Sol seaker

I don't see the "lab" icon either. I think the idea of checking things out with community is a really great idea. Is there a way we will be able to give feedback? That's what checking things out with the community is all about. I like the "tour" idea, but since I don't drink I'm not hot on the idea of having to go into a brewery, actually many breweries to get an icon. I would be even less happy if I had children who like to cache, but I guess most cachers seem to be adults anyway. If I can actually see an icon I'd do it though. I'm a sucker for a new icon.

My intent was not to be unwelcoming. Is it just cachers in Olympia that are wanted?

Google is your friend. It is highly commercial, race around town to get the 10 FTF prizes the merchants provide. After that you get a raffle ticket. Oh, and don't bother looking for the caches on GC.com. Thanks. I guess my search was too specific, I just got the same page I'd seen. Same with me. A specific search usually works. Not this time. Good for me to remember.

I haven't heard anything about it. The sponsor page says they bought the sponsorship for the geocaching event, so I don't know if it would do much good to ask the sponsor. There don't seem to be any links there so that's kind of annoying.

There has been at least one person who was prosecuted for stealing caches. There are just some people who have so much pain inside them that they can't feel pleasure unless they cause others pain. Let's just be glad they aren't out shooting people or something. Having someone steal our caches is annoying (I have to go replace two of mine right now that were stolen in the manner you suggest) but it's not physically hurting any of us, and for that I am glad.

I find the ones I can't find make the game fun. Sometimes I'll go for a while easily finding them all and it gets to be not so much fun. Then I DNF one and the challenge is on again. Over time, periodically I'll return to a cache repeatedly to try to find it, but only as long as I'm having fun. I don't return to needle-in-a-haystack hides. Usually. Sometimes I'll try bringing back different friends to the cache. They may find it and teach me something new. I like having one out there that's on my "challenge" list to return to now and then. I do always enjoy them more if they have a high rating to match though. Then I know it's not just missing and I enjoy the reward of finding a high rated cache.

That wasn't me. I thought we had to.

You are doing an article on geocaching when you haven't found any? Is this a sock puppet account? If this is your only account, I'd say the first step is to get outside and find some. That's like writing an article on baking cakes when you've never made one. You may be able to read a recipe, but until you've had the experience you can't teach others. Go out, give it a try and get back to us. I recently told someone that before they know anything about geocaching they've had to have found at least 100. I'd say at least find 100 before you write your article. If you've got to write it soon, no worries. I found 86 in one day once, so go find some.

Thank you, all of you, for keeping us up-to-date on these local trail closures. Much appreciated!!!!

Thank you so much CouchCrew for posting this!! I was going to add Camano Island Cache which was scheduled to go due to lack of owner response, but it looks like the owner has finally responded and Ranger Tina has finally gained ownership of it. She has been maintaining it for years. I'm glad the owner pulled through at last to pass on that oldie in a beautiful state park. Are there any others out there that people know of?

Yep. thanks for posting that. I'm glad to know it's gone for the creep factor along with knowing no kid is going to get hurt in there, or someone else will take over it and take off where that guy left off. I've got caches in that area and I'm glad to know it's gone. Perhaps we can lay this whole subject to rest now. Mod? Perhaps we can close this thread. It seems the topic is closed. For good.

You can always search with Pocket Queries to get size. As a premium member, you have access to pocket queries. You don't even need to run a PQ. You can just "preview" it, which doesn't count against your 5 PQs run per day quota, and which functions pretty much as the kind of advanced search you just described. For more info on PQs, see: http://www.markwell.us/pq.htm Pocket queries are not a good replacement for a decent search engine. A website like Geocaching.com should have a decent search engine. Most websites do, even those that serve far fewer customers. Pocket queries have a whole lot of limitations, starting with my example of searching for "cow" caches, there are a whole lot of limitations that make it not a search engine, it is a pocket query creator; the work you have to go through to create a query and the time it takes vs. just hitting a "search" button; people who are not premium members can't use it, when any member should be able to do a simple search, etc. etc. A decent search is a very basic function of any website. I can't see any reasonable excuse for not having a decent search function.

