Talio

Mushtang, I'm going against my word, deal with it, you've been rude to me enough already. I contacted the local police and they said they weren't aware the problem had resurfaced. Said their efforts of a few years ago worked well, but after that, they heard no more complaints. They promised me that they would have police patrol the park and also put together a number of sting operations. They also told me that it will be ongoing because they first believed that the sting in 99 would solve the problem indefinetely. So it seems one can do something about the situation. Thanks to all of you who gave advice. To the others that felt this needed to be turned into a thread about gay rights, I think you really need to review federal law. This activity is illegal. You can't solicit sex and you can't have sex in public places. Why? Because there are kids around, and this is not something that children need to be exposed to. I also want to address those of you who said, "Oh this act has been going on for years, it's not going to get any worse." I'm not saying that it will happen next week or even in my lifetime. What I am saying is that there is a possibility, no matter how subtle, that if the activity is allowed to continue without any kind of legal response, the future (that's decades in advance) could prove that parks are not safe places for people to enjoy recreation. Whether you agree with this or not, I really don't care. I'm going to apologize again, not as a "parting shot", but as a member of these forums, who is just as prevelent as the rest of you despite my post/cache count. Argueing on the internet is really stupid, and I was trying my best to stop the thread becoming a big social issue. You've all helped quite a bit, I thank you, and it seems the problem will be dealt with. I'd also like to pose that while this might not be happening in your parks, it does happen, and I'd hope that any of you would be just as concerned about it as I am. As I said before, you certainly will be when you have to explain to your 6 year old what those two men were doing. Thanks again for all of your help, Talio.

This is what is commonly seen as a "elitest forum jerk placating his ego by pointing out the short comings of others". Ok, I'll play along. If you don't like my "parting shot", otherwise known as trying to stop arguements on the internet (because we all know what those are tatmount too), I'll continue you. You've all greatly misjudged me. Yes, they know about it, but they, like they are so inclined to do, are as passive aggressive like most of the general protestors. I am not that individual. As I said, like I've found in every aspect of my life, a little assertiveness goes a long way. So this time I really will end this conversation because there is a great possibility that this subject will be closed. I'll reiterate my former assertion. This should not be happening in public parks. This is a family oriented area and allowing to continue without at least taking some steps to do something about it is a great injustice. It wouldn't be tolerated at a Chucky Cheese and it shouldn't be tolerated here. Consider this a hijacking of my thread back. I will say what I tried to say earlier. I am not asking for anyone's help. I am not asking for anyone to do anything I am asking if anyone has a suggestion or has run into a similar situation, please post. Otherwise Please keep it to yourself.[/color=red] I never asked for attitude. Sorry I posted it, take that however you want, but this one will be my last post. Talio.

I greatly apologize for posting this here, I see now that the situation cannot be discussed without controvesy. The reason I posted this here is because I know many of you take your children geocaching, and this park has a few caches in it. I am worried that if they can get away with it in one park eventually that will mean they can get away with it in another and another untill we truely have to worry about taking our children into public parks. You may find that to be a rediculous notion, but I'd love to hear one of you say that as you walk down a path with your 6 year old and find two men engaging in sexual acts. Perhaps I am taking this too seriously, but for a game that I love that takes place in these places that are also being used for sexual solicitation I find to be a serious problem. This will be my last post in this thread, it's obvious that the level of discussion on these boards has not reached the point where we can discuss what social issues may effect our game. I again apologize if I've offended anyone, I thought perhaps this was a problem that others have run into while caching and had suggestions for what they did with it. I apologize for causing controvesy, I thought it would be appropriate. Forgive me. Talio.

Actually that's where you're wrong. These men do this in broad daylight. Middle of the day. People have spotted the men behind tree lines from their cars. If it were guys sneaking in at night, that would be one thing. This isn't just a few cars either. We're not talking about one or two cars floating in here. I saw at least 10 cars yesterday and hadn't gone past for the first lot. The drive goes another quater of a mile and there are three other lots. A few years back they had a sting and 34 men were arrested. Yes the issue is known, and yes, while saying that parks could slip into this pattern is merely speculative, the point remains. The state allowing this kind of behavior without any form of retribution against it is almost a way of condoning the situation. Hopefully a little assertiveness will go a long way.

Mushtang - While I understand that your just being sarcastic, this really is something I find awful serious. I don't get involved with social issues often, but I had no idea things like this went on. Understand I'm pretty serious about this issue. Riddlers - I think I just might do that. On one hand, I never want to go back there. On the other hand, I think that might just be the answer. I might just have to use the park and make these guys feel as uncomfortable and out of place as they made me feel. I'll call the local police and ask them, but I don't just want to roll over on this because it's convienent. I really want to find out what I can do to help the problem. I also want to apologize if posting this offends anyone, trust me, it offends me too. Talio.

