coffee/wired

I have hid really easy to find ones, and ones that seasoned cachers look several times for before finding. I personally enjoy hiding the hard, well-camo'd micro/small ones more so than the "ammo can in a bush" type. I enjoy finding any and all of them.

Yep. We did a 2" lift and removed the skirt off the bottom of the front bumper to give us better ground clearance. Our next purchase will be tires that have Kevlar. Yes, Kevlar. We primarily cache in the desert so there are a lot of pointy things that can puncture tires. Not just cactus - a sharp rock can do it too.

I believe the link to mine is in my signature. I just started it last weekend as geocaching was cluttering up my personal/family blog, so I figured I should start a new one. I would like to put a sidebar or such in with links to other geocaching blogs. In fact I may go do that right now.

Just make sure you're not wearing a red shirt if you are on a caching expedition with William Shatner. I wonder how many people will get that? I'd pick Les. Bear is a phony and I can't get the image of him wringing liquid out of elephant dung. Stay away from me, poop boy!

We're seeing them this year for the first time. They come in on the dog. We call him the Tick Bus. They don't bite him, just hitch a ride. I found one on a box of Velveeta Shells and Cheese the other day. Of all the odd places! Must of crawled in the bag when it was sitting on the floor before I put the groceries up, or it was in the truck. They need to make Frontline for people lol.

I wouldn't even attempt it. Plus Step 1 sounds like an ALR which isn't allowed anyway.

Because family is in town that we only see maybe once a year. But we might grab some caches later today

My all-purpose jacket is a snowboarding jacket. Windproof, waterproof, good to like 15 degrees (possibly lower), has a hood, tons of pockets, etc. It's very similar to this one http://www.the-house.com/bo3flw02hp8zz-bon...rd-jackets.html

Since when did a dog house have doors that could latch and prevent the dog from getting out?

Sounds like a good spot for a kid to find, crawl into, and suffocate.

If you've read the guidelines as you say you have, you'd know you can't bury a cache. I'd help you further, but your posts give me a headache.

I grew up and still live in snake country. Wasn't out of the ordinary to see a rattler a week. Big suckers too, about 6'. Last time I saw one was about 10 years ago though. I started caching in the fall, so snakes while caching hasn't been an issue so far. But it's May now and most of them should be awake. I need to get a stick. I'm not too concerned about it though.

I do believe he is one of those "all or nothing" types. I admire his energy. Wish I had that much!

I was excited about geocaching years before I even started. It's right up my alley, for all the reasons you love it. As to your question, most people, from what I gather, use sock puppet accounts because their real account has been banned, so they create a whole new one. If you don't want your personal information displayed on either the forums or in your profile, simply don't put it in. As far as I know, there hasn't been any problems with personal information being used in a devious manner, but I am not an "old timer" so take my opinion for what it's worth (about $0.56, give or take a penny.) The geocaching community as a whole does not seem to attract many nefarious characters. Yes, we have our "problem cachers" but they are usually discovered quickly and tend to get bored with antagonizing cachers. I'm not aware of issues spilling over into "real life" (in other words, I suspect that no one is going to show up at your house with gun and insist you tell them EXACTLY where your nano is hidden.) Geocaching.com has the least amount of my personal information, especially when you compare it to Facebook or other sites I frequent. Did I answer your question?

I first started with an old Magellan. I couldn't download coordinates either. Can't you input the coordinates manually? I never did figure out how to do it with the Magellan, but still managed to find 100 caches with that thing by using a combination of written coordinates and Google maps. It looked something like this: Cache Name Size: Micro Difficulty level: 1.5 Location: [coordinates] On corner of Fifth and Hendricks. It took some time, but like I said, I found 100 finds with it.

I get all excited over signature items, and the ones you've described sound absolutely awesome. I have a friend who makes these book necklaces that are very similar to what you are making, and in fact I'm buying me one of her necklaces for myself. I'm in New Mexico, but maybe someday I will run across one of your items. Someday, I might make my own, but as you have already figured out, it takes time!

Not necessarily on me, but in my truck I keep: Toilet paper. Grocery sack for picking up trash you find (or in case of needing to use that TP...) A gallon of water. Snacks. A roll of TP. Latex gloves. Large first aid kit. Everything else mentioned. Also a list of medications you or your kids take. Keep that on you.

If you/him want to create a route or use pocket queries, you need premium memberships. Those have little to do with smart phones, but you would need a premium membership if you wanted to use those two things with your smartphone. I've never done either so I'm probably not explaining it well.

