HistDrew

Cool responses, and I'll look forward to more. I think one thing we'll do for sure is to get the caches around the Royal Observatory. They appear to be on either side. Plus then we can eat and have beer at Meantime pub around the corner as a break. But I'll definitely look for a few others as well. I'm hoping for a pair that are on either side of the E/W line, which would place my furthest east and furthest west within a few feet of each other.

Hi! I'll be moving to England (specifically Grantham) in January. In addition to other kinds of caching I hope to do, I was trying to find some caches that are right on either side of the Prime Meridian. I've been looking one maps and have a few candidates (especially around the Royal Observatory). Iv'e also seen a bookmark list of caches associated with the Prime Meridian. But I'm wondering if anyone is familiar with caches like that in Lincolnshire to London corridor? HistDrew

I've not heard of dogs that are resistant to pepper spray. The spray called "Halt" is made especially for dogs. I'm thinking that even a "resistant" dog will pause for a few seconds, which is better than none. Do you know which breeds are supposedly resistant?

I'm sorry, but this made me smile and laugh. Yeah, mine has "stopped short" a couple of times for that. I have her on a 12 foot leash, though. I keep about 8 feet wrapped up in my hand just for this issue. Again, sorry to laugh at your broken ribs, but I can totally identify with the problem (if not the result).

Hmmmm..... I do this all the time with my Black Lab. It's the best exercise she gets. I ride through the neighborhood near our house. She's used to the cadence and the way to run next to the bike. One time only she went off-path, towards a dog that was snarling at me and running as if to attack. A quick yank on the choke collar and we were back on-route. No problems. To each hir own, I suppose.

This morning, three logs submitted via the iPhone app, none showed up on the site. So, I've deleted the app, reinstalled, and am heading out to grab a cache or three to see what happens. Good luck... Maybe I need to do more testing! The delete-and-reinstall seems to have worked. No problems since then.

Ditto. I went for a cache that was on school ground. The page for the cache didn't mention this. I later found out from the CO that he thought he had permission form the principal to hide the cache. That didn't matter to the Asst. Principal and the maintenance guy. They'd never heard of geocaching, much less that particular cache. They wanted to call the police, and it took a great deal of convincing on my part to get them not to. They also wanted the cache off the grounds ASAP. It didn't help that I couldn't find the cache. No school grounds hides.

That would be pretty cool, actually. It would be a very specific 50-State Challenge. Sign me up for the Kentucky leg of the multi.

That would be pretty cool, actually. It would be a very specific 50-State Challenge.

That sounds very cool. It might even induce me to drive through Kansas. Actually, I will keep an eye out for it. Sounds like one for the "Favorites" file.

I guess I wonder "who cares how far apart, as long as the CO can maintain it?" There are loads of caches out there, of all kinds. If the stages are too far apart, then people won't do it. I think, though, that the CO ought to be up front about the distances in the description, unless the point of the cache is to challenge. I'm getting ready to publish a 5/5 mystery with stages. Total distance is about 4-5 miles. Each stage is difficult, and honestly I don't expect many people to make it through to the logbook. But then again, I live in an area that is full of D/Ts that are less than 3/3, and not many more than that. There are some local cachers who will do this one, and I've hidden it for them. I think they'll have a great time.

This morning, three logs submitted via the iPhone app, none showed up on the site. So, I've deleted the app, reinstalled, and am heading out to grab a cache or three to see what happens.

Oddly enough, the new app does seem to have one problem for me. On both my iPhone and iPad, the new app said that it uploaded all the caches I logged, but when I went online to check, many had not uploaded. This happened twice. Both times I waited a day to re-check and then logged from the webpage. Very strange. One of four on the phone, three of thirteen on the iPad.

Here in the States you can buy very small spray cans of pepper spray that work well as dog repellants. It wouldn't have solved your situation (where the dog bit suddenly, out of nowhere), but it can come in handy. It might be a nice thing to have in a caching kit. Here's an example: http://tinyurl.com/6l3lbul

If it turns out to be a good one, and depending on the kinds of suggestions I get here, I plan to.

