Neos 1

Now that's funny!

Down in our neck of the woods the "cedar" is quite common. Unfortunately most of those are actually junipers.

Ooops wrong account! See below, please.

Team Neos will be roughing it again this year with a Studio room at the Canyon Inn for Friday and Saturday night. Looking forward to seeing everyone.

Words of wisdom from M7:7 and KK as well. I'm pretty sure the GSA has better things to do than deprive one cacher of a pin or two. By all accounts, Geoaware is a busy man. If you're having trouble getting your EC approved, make it a little stronger in the geology department and maybe a little less focus on the man made aspects of your intended site. Without having seen your write up, I don't know what information you included but I have a couple of suggestions. For the spring, have you included information about the aquifer, i.e. size, depth, volume of water, origin, reason for bringing the water to the surface? I'm guessing the other one is on the Savannah River. Have you included fun facts like why the dam is there (I'm guessing flood control, mainly), the drainage area of the river, could you possibly tie the site to the local strata? That would work for either one. Don't get me wrong, I understand your frustration. I know of at least one EC in my area that is similar to one of the ideas that you submitted and I wondered myself how it got approved as it is a man made feature. IMHO, the guidelines for EC's could've been tightened a while back and this branch of the game would not have suffered. I hope this helps in your quest to get your EC approved.

Well said Tobias. Just one more point though. Around here it can be pretty near impossible to snag an FTF due to the large, highly motivated, well armed, cadre of FTF Hounds residing in this area. To claim an FTF around here by us lesser motivated, more normal seeming individuals (I said normal seeming) is a moral victory (and mostly by happenstance).

I'll check with the boss. Might even drag my Martin and/or my Olympia bass.

(Bold and italics are mine for emphasis) We seem to be missing the point here people. The point is not whether or not a photo should be part of the logging requirement but what type of photo is required. You don't need a photo of someones face to prove they visited the cache or not. Wouldn't a pic of a GPSr, displaying the coords at GZ do just as well? Is that any easier to photoshop than a head shot? My guess is not much at best. Wouldn't a unique photo of some sort, taken at GZ suffice just as well? If someone wants that smiley that bad to go through all the trouble of manipulating an image enough to fake having been there, they deserve the smiley. I have developed one EC on my own and share credit on three others and have uncredited work on a couple more. Some of these ask for a photo. Some don't. Would I delete a log just because somebody didn't upload a pic from GZ? Only if I was sure that the person didn't actually visit the site and I would have to be sure. The learning activities associated with my/our caches are such that, in most cases, the photo isn't necessary if the activities are done. You can tell from the answers if someone was actually there. Sure, someone could lift the answers from a previous log or from the web but I don't really care. If they want to cheat, say it with me, they're only cheating themselves. I feel that to mandate a face shot is egocentric, controlling, and manipulative and to delete someone's legitimate log because you didn't get the kind of picture you demand is childish and vindictive. Yeah I know. It's your cache and your rules and until Geoaware changes the guidelines, you can continue to be petulant and uncompromising, making more work for yourself and making what should be a fun learning experience a bit of frustration and drudgery for those that don't adhere to you rigid guidelines. I thought the whole idea behind this EarthCaching thing was to bring more people to learn about the earth we all share, not make people jump through hoops. In closing I'll just say this. If you don't want to have your face posted on the web, avoid those caches that require you to put your face on them. To those of you who are so adamant about having exactly what you require in an image, lighten up. It's only a game. Play. Have fun.

I can't think of very many people, cachers or not, that would want to see me naked.

I use a 60 CSx for both caching and nav purposes. I drive a truck for a living and have City Navigator loaded onto my GPSr. You can buy a sand bag type dash mount for the 60 which is what I use in my semi along with a 12v power cable. The biggest issues I have with this setup are 1.) Sometimes the position of the sun makes the unit hard to see. That can usually be remedied by moving the unit around on the dash a bit. 2.) If you aren't connected to the cable, the back light doesn't work all the time also making the unit hard to see. 3.) If I'm using this set up in my car while caching, it's a pain in the rear to disconnect the cable and remove the unit from the mount, go run the cache down, then put everything back together. If I'm in an area where the caches are close together, I usually don't put the unit back in it's holder. If I have a bit of a drive to the next cache, I'll hook everything back up again. On the plus side, the 60 is a rock solid unit. I can pull down 5 satellites in my living room. The sand bag mount rides well in my semi on all but the worst roads and in my car it pretty much stays where I put it. The 12v power cord actually trickle charges the batteries in the GPSr extending battery life and when the unit is plugged in, the back light is on making the display easier to see. On a 2GB mini SD card you can put everything from the Rio Grande to the Arctic Circle as far as maps go. One other negative on the dash mount. It requires a bit of room. It's adjustable but some vehicles don't have a lot of room between the dash and the windshield. The wife and I travel a bit and usually rent a vehicle for long road trips. I think we've had one car that didn't have enough room for the dash mount to display the GPSr upright so I turned it sideways. It took a little getting used to but we made it work. That's my two cents worth. I hope it helps.