Yes, THANK YOU VERY MUCH Cent5!!!! I had a blast!!! It was so much fun!! We saw a lot of bald eagles, Great blue herons, etc. It added another level of fun to the trip to move from the power boat into the canoe for the one cache. I had a really great time!! Thanks so much for inviting us all along!! (Feel free to let me know when you go out boat caching again )

This is helpful, thank you, but I still get caches from Washington County, Maryland, cow travel bugs and all sorts of other flotsam and jetsam. Refine that Google search further to: site:geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx cow washington and you'll only get caches. You might still get caches in a Washington county somewhere, but most other flotsam and jetsam is gone. I've often wished I could search by any criteria(name, terrain, etc.) AND restrict either zip code or state. Type of cache and other restrictions together would be great, too. Also, wouldn't it be nice to restrict PQ hits by how many DNFs? If I want to take children out and don't want frustration, I'll want to avoid caches with 4 or more consecutive DNFs, for instance. This sort of search syntax is available using the Lucene search API. Essentially, every cache listing could be represented as a Lucene "document" which might have fields such as "name", "terrain", "cachetype", "state" etc. Once the index is built a search for something like cow state:Washington terrain:3 would list all caches in the State of Washington with a terrain = 3 with the word "cow" in any of the fields (i.e. in the cache title or the description). It also supports range queries so something like cachetype:unknown difficulty:[3 to 5] would list unknown caches with a difficulty of 3 or higher. Lucene "documents" can be built and indexed from a variety of sources and it's fairly easy to build them using database queries. If you're wondering about if something like this would scale to 2 million caches, we're using Solr (which uses Lucene under the hood) for indexing our university library catalog, which has over 9 million records and has a lot more fields for each record than a cache listing might have. Hi NY Paddle cacher. thanks so much for your response. Do you have an English translation for that? Seriously, I"m sure this will be of great help to many people reading this thread. I'm afraid I'm not employed in the computer field, nor do I use anything very high tech in my occupation, so I'd be lucky to remember how to find cow caches on Google really. I understand a whole lot of cachers are really high tech, so I'm sure this will help them. There are probably a few of us left that are stone age folk who use a rock for a mouse and keep our computer work to a minimum. For those few of us, it would be great to have a great search engine on geocaching.com where I can find cow caches in WA state without having to go through every cow cache in Germany and Antarctica before I find the one down the street. Thanks for your input!!

This is helpful, thank you, but I still get caches from Washington County, Maryland, cow travel bugs and all sorts of other flotsam and jetsam. It would be nice to have this function upgraded on this site. Thanks.

Awesome! Sounds good. Lamoracke, I think you've got my email and phone number already, so let's get in touch and figure it out. Thanks so much Cent5. Sounds like a lot of fun!

Going on the second run with Lamoracke would be great! I'm not with my calendar, but I think either day works for me. Thanks so much for accomodating us all! And thanks for being willing to pick me up at the ferry Lamoracke. That would be great if I could leave my car on the island.

Can we squeeze in one more? We're friendly. I'd hate to see Lamoracke get left out. I have my own lifejacket if that's any help.

Okay, looks like I can get the day off. And now that some people I know are going I'm feeling more comfortable about the trip too. I currently live on Whidbey Island. I'm wondering if I can meet you somewhere further north. Where will you be launching the boat? I can either take the ferry over to Mukilteo or I can drive around the top of the island to the Skagit area. Where are you getting into the boat?

I'd love to!!! I'll have to see if I can make it work though. Let me get back to you. Consider me a "maybe."

Where are you located? What City? I'm sure many of us would be happy to show you how to use it if you are near us. Also try the tech section of these forums. Nevermind, I looked at your profile. You're in Battleground. I'm no where near there or I'd be happy to help. You might try the GPS tech section of these forums, or perhaps ask specific questions here. I've got a very similar GPS so may be able to answer many of them. Also, Garmin has some really great videos on it's website on how to use it's GPS's. You might check those out. Youtube has some videos too. Oh, now I see you used the "help" sections on the garmin site. Did you try the videos yet? Those are easier.

Thanks so much!!! To all who were involved with this project, thank you!!! You've done a great service to WA State cachers, both old time cachers, and new cachers, including many younger cachers who have never been to these State Parks! We've got some of the most beautiful State Parks anywhere. It's great more people will be gaining incentive to get out and see them! Thanks!!!

Yes, that's true. http://www.timesnews.net/article/9055807/scott-county-search-turns-up-marijuana-weapons-moonshine-still http://www.timesnews.net/article/9040171 Wow, a whole half pond of pot and one whole gallon of moonshine. I hope they are as proud as they sound, catching this kingpin of this major drug ring.

I use FireFox which spell-checks everything I write. It immediately underlines misspelled words. My spelling has improved dramatically since I've been using it. It doesn't require that you turn it on or activate a checker. It's always working. I'm glad I switched from internet explorer. Of course you've got to know the difference between two, to and too, and things like that. Badly misspelled cache pages bother me too.

Double post