)

We've tried a lot of different kinds of rechargeable batteries but we've never been happy with them. They don't have the charge capacity of a regular battery and they discharge what power they do have quickly. After a few months of use, they seem to always lose the ability to take a large charge - holding less and less energy each time. FRUSTRATING!! About 6 months ago we bought a set of eneloop by Sanyo. They're designed differently that other rechargeables. I LOVE them. It was a little bit of an investment for us - we got 8 sets of AA and a charger - but they've been perfect. The take a full charge and they HOLD it. I've had the same set in my digital camera for two months. I use the camera a LOT, it has a motorized lens expansion, and I take a lot of flash pictures. I also keep them in my GPS of course. I recommend them to anyone. As you can tell. http://www.eneloop.info/

and the icon can be helpful but... ...unfortunately there is no way to search based upon the icon. Best bet is to run a pocket query for 1 terrains (or just peruse the list as many do - zip code browsing can be a good way to look). Within those 1 terrains, browse for the icon. If you see something you would like to try for but it doesn't have the icon, read the logs, try a Google Earth search, maybe write the CO and ask or, if it isn't miles and miles away, just go out and take a look! I wish there were an easier answer. Wouldn't it be great is the icons were searchable?? p.s. Don't be surprised if you go for a cache that has the icon but it doesn't turn out to be accessible. Something folks who have never been in a chair don't always think about is height or reach. Not their fault - just a different mind set. Don't let it get to you. They meant well!!

I'm pretty sure that if my husband saw this... um... cache container... that he's be out cacheing day-and-night!

I tend to think that's not the case. I think new cachers discover geocaching, go for a few hides near their home, and give it up because they get quickly tired of visiting parking lots. I've been in a couple of situations where people I met learned I was a geocacher. They'd say, "Oh yeah, we've done that a few times" and the proceed to tell me how everything they looked for was behind a dumpster, or in a sewer drain, or in a parking lot so they lost interest. Not new cachers, but a few weeks ago a well-known couple from Maine took a trip through my area. I was excited when they called and wanted to meet for lunch. When we got to the restaurant he asked me if Memphis had any caches that were not hidden at a gas station. All three caches they'd searched for since they arrived were in a gas station parking lot, one of them in a really questionable area of town. Frankly, that kind of makes me mad that we have visitors come from another part of the country and they have to wade through a bunch of rotten caches in order to find something worth seeing. How would these visitors know ahead of time? And the environment is such that you can't discuss this type of thing without drawing the ire of hordes of supporters. Who places and who looks for this stuff? I don't get it. Jamie You're right - I've met a couple of "yeah we did that" people. I think it sucks that they didn't find something more challenging before being discouraged and/or giving up. The same thing for the visitors from Maine. I wonder if these folks read the logs? I think you can usually get an idea of the nature of a cache from the logs. If it's full of TFTC and nothing else, it's probably not a big lot of fun. Someone had mentioned earlier (sorry, I don't remember who) the difficulty of finding a "good" cache because they would have to look through their entire download... Maybe I'm unusual in that I actually do that. I pull a pocket query but I also look up the ones that sound interesting here on the web site. Then I decide which ones I want to go for. It also helps me keep a few "in my pocket" so that if I'm running around town and I end up with an hour or two to kill, I can go hit them. I guess it's a different approach to the game - I don't understand folks who would go for whatever is on a list that downloads. Just different ways to play the game. Do you really feel like you're drawing the ire of hordes of supporters? I felt like this is a civilized discussion...

Many people confuse easily accessible caches with "numbers caches" (also termed "lame" by some). I enjoy what you call "mountain man" caches, but I also enjoy urban caches and park and grabs that bring me somewhere interesting or unique. Last year I had limited mobility for about 6 months, including 3 months spent on crutches. The fact that I was temporarily disabled didn't cause me to develop a sudden affinity for visiting 7-Eleven dumpster areas, Home Depot parking lots and highway guardrails. Where is it written that a 1/1 micro has to be lame? Wouldn't it be nice to have a plethora of easily accessible caches hidden in interesting areas once you're unable handle tougher terrain and wouldn't it be nicer if you didn't have to spend hours of research before heading out on a hunt? 1. I can't imagine ANYTHING that would give me a sudden affinity for visiting 7-Eleven dumpsters. Although, the nearest 7-11 is in Austin, and I do miss the Slurpees. 2. I agree about the micros and this is sort of the point I've been trying to make. There is a micro (a tiny, annoying little buffalo tube) that is hidden here in Houston. It's easy to find the general location but the actual tube? Not so easy. I was literally about an inch from it for about 15 minutes before I figured out where it was - and that was dumb luck. It was a combination of a great hide and great camo. Again, right in the middle of a city of 4 million people.

