Team Itchy & Scratchy

There are at least 3 geotrails in Berkeley County/Martinsburg, West Virginia with rewards (Villages of Berkeley County: http://coord.info/GC4HRKQ, 2nd Annual Gadgets GeoTrail, 3rd Annual Mystery Caches of Berkeley County-opening June 27, 2015) http://www.travelwv.com/play/outdooradventures/index.html

Not sure I was clear on the stamp idea. You can have mini-self inking stamps made fairly easily and inexpensively. Some cachers are using those to sign the logs with these days. The stamps would remain in their respective caches. Geocachers would pick up passport books and would need to collect as many of the 92 county stamps as they could by finding the designated caches and stamping their passports. You could use a rubber stamp and a stamp pad, but that can get a little messy. Another alternative is using the special shaped hole punches you can buy at craft stores. But since there are only a limited number of designs of those, it makes it much easier for someone to cheat and find out what shaped punch they need for which counties. You would also need to have a few replacement stamps or hole punches on hand, because it is a given that some of them will grow legs and walk off. There could be lots of ways to set up the coin reward. Having to find all 92 counties just for one coin might be a little extreme. And while 92 coins sounds awesome, it is probably not doable financially. You could designate regions and have a different coin for each region. If you had 4 regions made up of 23 counties in each region, you might require cachers to get 15 out of the 23 county stamps to earn the regional coin. Having the backs of the coins all be the same, with the region side being a custom design would help reduce the cost of the program. Here's a photo of a stamp journal that has a few examples of what the micro stamps could look like. Here's an image of the Seaway Trail geocoin set. The top center shows the common back used for each of the coins.

Rather than just putting one coin in each county cache, you may want to consider having a special stamp in each cache and awarding the coin to people who get all–or at least a certain percentage–of the special caches (proven by having the respective stamps on a form or passport). That way you can limit the coins to one per person. Otherwise there will likely be a mad rush by people racing from county to county trying to collect as many of the 92 coins as they can.

Our first pick is Wayne County. Let us know how we can help as this project moves forward. We have worked extensively with the Wayne County Tourism Bureau both professionally and personally, plus have contacts with the east regional group as well. If there is a plan, we can see about getting them to budget some things for us. Team Itchy & Scratchy Greg & Aleesa

This is very exciting and doable!! We'll take care of Wayne County (we can also do Fayette, Henry and Union if no one else steps up to claim them). Wayne County actually has a series of eight caches called the Wayne County Hidden Treasure Series that we placed in 2009. They take you to historic and special places around the county and if you find all eight (and provide the code words) you can get a special pathtag for completing the series. We worked with our County Tourism folks on that series. Pretty sure they would be willing to help with this project as well. Actually you might be able to get several of the county tourism bureaus to work together on reward coins much like what Pennsylvania has done on their Allegheny GeoTrail series and the Great Lakes Seaway Trail series. Both of these programs are fantastic and have generated a significant amount of tourism for their respective regions. Don't know if you are active on Facebook or not, but if you would like I can post your information/request on the Indiana Geocaching groups that we are part of on Facebook. Much of the GC.com forum activity has moved over to Facebook. Pretty certain that within hours of posting it on Facebook, many of the counties would be claimed. Are you also aware of the Indiana Epic 92 County Challenge? It is a special cache that you can claim after you've found at least one cache in each of Indiana's counties. It might be a good thing to tie into all of this.

Welcome Hailme! The Indianapolis area has a very active and enthusiastic bunch of cachers. There are also many events you can attend to get to know your fellow cachers. Search for the newest in Indiana and you will find all the events listed first. GIG dinners (stands for Girls In Geocaching, but not really just for girls) are held monthly and are a good place to start.

In our area letterboxes are rarely visited. but still best not to share the exact same spot. At least 50 feet away is a good distance to reduce the chance of accidental discovery and confusion. We do have several caches that are near letterboxes. In one case the letterbox was there first and we didn't know about it and on the others the letterbox was placed after our cache. It's also a good idea to add a note to your geocache page about the letterbox to help reduce the confusion.

Hey Indiana cachers, the bidding for the customized GeoWoodstock X playing cards begins tomorrow. Since GWX is happening in Indiana, I think it would be awesome to fill the deck with as many Indiana cachers as we can. Who's with us? Bidding closes February 15th. Here's a link to the Card Auction Page for any of you that might be interested. GeoWoodstock X Playing Card Auction

Excellent thread. We did part of the Allegheny and Great Lake Seaway Trail and loved them. So many ammo cans found in such great spots. We will use this list when we travel in the future. Please add our east central Indiana series to the list. A modest prize, but the caches are top notch and challenging. Here's a link to the bookmark of the caches. http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.aspx?guid=ff644d30-6266-44e1-a459-d2d180b5a61f Wayne County Hidden Treasure Caches Pathtag awarded for finding all 8 specific caches hidden around the county.

For Indiana DNR property, pay special attention to the limitations listed in Section 4-(4) and 4-(5) stating a maximum of 2 cache placement licenses per person at any given time on a particular property and a total maximum number of caches on a single IDNR property of either 25 or the total acreage of the property divided by 200 acres (whichever is less). This can be tough for cache reviewers to monitor, so we need to self police as best we can. Cache saturation has caused problems in the past and really shouldn't have based on these rules.

