Actually I have a letter 1/2 drafted to the OP...sorry...I've been fixing a cache that I messed up the coords for since I started the letter this morning. Luckily it was caught before anyone got to boat out to it. Plus I haven’t even logged my finds yet…
The two of us went to the 2 caches in question about a week and a half ago. While posting my DNFs for your caches, I still was angry that a cache that I was hoping to make my 2k cache was a lame 1/1 traditional instead of the cool 4.5/4.5 multi it lied about being, but that's another topic for another time as well.
My parents are newbie cachers, they spent a terrible amount of time scouring the area a few days before. They were really bummed...as new cachers, DNFs can make things NOT fun. So we said we'd come over and try it.
Regarding “For those who served”:
The cache was the first we tried. There was a piece of artillery pointing away from a gazebo. The coords placed us 10 ft in front of the gun. We looked all over the gun, and saw the yellow jacket (?) nests. We looked the best we could. We gave the gazebo a gentle once over on the way back to the car, but it was getting a hot as blazes, and we’d both crawled under the cannon and were done
My log, dated July 29: “DNF. After 5 more days of Benedryl and steroid packs, the doctor said everything should be okay without any lasting damage after what they estimated to be 35 stings to my left hand. That should make it very hard for me to play fiddle. I'll bring some Raid next time. The doctor said I should have gone straight to the ER instead of trying to find ONE MORE cache. Isn't it great that hospitals now have WiFi?!?!?”.
I forget that not everyone in the area is familiar with my sarcasm, I was not stung by 35 bees, I hope that didn't worry you. (I thought 35 was ridiculous, I’ll use 1001 or two bizillion next time) I find out later that the cache WAS in the gazebo, at least 50 (maybe more) feet from the coords. It was archived before we got a chance to go back.
Upon reviewing the posts, I see 5 DNFs and 4 found logs indicating problems. No hints were given to steer people away from the questionable area, where they apparently didn’t have to go.
Regarding “Onion Rings”:
On our first hunt, all we knew about the cache was that the size was “micro” and “be stealthy”. I believe that the original difficulty level was much lower, maybe a 1.5? The Moops posted they were concerned for cachers being arrested, and a post note was made about the cache being hidden with permission later. Please note there were 5 constructive DNFS before any “insensitive” ones were flying, and nothing changed with the cache page to help out the cachers. So we went out July 29th.
My original log from July 29 “Came here as our last cache of the day. Checked in all kinds of places that we didn't want to look. The coords still need work, they put us in the middle of the kitchen, towards the back of the restaurant. Since the log was posted that this WAS hidden with permission, we searched with abandon. A young employee gave us a strange look, and we had to tell him what we were doing. He didn't know about any "scavenger hunt," so he went to ask his supervisor about it. She did know, and another employee was ready to give us an FTF prize, but we explained that we hadn't actually found anything. We just bought a GPSmap60CSx if you need some coord help we can let you borrow it. Is this why they created the "ignore" feature on this site? That was gross behind the restaurant. The only thing that was enjoyable about the visit was that we met some nice people in a gross back alley full of grease and broken glass. Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the rat skeleton behind the freezer.” The coords were 20 ft from the back alley, and 60+ feet from the front, when we looked. We looked at the whole alley and for a couple of minutes up front. Even this didn’t encourage anyone to search the front of the building, because neither the coords, nor the cache page told us to. In addendum, this is in a small town downtown, where all the buildings are in a strip, and you had to walk down the alley, around the corner and back down the street to get to the front of the building.
There were 8 DNFs, including mine, before the FTF found the cache with the cache hider present from what I can tell. The info was NOW divulged that the cache was actually in the front of the restaurant. With coords being “30 feet” off be your admission, letting us know it was the front, not the back would not really be a hint, but would have stopped at least 8 (or more) cacher teams from searching in that filthy place. We did NOT rule out the alley, as there are some cachers that have hidden in such places, for whatever reason.
When we returned on Sunday, armed with the fact that we were now to search in the front of the building, we did find the nano cache, no bigger than a stack of 4 shirt buttons. I haven’t logged my find yet, because I’ve worked 10+ hour days since Sunday when I found the cache.
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After summarizing my experience at the two caches in Lyons, OH, I offer some constructive criticism, which was on my mind before I saw that this had been brought up in the national forums.
If you have a doubt about your coords, even after checking them, it’s okay to put more info on the cache page. Even with poor coords, if you’d have let the cachers know from the beginning that the cache was on the front of the restaurant instead of behind or “not on the gun”, your caches would likely have gone from “Thumbs Down” lists to “nice evil nano” category.
And as I said in my log, we (perhaps along with some other cachers) are willing to undergo a “test run” of coordinates to help you out. Otherwise average the coords a while, walk around the block, and see how close you come when you get there again.
A lot of cachers in this area believe that the smaller the cache, the more accurate your coords should be. Walk before you run…just try hiding some nice “walk in the woods ammo boxes.” There are still some places to put them out there, I just placed a regular sized plastic box cache about 9 miles from there, at the cemetery where my great grandma rests.
Let us know if we can help.
-Mrs. BBD