I've found that there is a mix. There is an interesting series on presidents here in Houston - a couple of the caches have been in places that are "urban challenging" - which means you have to be very careful during the day because of all the people - granted, not a physical challenge to reach them. A couple of the hides in this series have brought me to places I didn't know were there. One in particular is a place I've driven by for 35 years and never noticed - it's not only a pretty little park, it also taught me some interesting history that I would have had no idea about even though it's less than a mile from my office. We've got a person down here that does a series called "hidden in plain sight". And they are... if you can wrap your mind around the way this guy thinks. His are very mental and a lot of fun but not physically or geographically challenging. One of them had me walking in circles in a parking lot for half a hour before my caching buddy finally figured it out and pointed - "Hey could that be it?" and it was. We also have a couple of people who drive down a long road with a lot of commercial businesses and place a lamp skirt in each parking lot. Not original or exciting... but if you're really new at this game it might help you gain some confidence. It's pretty easy to figure out that these are not exciting or challenging - they're all in Kroger and Hobby Lobby parking lots and they're obviously in a big line if you look at the map. And really - I'm certainly not - and I hope no one is - asking you to "renounce" your statement! Only to consider that just because there might be a lot of caches in an area that it doesn't mean they're all just for the numbers. I know this is true in Houston - maybe it's different elsewhere. A couple of weeks ago my hunting buddy and I went north an hour or so to get some "non-urban" hunting in. Three caches were in a state park. Two were in circle drives and they might as well have been painted day-glo orange and had big arrows pointing to them. One of them sent me home with bloody scratches on my arms from wading into a cedar tree and a chigger on my ankle. THAT one was fun! I have a cache here in Houston that very experienced cachers write frustrated, happy logs about. Apparently it's hard to figure out how to approach it so it sends people driving a long way around - after they figure out they're in the wrong place - and then after they've crawled along behind a big fence for a hundred yards or so, they figure out that it's just off the pavement on the other side of the fence. He. He he he he. I didn't plan it that way, or design it to be that hard, but people seem to enjoy that they end up going "DOH!" when they find it. And it's in the middle of a city of 4 million people! Sometimes serendipity is all it takes to make a smiley. What made you get out of caching? And what made you decide to come back? Did you miss it while you were out of it? I'm sure I would...

That's true... not to brag (well, yeah, ok, it's a brag) my Buffy series has gotten very good reviews and they're all easily accessible. And I have a multiple that's driven a couple of people crazy. I'm extra proud of that one!!

I'll begin with the caveat of respect to those spectacular top of the mountain, hidden behind the angry brown bear's den caches. And I'll then suggest that the less Mountain Man/Woman caches are not "just for the number" for lots of us. Many of us are urban and don't have the opportunity to go after those Everest types of caches, and some of us (hey! me! me!) have a physical handicap that prevents us from enjoying them. Now, I don't want this to sound like a "I have no arms or legs and I can't see and I only have half of a skull but you need to make rugby accessible to MEEEEEEEEE" thing because that's not the spirit in which I write this. But maybe the disdain and assumption that a less out-in-the-woods cache is "just for the numbers" could be reconsidered. It might sound lame to some people, but I get a big kick out of that cache that I had to dig around in the ivy for 20 minutes to find because it was so freaking well camo'd and in a batch of pine trees so I couldn't get a read... even if the patch of pine trees was in the back of a business park instead of a mile off the path in a forest. Just my take on the subject. ON THE OTHER HAND... I am often just as tired of a lamp skirt as the next person.