Or substitute IPod for PDA.

Yes, the business are broken down further. I don't have my unit with me, but I think if you hit menu, you can get a list of categores. Briansnat is correct. If you hit your POI reference from the "Find" button, it gives you 2 search options. One is "Nearest Containing" and the other is "Change Reference". By selecting the first option you can enter a word specific search. By selecting the second option you can drag your cursor to a particular reference point where you get the "All POI" list again.

Mtnman262, I'm not a local per se. I live about 100 miles south of Cincy but have spent more than a little time there. I'm not really sure you can find 1 cache to represent an area as diverse as Cincy. I looked at your profile and noticed you don't have any EarthCaches. If you would like to start with a good one, might I recommend this one: Trammel Fossil Park EarthCache in Sharonville, about 16 miles north of the river. The place is rife with Ordovician fossils that you can keep. The wife and I did this one a while back at around 2:00 a.m. and had the place to ourselves. You literally cannot pick up a rock without finding a fossil. We probably left the place 40 pounds heavier than when we went in. There's no charge for parking or admission. Just a suggestion

IMHO, PMO EarthCaches are just wrong. While I do support the idea that owners of physical caches have a right to make them members only, I find it counterproductive to do the same thing with EarthCaches. Aren't EC's about learning? Why would you deprive anyone of knowledge about the wonders of the planet just because they either won't pony up, or possibly can't afford to pony up for a premium membership. More knowledge is a good thing, right? I've learned new things about places I've known (or thought I did anyway) all my life thanks to EC's. What possible reason could there be for making learning a members only thing. As stated in an earlier post, if you're trying to limit the number of visitors because of ecological sensitivity, then perhaps there shouldn't be a cache there at all. I don't get it. I'll shut up now.

I'm glad you enjoyed the "Connection". Sounds like you had a pretty good day.

One thing no one has mentioned is your computer's OS. I have a fairly new machine and it has 64 bit Vista. Palm doesn't have 64 bit drivers for their older handhelds. 32 bit is okay. I have a Zire 31 and let the battery run down. I no longer have Cachemate. In order to get it back on my PDA, I have to find someone that has a Palm device w/Cachemate on it and have it beamed to me. I have to load the caches onto an SD card from my computer since it won't HotSync and it's a bit of a pain but it doesn't matter since I don't have an app to open the files anyymore. I now use my IPod Touch w/ the AirShare app. and it's working out well.

BrunoJr, Hi and welcome to the game. I use a 60csx and would recommend using the compass page with the compass turned off when you're within a half mile or so of the cache. After you tell the unit to "Go To" it gives you the option of following the road or or going off road. Select "Off Road" and hit the "Enter" button. Mine then goes to the map page. From there hit the "Page" button until you get the compass page. You'll get a compass with an arrow pointing toward the cache and a readout of your distance from the cache. To turn the compass on/off, hold the page button in till the screen says either "Compass Turned On" or "Compass Turned Off". The 3 tabs at the bottom, Found, Notes, and Stop will, in this order, put the cache into your calendar, bring up a field where you can enter info, or stop navigation. Also, if you hit the "Found" tab, it will give you more tabs asking what you want to do next. I hope this helps some. Good luck.

I don't doubt the merits of "Rock In" in the least. We love EC's. It's just not very "just passing through," geotourist friendly.

Probably got a hold of "Rock In" Down The Highway EarthCache. We were in New Jersey about a year ago looking for a EC or two. After seeing the logging requirements for that one, we opted for something a little less time consuming. We only had a week left on our vacation.

False! However we did drive over 7 hours for just three caches, two in Texas and one in Oklahoma. Next: You have planned a geovacation around EarthCaches.

I had issues getting on yesterday as well. The forums seem to be running quite smoothly today however. Well done Elias.

False True or False You have been night caching in a strange town when a local LEO not only stopped to ask what you were doing, but actually found the cache for you.

I don't know if you're into rock music but if you are, I would recommend taking some time to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. It's not a cache but it is, IMHO, worth the $22.00 a head to go inside. We were there last July and I think we spent about 6 hours there and didn't see everything.

I don't know about the trackables issue but if you have the time and the means, I'd highly recommend taking the 30 or so mile drive to Elizabethtown to do the cache "Making The Connection, GCHNF5. It is a most unique multi that took us about an hour to do. You need a cell phone and something to write on. E-town has plenty of other caches too but this one is one of a kind.

I haven't been on the forums much for a while and just saw this. What a drag. I'll remember Keith as a funny, caring man and my neighbor at Windy Rock. I don't think I ever saw him when he wasn't at least grinning. Our hearts go out to MJ. The world will be a sadder place without him.