wolfslady

I'm sure that removing her posts had nothing to do with several people accusing her of stealing when she was trying to find out if this was normal. (where is that sarcastic smiley?) I'm not easily put off but I've come close to removing one of my posts after I got slammed and I'd been on the boards enough to realize that no matter what you post there are people on here who delight in telling you how wrong you were. People could have said No it's not usual, but it's not against the rules. It sucks though when people are playing the game by rules that no one knows and that are almost hidden. I'd send a note to the CO and tell them what happened and ask if the items are actual relics and worth the time and gas money it's going to cost you to bring them back. I'd also explain how much it means to you and your kids to have a memento of your first FTF if they are just replicas. Let them know what you traded and ask if they consider it to have been a fair trade. If they insist that you return the items and you feel it's a reasonable request then do so. But with gas prices so high I don't think anyone would feel that you have to make a long drive to return reproductions that have a value of less than a dollar each. Somehow I can't see anyone putting items in a cache that have a values of more than a few dollars each and expecting them to stay. But I checked Ebay and real (so they claim) musket balls can be had pretty cheap. Real money seems to have a high enough value that it's unlikely anyone would be crazy enough to put it in a cache. Fake money on the other hand is about $2 for I think 6 bills. So assuming the money was a reproduction and the ammo (which you could argue was against the rules to put in a cache anyway) was real you're talking about a roughly $3. There is a good chance that since they thought the items were neat that they traded up. I often add value for unique items when I trade for them and as someone pointed out it looks like the OP has a record of trading up. I think many people with kids do because they realize that to children the items truly are treasure. A mctoy, an eraser, a bouncy ball they become something wondrous when a child discovers them hidden in a box set out just for them to find. I feel sorry for those of you who don't get that. Who can't seem to comprehend that for a short time that is their prized possession. It has the same value as your diamonds or a cherished knick knack. Who don't understand that when you tell a young child that they have to put back the one item they focused on it's like, well, taking candy from a baby. Grabbing a piece of 8 from a treasure hunter; who just unearthed it. Seeing Mickey Mouse and not being allowed to say hello. It’s why I would never take my son without a trade item to leave. (and now that I know better a few items to slip in a large cache that has none before he sees that,) I still get the magic that some of you forgot. I hope that the responses given here haven’t driven someone who just wanted answers away from the boards. But I fear they have. Over what? .

I was wondering if she deleted her find or if the CO deleted it because they didn't like it. If the CO deleted her first FTF that could be the "great prize" she was refering to. Around here that's usually the only prize you get. Although I have gotten a certificate and a dollar, I wouldn't call those "Great." Even the coin I left in the first one I placed was only great in a loose sort of way. LOL I was thinking when I read her posts that she was talking about the "feeling" of being first and the memory being ruined and not an actual prize for doing so. But maybe I'm mistaken that most people realized that there's not usually a FTF prize. If she deleted her own log that is one thing, but if the CO deleted it and that's what she was asking about than noI don't beleive it can be deleted because she questioned the CO's methods and warned others who might not read carefully.

I’m most likely going to regret getting into this one, but I found it impossible to keep my mouth shut. First the items weren’t stolen and those of you who suggest they were are just trying to stir up trouble. The CO was careless to not make it clear that the cache was not for trading items, both on the cache page and in the cache itself. I try to read all the cache descriptions, but sometimes on my little bitty GPS screen it’s hard and I wait until I get home for the history lesson. If the note was at the top as a warning I’d have seen it otherwise I doubt it. When I got home a lot of things would go into deciding rather to return the items to the cache or the CO. Like are the items real or fake? If they were fake and I traded fairly for them the CO can go buy some more and replace them and no I wouldn’t feel bad, because why should I have to waste my time going back and teaching my son a lesson when the CO should have known that if it’s in a cache it’s assumed to be a trade item and if it’s not it should be clearly marked. (Yes I have seen a cache where there were both trade and none trade items but the non trade items were in a container and marked as such.) In this case I would have thought wow what cool swag and figured it was going along with the theme of this cache. If the items were real and I didn’t trade fairly for them thinking they were something else I’d find a way to return them when it was convenient. Most likely I’d only return them to the CO when they were willing to meet me because why should I take them back for the next person to trade for. I’m also flabbergasted that anyone would take a 2 year old geocaching without so much as a few quarters or a dollar to trade for a bouncy ball. When a child that young is with you going with nothing to trade is just plain cruel. I’m not ready for my toddler to know that they world can be such an unkind place. No he doesn’t always get the toy at the store, but we always trade at a geocache if there are trade items and he wants one. Many times we will even leave something without trading so the next kid won’t be sad if the cache is empty or lacking in trade items others we will leave extras. When he’s old enough to be responsible for choosing and bringing his own swag is soon enough for him to learn that if he doesn’t have something to trade he can’t take something, but for now it’s my job to make sure he does. On a few occasions we’ve even gone back to the car to get something better to trade when we found something that we didn’t feel we had a fair trade for. We made a mistake once and didn’t make a fair trade. It was an honest mistake, I was new and when my son picked up something wrapped in duct tape and I didn’t check it carefully before letting him put it in his pocket. I thought it might be a geocoin and assumed we would open it later and move it on. It turned out it was a mystery coin so even though I left something in trade just in case I was wrong about what it was I didn’t leave something that would have been of equal value. Since we were traveling when we did the cache there was no way I could return several hundred miles leave something better. But again I made an honest mistake and I don’t feel like I should be accused of stealing anything. There is a good chance that sometime in the future we will travel back that way and I will stop and try to leave something better. But I weigh each mistake I make as my conscience tells me to. In this case my question would be the same one I stated above, were the items real relics or fake one’s as she thought when she discovered them? Either way shame on the CO for not making it clear what they were and that they weren’t for trading. And shame on anyone here who accused to OP of stealing.