Define what you think of as "really decent swag" please.... Well, I have a brand new combo lock, packs of batteries, a Mozart CD, a lens cleaning kit and a couple of compasses that you can put on your zipper. OK well that makes sense! That's good swag indeed. I gotta tell you - and don't think this is a slam - I am kinda struck that you've found 4 caches and you're ragging on the swag. I have only hidden 7 caches but what I've done is this. For the FTF I leave something like what you think of as "nice" - usually a pack of batteries. They always seem to be very appreciated. And I do have a multiple cache that I stock with "sort of nice" - a pack of Superman playing cards - nice Sharpies - and there is some "kids" stuff in there, too. But the other ones I don't put "nice" stuff in after the FTF because, as so many have said here already, trade up doesn't happen so much with urban and all of mine are urban. I can tell you that if there is room for swag I do almost always trade but I generally go for the stupid stuff. I found a cache recently that had cool stuff in it but I didn't take any of it. I just took the little yellow smiley face bouncy ball. I take stuff like that because it's just fun. I put it all in a zip-lock bag and it's fun to remember the caches. "Oh yeah - the rubber reindeer head! That was a funny cache." "Remember that green spider cache? Thought I'd never find that one." But I can say you juuuuuust never know. Recently I was out with Harusee and we came across a cache with a Barnes & Noble gift card in it. I figured - eh - it's trash. Harusee took it. It turned out to have $90 on it. After that I hated him.

Define what you think of as "really decent swag" please....

OK after seeing that picture I had to go read more. Lamb castration rubbers?? I can honestly say it never occurred to me that such a thing even existed. Caching can be VERY educational!

It's under "member features" for premium members. This is a link http://www.geocaching.com/notify/ - I have mine set up to send me a message for any new notification within a 15 mile radius of my home coordinates.

I was wondering the same thing - how do they log before it's posted? Then it happened to me. I got my first FTF a week or so ago. It went like this: I got a text message on my cell phone at 1115pm. I checked the website and confirmed the text message- the cache had been posted and the log said "published" and that was the only entry. I left my house at 1130pm. I signed the log at about 1150pm. I got home and entered by log online about 1215am. My log showed up below the reviewer's published log. I had no prior knowledge of this cache or anything in it. I have no explanation - I can only say there wasn't anything other than a straight find and log involved. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...bb-260c6e81bb30

Must be that time of year. To quote the logs of myself and my cache partner from last week: "GC1JBMD Traditional Cache Brazos River Run April 12 by Harusee (36 found) Stopped by today with Gimpy13 and there was a rather intimidating snake. There is a little culvert some distance in from the parking area and laying out about half way was a snake. It moved pretty quickly and I did not want to tangle with it or it's buddies so we decided to leave this for a cold, drought day. Maybe next January. [view this log] April 12 by Gimpy13 (63 found) SNAKE. Freaking R-A-T-T-L-E-S-N-A-K-E. This is so totally a didn't find it - and it will probably stay that way. SNAKE!!!!! (Probably wouldn't have even been there if it hadn't rained so much - but it was under the little culvert about halfway back from the parking area so anyone who goes out there please be aware.) Oh, did I mention... SNAKE! (You might have noticed by now that I have a problem with SNAKES.) " I'm very impressed that you got a photo! Ours was not asleep but that would have made no difference - I still would have broken a land speed record for scaredy cats running away.

It would also be nice if you dropped an email to the newbie and try to help talk them through it a bit. Maybe explain that you checked and that the hides were there and ask them where they looked? See if they even have a clue? You could go so far as to give them a hint and see if that helps them find the hide. If they're open to it of course. I know that looking back so many people think light skirts are stoooopid, but I'm not ashamed to admit that the first one I came across blew me away. I never even knew those cover thingees had names, much less that the would slide up!!!

I'm just interested in hearing what others have to say about the note. I found the cache quite some time ago, so this is not a complaint. Just a subject for conversation. My emphasis above.. I'd ignore this person's hides because 1) I want accurate coordinates. I give "dead on" and that's what I want from other COs. 2) This person is not clear on the concept. Caching is not "just a way to get you outside exercising." Caching is the hunt and the kill. It's the triumph. It's the scratches all over your arms from that darned cedar tree that you had to crawl through to get all the way to the trunk where that GALLON JUG was hidden (really fun cache btw). Caching is the trinket treasure, and the smiley covered Google maps. Exercise? Not even on my list. It's a by-product. 3) How incredibly offensive to suggest that I "might want to skip this one" because it "takes a little bit of thinking and a little time to find." HOW RUDE!! Click that ignore button and get on with the quest.