Jeep_Dog

Yeah, no kidding you made it up. She's a vegetarian, so of course she wouldn't live on squirrels. Unless, of course, you insinuate that she MILKS squirrels. That's possible, I suppose. I thought it was a great article. We could always use more diversity in the geocaching crowd. To heck with those tree-hugging, tofu-farting types. I'll take a blue collar any day! edit: added emoticons so as to present a more kindly and humorous appearance.

I don't think any age is too young, as long as you review the caches to ensure the terrain is appropriate! My daughter started at 22 months, and loved it from her first cache. I would have started her earlier, but I had an extended vacation in an "exotic" location, so that was the earliest I could start her. My wife is baking a new geocacher, and is due any day now. I won't say much, but she did mention it would at least be 6 or 7 months before I was allowed to take him caching.

Sure enough, if I find a park good enough to say it is worth going back to, I do go back. Been to several a second or third time, without doing any caching, even. I also take the time to stop and smell the flowers, as the saying goes. I cache with my two year old daughter, and if she finds a park appealing (she loves water, and of course playground equipment), we'll stay and enjoy it, and scratch the remaining caches planned for the day. I've got a low cache count, but as folks seem to claim as an espoused value of "numbers don't count" (but the theory in use is a different story), I'm using this as an excuse.

19 years and still at it....

Ok, ok. No more emails offering to meet me in a dark alley to exchange cache for a YJTB, please! I'm not that desperate, although my 2 year old is getting to that point....

Wow! That's like the ironman cache! I'd do it, just for the kicks. Then I'd not cache for a month, nursing my torn body back to full caching health. The hardest cache I did was a night cache. I couldn't wait for night, so I attempted to do it with my eyes closed instead.

I use a Pur Hiker (ah-ha, I note in a previous post I'm not the only, er... long-time -old- hiker/backpacker!). Just for good measure, I throw in Iodine tablets into the purified water. Septic, boiling is way too much effort. Plus, with the new Geocacher's Code and all, fires are not acceptable any longer. Soooo.... I only hike/cache on very rainy days and just stick out my tounge....

(cough cough) I'm jeep_dog, and I have a problem. I cache too much, and it is ruining my job, my family life, and it is destroying my body (especially the PI and briars).

I know you were being facetious... but I'll respond anyhow. There's several in the area I could grab, but will not. The reasons I will not do that apply to getting one on Ebay, too. They belong in circulation until the plug gets pulled or someone at gc says "they are fair game, retire them!" Ok, I'm probably being idealistic here. Yet, without my ideals, I am nothing. Call me stupid if you like, that's just the way I am. I'm very new at all of this, but I feel whatever cacher pimped themselves to retrieve those YJTBs and then sell them on ebay are not true cachers at heart. If I got one on Ebay, I'd probably get it going along it's geocaching travel adventure.

What, you smelled a conspiracy with the topic title? Get yer mind outta the gutter! Wondered if YJTB (those extras, if they are still out there) should be offered on Groundspeak for folks to purchase. Could be a nifty little item to snag. I know the "contest" is coming to a close, but reluctant to take one out of circulation since they are, after all, travel bugs, and I personally feel the ones moving around out there should continue to do so, plus they still may be an attraction for newer geocachers, whether or not there's a contest ongoing. Anyhoo, my 2 year old daughter has been hollering for the darn "Yellooo Jeep Ta-vel Bug" ever since we put it back in a cache. Yes, I've purchased her every manner of Jeep toys, to no avail. I've even attached a travel bug to these toys, and still no joy. They just don't have that... whatever.... that a toddler likes. I'm a desparate daddy trying to get a YJTB to keep, and I'm willing to pay, kids. I bet I'm not the only one in the caching world, and think this may make a nice item to sell with tee shirts, etc... edit: Oh, yeah, ideas for gc items to sell might make a good discussion.

This geocaching lanyard works very nicely! It is made from a comfortable material, easily detaches to hold out/up when signals start breaking up, plus you get two additional benefits of having the geocaching symbol/name on your lanyard (for other cachers to better spot you) AND give some pennies to gc.com. I bought one, and absolutely love it! edit: Uh, I don't know if the Meridian has a point to mount any lanyard. Regardless, this nice gc.com lanyard makes a wonderful cacher accessory for those GPSr units that are built with lanyard in mind....

Hey, friend, you are making perfect sense to me. I can fly over 200 mph and land at a precision point within 15 seconds of the precise time I need to fly. You can throw me into the woods with nothing but my daughter's sippy cup of water, and I'll come out with no problem. ACK! Give me the task of finding a micro with a GPS, and it drives me nuts. Best advise I could give is to keep it simple. Yup, keep it simple. Whatever tools you use in the wilderness that make you fine (you stated map and compass), then use for geocaching. You can look at a cache with topozone, and utilize terrain association and/or dead reckoning with a compass to find a point, and in many cases easier than with a GPS. Use the "gizmo" as a back up and not the primary tool, and you may do better. As you get more comfortable with the "gizmo," you'll find yourself using it more.

I suggest a good pork bristle brush, and I know where you can get the porker.

Just imagine the excitement the training, or perhaps even the national trials to determine the team, could be! If the olympic committee utilized GC.com, geocaching could be the only sport where the world class athletes get trampled by locals going for a FTF! Ouch. Your thesis hurt my head. Hyper what?