I would assume so, rather like it is okay to log an Attend on your own event. Although is it okay to log your own Earthcache? It is possible to log finds on your own caches and on your own challenges. Whether it is okay or not will be up to each person.

Totally get that some might be offended by "Support Our Troops" and "God Bless America" messages. Totally aware of why ISQs were targeted. Totally amused by cache search results that still yield a crop of caches titled with many of the "offensive" words and phrases in the list. Totally thankful to have thick skin and still believe in the freedom of speech.

The Shadow has been busy again. Two geocoins were found this weekend. Congratulations to EightLeggedTrio and papamole on their finds at the following Indiana Spirit Quest locations! ISQ#700 Patriot Preacher ISQ#541 Abi Road

The "invoice" is in the "email."

Sites 1-37 are roughly 20' x 40'.

Not sure what my work schedule is going to look like yet since I just started a new job. That, & I may need some help talking Mrs. AWTY into camping on our wedding anniversary! Awwwww! What better way to spend your anniversary than around a big ol' campfire celebrating with friends. Sounds perfect.

Camping will be on-site at Boondocks Farms, that's part of the 160 acres of geocaching fun! Camping details will follow later.

Did a couple of ISQs two weekends ago, posted our new standard logging sentiment and then got an email today that kind of tied it all together for us. There is an annual contest at Texas A&M University calling for the most appropriate definition of a contemporary term. This year's term was Political Correctness. The winner wrote: "Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."

Any of the other times we've checked on our ISQ - Permanent Farlow, we've never had any issues with the local prairie pygmies. But last Sunday something was different. Sure we'd see the tall grass rustle as we got near the cache, but this time a pack of the red-headed, teeth gnashing beasts surrounded our ankles and demanded we give them a lift to a place called New Hope. We decided we better do as they asked, besides it wasn't far. When we got there the little devil pygmies immediately divided up and began climbing up poles and harassing the wildlife hidden in the strange little dwellings at the top of the poles. They didn't seem to be finding what they were after. We lost interest and began looking around the place. Suddenly a creature appeared before us and announced it was a Fawn God. It told us that a phantom ghost walker had asked it to guard the treasure. We'd never heard of this mysterious phantom guy, but we suspected it was his treasure that the pygmies were after. We returned the pygmies back to their kingdom and returned home to ours. But the message of the fawn god kept ringing in our head. We did some research and learned about a Phantom Cacher whose main mission was to defend the planet from the hoards of evil pygmies threatening our peace and way of life. We discovered a message from the Phantom himself revealing the location of a secret coin and decided we should make a return visit to New Hope. No sooner had we set foot on the hallowed grounds again than the full fury of the Devil Pygmy God was unleashed. Apparently he was watching over this place now too. Lightning bolts flashed, the wind roared and trees came crashing down. Not being used to fighting evil forces on a regular basis, we beat a hasty retreat. But we had a mission and we are not easily discouraged, so the next night we made our third visit to New Hope. The Devil Pygmy God must have been sleeping. Suddenly the Fawn God appeared and told us that if we could find and defeat the dreaded wooley snake, the treasure would be released into our hands for safe keeping. Little did we know that this was an arboreal serpent. But finally we saw it hiding 25' up a tree. Itchy began his ascent and after a wicked battle the evil snake was conquered and the treasured coin fell from its grasp into Scratchy's waiting hands below. The coin has been secured and is in safe keeping - away from the evil pygmies. This was an adventure we will not soon forget. Thanks to The Phantom Cacher for enlisting our help in this exciting mission. Team Itchy & Scratchy

Sorry bearly_sane, this was a group project for GWVI. But you can get them by trading. I'll trade with you, just email me and let me know what you have for trade. Posted this on the GWVI coin thread too, but here is a list of the GeoWoodstock VI GeoChick Teddy Bears that we know of so far. The ones with the # are consecutively numbered. Anyone know of others? GWVI 2008 PoSAM Samantha BearyAsh Maddie ohjoy! MamaC C-bone &jrr Turbos LitLens GoJayBees Beanz FRIVLAS WWC sillygirl TI&S-# GWS2008 Boo-Boo RSG Moo Crew RC# sg&jrr

Here is a list of the GeoWoodstock VI GeoChick Teddy Bears that we know of so far. The ones with the # are consecutively numbered. Anyone know of others? GWVI 2008 PoSAM Samantha BearyAsh Maddie ohjoy! MamaC C-bone &jrr Turbos LitLens GoJayBees Beanz FRIVLAS WWC sillygirl TI&S-# GWS2008 Boo-Boo RSG Moo Crew RC# sg&jrr

Seeking Tiki Stubborn and StoneFace, any one have an extra?

Also looking for GeoChick bears that I didn't get at GWVI. Moozer and RedShoesGirl you have an email. I know I need Boo-Boo, but not sure who else I need. Scratchy of Team Itchy and Scratchy

I want to trade for any that I didn't already trade for at GWVI. Mine is a green bear with GWS2008 on the back of it.

Just saw an ad and thought the placement was poor. For a brief moment, I was wondering why on earth the cache owner put that link in their cache description. Then I remembered reading about the upcoming Google ads. I say more power to them on the ads, but work on the placement and hopefully Google will work on matching the content a bit better. Scratchy of TI&S