Not a bad idea, but that adds a number of steps to the process. Using a bookmark list, as I count it, includes the following steps after the actual creation of the list: 1. Click on cache 2. Click on "Bookmark it" 3. Click on "Create Bookmark" 4. Click back to get to cache page 5. Click back again to get back to map I'm thinking more along the lines of a drop-down menu that automates it. Two step: 1. Click on cache 2. Click on drop-down "Add to PQ list"

Sure, I've done that. But the route PQ doesn't exactly follow the road (it follows straight lines along the road-path) and would include many caches instead of the few I'm looking for.

You know what would be a cool feature for the website? Something along the lines of a shopping cart for cache/gpx files. This came up because I'm planning a route straight across Kentucky, through some back roads areas. I want to load my GPS with specific caches, and a PQ just doesn't fit it. So as I'm manually dragging the map along the highway, I'm looking at certain caches along the way--checking for recent finds/DNFs, D/T numbers, and a few other things. It would be cool if, when the little window pops up with the mini-info on the cache, or on the page for the cache itself, you could click a button that reads "drop this into my cart." Then at some point you could click a button that reads "download my cart as a gpx" and then all the caches you dropped in the cart would come out in one file. So, no extraneous caches for those times when your GPS is full, or you want to drive from specific cache to specific cache without clutter in between. Thoughts?

Agreed, to an extent. At our local university, we have someone who teaches geocaching as part of a GIS/Geography course. Every semester his students register on geocaching.com, and then go out and find some nearby caches. They pick up maybe four or five of them. But as part of the class they also have to hide a cache and register it. What we get are some poorly-placed caches that after the end of the semester won't get maintenance because the students head back home. It's frustrating, and my annoyance finally bubbled over when I FTF'd this one: http://coord.info/GC2H0N0 On the other hand, this is a game with thousands of players form all over the world who hide things for me to find, and they do it for free. It gives me a great way to learn a new city/town, it's fun to do with my kids [one of whom now has his own account and hid his first cache the other day (with my help)], and that is as hard or easy as I want to make it. So, it's annoying, yeah, but also kind of a wash for me. I was a newbie once, too. Still am, kinda.

You're a genius. Thanks. Turns out that the easy way to do this is to: 1. Insert the SD card in a card reader and connect to the Mac 2. Go into the terminal in the Mac and go to the SD volume 3. Use the "rm - r" command to remove the files with a period [.] 4. Remove card, reinsert in GPS. 5. Boot GPS 6. Go geocaching. Thanks for the help. I appreciate it.

Good questions and points. Let me see if I can address a couple of them. I've used the USB Mass Storage on only one occasion, which seems to have caused one of the failures. On other occasions I have used a card reader, put the SD back in the unit, and it failed at that point. In all cases I had removed the battery to make sure that no power surge could be at the root of this. I'm using GPS Connect to open the files. Using the USB connection it won't send files, although it seems to think that it's connected. I haven't tried another program. As noted, I'm on a Mac.

I bought a Garmin 76csx last year when I started geocaching. I also bought a 2 gig SD card to go with it. I installed some maps and a few other things, and tried to connect to the card via a cable, and the card failed. The GPS wouldn't boot up. A second card did the same. I don't remember which brands, but I tried two different types. Failure of the card manifested itself in the unit failing to boot up on powerup. I put a third card in, installed the maps, and left it alone. Fast-forward a year, and I'd forgotten about that. With a shiny new membership I downloaded a gpx file from a pocket query, connected to the SD card through a USB cable and the "USB Mass Storage" function, and *bam* that card failed. I tried a second card, and that too failed. I then put the card in the reader, put it in my Macintosh, and there was all the information on the card. So, in fact, the card hadn't failed. Something happened that made the GPS unable to read it. In fact, all three cards are readable on my laptop using a micro-SD adapter, but when installed on my gps keep the gps from booting up. The most recent brands are 2-gig SanDisk and PNY. The SanDisk is not the type against which Garmin recommends. Has anyone else had this problem, or know of a solution? Suggestions [besides install the card and don't mess with it. I'd like to be able to download pocket queries and transfer them to my unit.]? HistDrew