I think most people who cache with their phones use pocket queries, and you need a premium membership for those.

You know, that may very well be true. But all too often I get the distinct impression that geocachers think that that cito thing is the end all and be all equalizer of all things related to geocaching. That somehow geocachers are due some sort of special dispensation. I suppose you could look at it that way, but there's not a whole lot else directly related to geocaching that is also earth-friendly. We use batteries and put plastic in the wild to degrade and use up who knows how much gasoline while playing this game. CITO may not "equal the score" but it's certainly better than nothing, and judging by the amount of trash I find at caches, CITO is certainly not the norm. I'm going to start putting bags and disposable latex gloves in my caches with a note saying, "Latex gloves and bags supplied in the event you would like to CITO (Cache In, Trash Out)." Anywho... seems to me that complaining about the carbon footprint you make while playing a game you choose to play is akin to complaining about gas prices... for your top fuel dragster.

If it wasn't for geocaching, I wouldn't have collected three trash bags of trash off the side of the road today. I like to think we're doing more good than harm. I'll blame Dave either way, how's that? That make everyone happy?

He found it, he got it in his hand, and he signed the log book. It is his find. I don't care if a person is just a head with an arm growing out of it and logs my cache saying "Finally I logged my 10,000 cache, I can die happy" and then promptly dies and wills me a video of the scenario, if his name isn't in that logbook I'm deleting the find. I wouldn't dare treat a differently abled person as if they where special, it is rude and nobody is special. My thought on this scenario is that if the cache is rated 1 or noted to be handicapped accessible then a nice little note to the cache owner is in order to straighten out the ratings. Other wise caches are assumed to not be handicapped accessible. In my scenario, the cache was rated at a 1, but we all know that one good month of rain could make a cache no longer accessible, or a good wind storm could blow in a bunch of tumbleweeds, or the last to find it moved it. If it's no longer a 1, then it's the CO's responsibility to rate it as such (and finder's responsibilities to note such things in their log, IMO). If a handicapped cacher goes out to a cache that is suppose to be handicap accessible, and sees that he can't get to it after all, then I think he should still get the find since he went to the trouble to go to GZ and find the cache, even if it means he couldn't go that extra few feet to put his hands on the cache because weeds/tumbleweeds/tall grass are an issue, so he sends wife/kid/friend to grab it instead.

This is exactly what we do. My husband and I share an account, but there are two cachers we often go out with. We all spot it and then someone grabs it and we sign the log. Now, how about this scenario: if a handicapped cacher goes to ground zero, but it turns out that he can't quite make it to the cache because there's too much brush on the side of the road for his wheelchair to take on, but he can see the ammo can, should he not get that find simply because his wife had to physically grab the cache? What if the cache is in a pinecone in a tree and it's just out of his reach, should he not log that find either because someone who grabbed it that could reach it? Why put such limitations on a game that's meant to be fun? The person with the most "legitimate" smileys (as if that could even be determined) doesn't win any prize. There's no money, no fame, in geocaching. It's just a game, and last I checked, there were no losers or winners in geocaching. Like Who's Line Is It Anyway - the points don't matter

I think popularity is going to peak, but then the herd will thin out. Like all things that become mainstream, you'll have the ones who were there in the beginning, the "just a phase"ers that are gung-ho for a little while but then lose interest, and you are again left with the ones who were there in the beginning and the ones who were gung-ho but actually stuck around. I think you will see this more so in bigger cities than smaller ones. I predict the McDonald's cache in the OP will disappear, most likely the result of a McDonald's employee picking up trash. What we're going to end up with is a bunch of plastic degrading in the wild; the stuff we'll end up CITOing in a couple of years. What will suck is that those poorly-placed, non-maintained caches are going to prevent us "real" geocachers from placing good, long-lasting caches. That's what's going to tick me off.

I've been a daily user of the Internet for 12 years and a daily message board user for over 7 years and I had no idea you could do that. Exactly. I'm technology-friendly but I still have zero clue how to use waypoints, pocket queries, or anything else. I can upload the cache to my GPS and that is it as far as using the technology goes. I haven't looked so far to find out how to use those features, perhaps I will do that this morning. I'll tell you this though - chances are, if I don't find the answer, I won't ask it here. I won't bother to search either, because rarely does the search engine work for me. I will more likely Google it and cross my fingers, or ask one of my seasoned cacher friends, which I am thankful to have. Had I not been mentored by a couple of experienced, awesome cachers, I'd be SOL and probably still looking for that first cache "how do i do that" site:http://forums.Groundspeak.com Cool! Thanks