Car54

I read the forums alot, though I don't post very often (too thin-skinned). But this time, I just gotta say - Thora & Nece, you sure are some kind of cute! We have a black lab-mix pup who's just about a year old and she loves the sight of the leash! Our golden retriever is getting on up in years and while he still loves to go on walkies, he can't really do the long hikes any more. Oh, and Norah, you're a cutie pie, too. Aren't dogs great? Rochelle

Hey, Patrick.....would it be impolite to ask if you've been out to your Big Rock cache lately? We and a couple of other doofusses couldn't find it and we have this burning desire to know if it's really still there. Thank you, Carly the black lab and Rusty the golden retriever

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Wildwoods, That is *too* funny!

Rick, How cool! I hadn't read the local section of the paper yet, but as soon as I saw your post I looked up the article. For those of you without access to the print article, there's a nice big picture of RPW included with the article. It's a very nice article - good to see some postive press for a change. Maybe someone should start a thread in the main geocaching topics forum with a link to the article. (I'd do it myself, but I am a techno-goof and rarely succeed when I try to post a link. ) Rochelle of Car54 (Apparently I'm also a spelling goof - edited to correct spelling.)

I don't know about you, but when I read the paper, I see terrorists blowing themselves up all the time. These folks come in all shapes, genders, ages etc. If I thought there was the possibility of a box containing a bomb, then I probably wouldn't let anyone open it either. After all, it would accomplish the same thing as far as the terrorist was concerned. As a reasonable person, I wouldn't consider it likely that a bomb would be placed in small town Indiana, but the whole point of terror is that a bomb could be placed anywhere. Look at where the bombs go off in Israel. Most of the time, its in small restraunts or, yes, ice cream shops. Now, let's say this was a legitimate bomb. Would you be all forgiving of the Sheriff because he let someone go and set it off? I don't think so. What is the point of this? You have to cut folks some slack. These folks are trying to prevent another incident like 9-11. The cost of the incident is that they took out a box worth a couple bucks. A new cache can be placed. Now, it teaches us that we need to keep folks informed of what we are doing. That may mean that more caches will be muggled, but as a cache owner, I would rather have that happen than have a squad called out and folks soiling their britches for no good reason. Just a few thoughts, joe

Star, I already e-mailed him with a link to the Star Press story. I didn't link him to this thread, though. We, too, have met him and he seems a nice, responsible sort (I don't know if he'd like that description, though ). If you look at his profile, he is a charter member, having joined in 2001, so he's far from being an inexperienced noobie. We've hunted several of his caches. I think this whole sad incident is being blown WAY out of proportion. Rochelle of Car54

That's it!! Thanks, 7 - really appreciate it! Car54

Hello from an Indiana geocacher. I apologize in advance 'cause I suspect this has been asked a bazillion times but my attempt at a search turned up nothing. I've heard there is a cache located at or near Garmin HQ in Olathe, KS. We're going to be in Overland Park over Thanksgiving and would like to do that cache - if it exists. Can anyone confirm that for us and maybe give us the waypoint? I've searched for nearest from the Olathe zip code, but none of them appeared to be at Garmin HQ. Thanks for the help!

CR, Now that I think about it....that's a very good point about virtuals. Since we live only half an hour from the cache, and since the area is so beautiful in the autumn, it won't be any hardship to revisit. However, if we can't answer the question after our second visit, we'll probably go ahead and log the smiley.

As part of last weekend's caching activity, we posted a DNF on a virtual. We were most definitely in the area, but it wasn't until we got home and read the hint that we realized we hadn't seen what we needed to to answer the question. So I logged a DNF. One of our finds for that weekend was a traditional cache by the same owner. We logged a find on it, although I admitted in our log that I was kind of ashamed to do so. Yeah, we found the ammo box, made a trade and signed the log, so technically it WAS a find. However, we did the cache as night was falling and rushed through it, never seeing the view for which the cache was named. Guess which of the two caches was the better experience for us? Yep, the DNF. The cache owner e-mailed us about the DNF and said we could log it as a find since their intent was to take cachers to a specific area and we had obviously been there. I've left it as a DNF, though, 'cause IMO we didn't meet the requirements stated on the cache page. I did really appreciate the e-mail from the owner, though. In a few weeks, we're going back and try again on the virt and we'll also try to right our geo-karma by visiting that one find again so we can experience the beauty of the area, not just the satisfaction of finding the ammo box.