I kept an eye on caches to see what items (particularly those I left behind) seemed "hot." Then, I loaded the cache with several items that would be nice for a FTF. Three items intended to be special were: 1) Mickey Mouse Watch 2) Iraqi Dinar Note (Sadam Regime version.. was leaving these in caches, and noted they got grabbed up pretty quickly). 3) YJTB FTF snagged the Dinar and YJTB, second to find (there is a prize for not being first!) grabbed the watch. In my opinion, anything creative and fun makes it nice for the FTFer, and doesn't have to cost too much (although the cost of obtaining the dinar could be considered rather high ).

I was thinking (or lack thereof) that I would use my head. Then again, that's pretty darn close to a rock, and the end result for the can would probably be the same.

We may want to consider calling this code something like geocachers' code or perhaps geocacher ethos. Geocacher Code of Ethics seems too stuffy and uninviting to a countryboy such as myself.

Actually, with a good line of sight of two or more known points, you can get better accuracy than even WAAS enabled GPSr. I did exactly this with my cache. The best WAAS enabled lat/long was still only within 10 feet, but a resection of three points shot by compass got my cache dead on (cache on a big lake, making this easy). Expand your horizons. The marines are not the only ones who teach land navigation well.

Geoachacher stranded on a desert island This geocacher is stranded on a desert island, all alone for ten years. One day he sees a speck on the horizon. He thinks to himself, "It's not a ship." The speck gets a little closer and he thinks to himself, "It's not a boat." The speck gets even closer and he thinks to himself, "It's not a raft." Then coming out of the surf was this gorgeous blonde woman, wearing a wet suit and scuba gear. She comes up to the guy and asks "How long has it been since you've had a cigarette?" "Ten years!" He said. She then reaches over, unzips this waterproof pocket on her left sleeve and pulls out a fresh pack of cigarettes. He reaches over and takes one, lights it, takes a long drag and says, "Man, oh man! Is that good!" Then she asked, "How long has it been since you had a good drink of whiskey?" "He replies, "Ten years!" She then reaches over and, unzips her waterproof pocket on her right sleeve and pulls out a flask and, gives it to the guy. He then takes a long drink and says, "Wow, that's fantastic!" Then she starts unzipping this long zipper that runs down the front of her wet suit and says to him, "And how long has it been since you've had some REAL fun?" The man replies, "Oh, my! Don't tell me that you've got a GPS receiver in there!"

Stock broker goes Geocaching A stockbroker from Dallas got tired of all the stories of his office colleagues who went geocaching every weekend. They frequently boasted of their prowess in the hunt and how many caches they had found. So not to be outdone this broker decides he's going geocaching to show them all up. He buys the most expensive GPSr available, all his clothes and gear from Groundspeak and goes geocaching. After an exasperating day of hiking through the brush and briars without finding a single cache, he heads back to his car. On the way back, he sees an easy 1/1 waypoint in his GPSr located in a small clearing next to a fence. He diverts from the trail 40 feet and easily finds the cache. As the geocacher opens the book to log his first find , he was confronted by a rancher who says, "What the heck do you think you're doin', city boy?" The guy replies, "I'm logging my find." The rancher replies, "The Corps of Engineers are wrong with the fence boundry. This is my property, and that's my ammo can." The guy says, "Oh come on, I've been out here all day and and that is the only cache I've found, and I see the Corps of Engineer post markings. I found my first cache, and I'm logging the find!" The rancher again says, "My property, my ammo can." Well, they argued for a few minutes and, finally, the rancher says, "Ok, I'll tell you what, we'll settle this cowboy style." The guy says, "What's that?" The rancher says, "Well, I kick you in the crotch as hard as I can, and then you kick me in the crotch as hard as you can, and we keep this up and the last man standing keeps the ammo can." The guy not wanting to return home empty-handed reluctantly agrees. The rancher wearing large pointy cowboy boots haul back and kicks the guy in the crotch with all his might. The guy's eyes roll back in his head, he coughs and wheezes but barely manages to remain standing. He composes himself somewhat and says to the farmer, "Okay, now its my turn." The rancher replies, "Oh, that ain't my property. You can have that stupid can."

No, but FOX season is probably a heck of a lot safer now, what with those dangerous and pesky DOGS not running around anymore, eh?

Cache may be big, and some cache may be small.... but it is not the size but what's inside that really counts.

Thanks for the link to Jeremy's thoughts, Markwell. A couple of weeks ago I ran across pirated CDs that I didn't think should be in a cache, so I traded for them and removed them. No fuss, just logged the trade, got rid of that particular swag. All this, even before reading the Prime Cacher's remarks. Some thoughts for music, though. MP3.COM has music to download, and I wrote MP3.COM and asked if they were put on a CD, marked MP3.COM and gave them away, if that was fine. The folks there said as long as the source was attributed and got folks to check into and hopefully purchase from their listed artists, they were quite happy with it.

8-12 for me, but I try to put in unique items, and certainly a thing or two for the kids. For example, last weekend I dropped a cache with the following: 1) Mickey Mouse watch 2) Keychain multiplier tool 3) Kid's whistle 4) Iraqi Dinar note 5) It's A Jeep Thing license plate frame 6) GC.com sticker or two 7) couple of toddler trinkets (beads, buttons... My daughter loves this stuff) 8) YJTB Mickey watch was meant as the FTF prize, but FTF took the Dinar and YJTB (sorry to see the bug go so quickly). 2ndTF took the watch.

Yeah, don't you just hate it when someone makes a post that had the same meaning as the one above it? Many of the questions barely would take a handful of words in one sentence to answer, yet scurvy dog cachers, free-lancers that they are, cause between 7 and 9 replies since they had to pipe in. Some cachers can be ludicrous.