Before I took up arms and wrote 12 letters to the state I wanted to discuss an issue. Here locally there is a park which supposedly is well known to be a spot for sexual solicitation for homosexual men. These men not only cruise around the park stopping for long periods of time to stare at other men in vehicles, they also engage in acts out in the woods. Worst part is, this park is a great historical landmark. The first American defensive was heald on these grounds against the british during the Revolutionary war. George Washington himself was stationed on this hill. Now these vival and illegal acts that occur everyday in the park is not only disgusting, but disrespectful to the historical significance to the country, and the men who died there. I have nothing against homosexuals, but if it were heterosexuals doing the same thing I would be just as disgusted and appauled. I want to write a letter to the Govenor, but even that doesn't seem like enough. I'm a great advocater of the parks association, not just because of Geocaching. If anything I got involved with Geocaching because I like the parks, not vice versa. I feel that parks will be our last ties to nature someday, but I also believe they are in great danger. The day could come when no one cares about nature and the woods leaving parks defenseless against development. I feel that what these men are doing doesn't help the situation. What if this is allowed to continue? What if it spreads to other parks? What if someday this is all the parks are used for? More importantly, what if one day I cannot take my children to a park of all places for fear that they will stumble upon this kind of activity? So I've written an email and a letter to the Govenor, made a donation to the local websites that are trying to abolish this practice, but I'm now at a hault. If this was your town, happening down the street from you, what would you do? Thanks for reading. Talio.

I posted this in the DE cachers page and got little response. Not much activity there though. I was wondering if anyone had anything planned in our area. As of now I have the day off and was wondering if someone with a truck wanted to team up. I'm probably going to go either way (stopping off at Camby Park just for fun, because that place is trashed), but if I can avoid soiling my back seat I will. I'm really not familiar with which parks are in super need, but if you're in the area and would like to help, I wouldn't mind the company. Two pair of hands are always better then one. Thanks for reading, Talio.

Vista is my weapon of choice and I've never had a single problem with it. I really don't see why you'd need something nicer. Talio.

I thought that too, but A. I'm not sure how active the area is. There weren't any beer bottles (oddly), so I'm guessing it's not, but I'd hate to send someone into that god forsaken place to find the cache missing. B. From what little I could see, there weren't any good places to hide it, maybe a micro. C. I would hate to have a poor cacher go to far to meet those gaurd dogs and meet a different fate then myself. I would never be able to live it down. Finally D. I don't really want to go down and back up that wall everytime I want to check up on it. I barely want to go back and find the current cache...but we'll see, I'm sitting on three finds...figure I should give it some time before I go hiding caches. Hope you enjoyed the story, Talio.

Yep, DNF, posted about it. I was looking at some of the pictures today and it didn't look a thing like where I was at. I'll try again. I had another slip past me today, but I needed a compass. Got caught...met a guy who wanted to know what I was doing, I explained it to him and he said it would be fun to do it with his kids and he'll probably buy a tracker. I gave him the URL. Talio.

So I'm new to the game. Sunday was my first search and find, yesterday was my second attempt. I say attempt because I gave a terrain 3 multicache a shot and am pretty sure I got some of the numbers on the clues wrong. However, it will still a quite exciting adventure. This park is set up with a large open area and a wooded rock hill, that goes down about 200 feet. There are paths thankfully, because bushwhacking would require climbing this slope. So after getting a little bit lost (due to the fact my Vista wasn't getting great reception) we found the first clue. Then the next clue eluded to stairs in a tower. Well in the middle of this park is one of the oldest towers and the highest point in the city (on top of the 200 foot rock wall, and then an extra 150 on that). So I didn't even put the coordinates into the tracker, because I thought for sure I knew what the clue meant. So we went and found what we needed to find about the tower, and went onto the third. It was the same clue. Eluding to a tower, that I assumed we were at. So that would mean there are two towers. Well I've spent a lot of time in this park and I knew there wasn't another tower. So I put the coords in my tracker, and found out we were sitting at the coords for clue 3. So that means for the second clue, there was another tower. I put in the coords for that and sure enough it's a quater mile off. So we went down the rock wall and found an old set of abandon rail road tracks. As I'm looking at the tracker, it points me down the wall again. I look down, and find the third clue. So I bushwhack down there very slowly and get the third clue. I use the clues and find the coords for the cash. It takes me down another path that was at the bottom of the wall. We ended up at a road. I've never been so lost and know exactly where I was at the same time...it's an interesting feeling. But we walked down the road and I realized we were well out of the park. So we turn to go back, when we're back on the path, I look up and there is an old train tressel over the road. Remembering that we were on an abandon rail road line, I climbed the wall to get to the tressel. Thats when things started getting interesting. As I was climbing I began to slip...It was really steep and I'm a big guy with the ankles of a 10 year old. I thought I was going down, when I saw a rope. Obviously I am not the first to attempt this climb. So I grab the rope and climb to the top. Bingo, rail line. The tracker is clearly pointing accross the tressel. I was not keen about this. I'm 6' 6" and 300 lbs. This seemed really dangerous to go across the tressel. It was one of those cases where I didn't want to do, but I knew I was going to anyway, so I just did it. I got across, walked about 80 feet and came to the mouth of an enormous abandon train tunnel. Again, it was really dark, I had no light, it was hard to see the other side, it was old, my tracker was clearly pointing me inside, and I knew I was going to go in, so I did. Well this was a mistake. I came to the other side and was in someones back yard...More importantly so where to gaurd dogs. I ran for my life through that tunnel, got to the other side, and quickly climbed the face of the wall back to the top where the tower is. Needless to say, I'm pretty sure I had the coords wrong...didn't find the cache, but had an interesting day. This cache was hard...I'm going to stick to some easier ones for the time being, but I still enjoyed myself. Talio.