Notjustjay, Oh yeah, I'd hide the ammo can on the premises. Although we are in an industrial park, it is somewhat rural and we have a wooded area on our property that would be a perfect place for the ammo can. Just wondering how to get them to take a picture....

This topic has me really thinking.....I work at a food bank (non-profit, of course!) and coincidentally, I have an extra ammo can laying around just waiting to be born as a cache. If I just "suggested" a canned food donation, and had a physical cache with normal trading items as well, all would be well, right? Any way I could work in the desire for a picture to be taken by our building or our truck? I know I could ask on the cache page, but without an incentive, will people do it? Perhaps by offering "extra credit" of some sort, like a certificate I could e-mail or something? Any ideas?

RK, Doh! Why didn't I think of that? I just sent an e-mail to the IN geocaching group with a link to this topic. Thanks!

We live very near Indiana's newest state park - Prophetstown SP in Lafayette, IN, and we want to place a cache there. Since most, if not all, of the other IN state parks have caches, I assumed the IN DNR policy was to allow caches. Nevertheless, I called the local park office before placing the cache. For one thing, Prophetstown is different from all other IN state parks in that it is a prairie restoration park. Therefore, environmental concerns about off-trail activity is very real. 3 weeks ago, I talked to the asst. park manager, who said he was familiar with our sport, having come from another IN state park. He didn't sound too thrilled with the idea and stressed that IF they allowed it, they'd want to know the co-ords in advance so they could check the suitability of the location, they would want to be contacted for permission for each and every cache in the park, etc. I agreed to that and I talked up the positives of the sport - more visitors (& $) to the park, CITO, public use of public land, etc. He said they'd discuss it and he'd call me back. Today, having heard nothing, I called back and this time got the park manager. If anything, he was less thrilled than his asst. I volunteered to be a local contact for them, stressed that I would emphasize on the cache page that ALL caches required PRIOR approval, that I'd come to retrieve any unapproved caches and contact their owners, etc. He said he'd discuss it with his regional supervisor when he comes to visit in a few weeks. I've also e-mailed our local approver to let him/her know not to approve any caches in this park yet. I'm getting the feeling that permission is going to be denied. Is there anything else I can do? Would it help for someone else more experienced (we've only been cachers since 4/04, 180+ finds, 1 hide so far) - like maybe the local approver - to contact them? I'm open to any advice.

CapnJack, That's too funny - I noticed that, too. Rochelle of Car54

Oooo, thank you SixDogTeam - I didn't know about that cache. It sounds like a place I'd like to see - I've added it to our watch list so I'll remember it whenever we're nearby.

SpiritNip, That is one CUTE puppy! I hope she realizes how lucky she is to have landed in your family. After our 7-year-old border collie died suddenly in April, we adopted a 5-month old female black lab mix. There's nothing quite like the love a pet offers, is there?

Yes, you did. Thanks!

A lot of things would come to a screeching halt and remove the reason that many people get PQs--and thusly pay their $30 a year. Whatcha think? This is the post that had me confused - it seems to imply that GPSBabel could get "broken".

I am just your basic, non-techie geocacher with only 6 months of experience in the sport. But just like DeViDe, I am concerned that all this legal mumbo-jumbo disagreement is going to impede our ability to download our PQ's, use GSAK to convert them and put them in our PDA. Didn't an earlier post indicate that GPSBabel might be in violation and that GSAK depends on, or at least uses, GPSBabel? I'm probably (no, definitely) over my head, here, but this whole discussion sounds like a tug-of-war which could result in all of us falling down. Rochelle

I think you might be talking about GCJP2N - Indiana Spirit Quest # 36 - Rainbow Bridge. It's located in a pet cemetery. HTH

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