Still didn't get that last item in the mail. I sent a message to the sender hoping to find out when I might expect it. As soon as it's here I'll send my mission out. I feel really bad about being late, but it was harder to put together than I'd hoped. I'll explain why later.

Maybe one of them is h1? LOL Or one could actually be 19. Not always easy to read those small numbers. Other than that I'd day a mint error. Congratulations to those who have posted since my last one. I love the stories and the pictures.

I take it back. They scream "spider in the bed" and jump up as they wake the whole house. Then they stand there in awe as the huge thing grins like the Cheshire cat and flexes it's muscles. By this time the entire house has been roused and it takes a wolf swooping in to save the day.

We each have our own account and we have a family account. The family account I only log to if all 3 of us cache together and it was a special cache. But I also log to each account. (Well I'm a bit behind because I do all the work.) I mostly made the family account for the caches we want to hide and TB's and coins we want to travel. I don't care enough about the numbers to do too much extra work. My husband doesn't care about the numbers at all but he wanted his own account. I wanted one for my son so that he had a record from when he started. Before either had a geoname I signed the logs with my name +1 or +2 and stated in my online logs who was with me. I did go back and log my hubby's 1st cache and I think all of my son's. If an owner wants to remove the log over it they have more time than I do. Once we got the team name I used it to log where space was precious. (Once in a very full log I drew a tiny wolf's head as my mark.) It seems pretty common for some teams to log with just the team name even when all the members weren’t there. Then the team members who were there log under their names. If there are cache owners who have a problem with it they seem few and far between. For this reason I’d say let your son log the caches that he’s done. If you didn’t sign with the team name and you’d feel better about it just send the CO a note and ask if it’s ok. If your son did the caches he deserves credit even though he didn’t have his own account. I know it didn’t occur to me that a child could have an account until we’d been in it for a bit.

I'm waiting for mail hoping the last item comes today so I can send mine out. As soon as I have the item, I'll send it. I hope that it will be worth the wait. Sorry I'm so behind. I really thought I'd have it by Tuesday or Wed. I'm not going to be happy if it's not here in time to mail it along with the rest of the package by tomorrow. I'll post either way.

Oops sorry. (Once I'm ready to have an event I'll have to learn the rules.) Trying again. An event and this cache in the same day awesome. I'd love to meet some other geocachers Thank you everyone who didn't make me feel bad because I haven't learned every rule. Besides I would have taken the words “sole purpose” literally and assumed we were doing more at an event than meeting up just to go for the cache. Which is what I believe the spirit of the rule is. Snoogans you are so right. We don't need the extra smiley. But events are fun and having one to meet the others who might live in or be visiting the area would be great. We could discuss geocaching, strategies, interesting hides in the area, share or trade coins and TB’s, maybe do a (late?) lunch… And here’s a novel idea (I can’t believe no one has thought of it.) maybe after the event some of us could get together and find a geocache or even a few. Or do they have a rule that you can’t go geocaching the same day as an event? BTW: I’ll have to say that is the silliest rule I’ve heard yet. I mean how is meeting up to do some goecaching worse than flash mob events? (And if anyone really wants to discuss that please let’s start a new thread.)

I guess I'd better find some things to sell, because I have to get one of these. I've been waiting for a wolf coin and this one is awsome. (I'm designing one of my own but it's much different. I'm struggling with a few things on it, but I'm not ready to share yet, because it's not like I can afford to mint it anyway.) I'd have to have yours even if the name was different. But since my little one's geoname is Wolf's Song I really have to have one for our collection, which will be his someday. Beautiful coin. I'd like to see the moon a little bigger. I love those one's when they are low on the horizon and seen to be 10 times the size they are once they climb into the midnight sky. Beautiful coin.

An event to go for this cache. That sounds like fun. Maybe you could bring a certain "dead drop" and save me another long drive down south. LOL I'm glad I wasn't the only one not sleeping last night. But sorry you weren't.

Run away screaming like a girl. Oh wait I am a girl. Run away screaming like a boy. Actually, same as for snakes carefully. I usually use my walking stick to take care of both. Spiders and webs that I can't avoid, I use the stick to push them to the side. I try to take care that I don't end up with a spider on my stick. Usually try to identify them as safe or poisonious before I decide if I might find another path. I'm willing to go further to avoid the one's that might cause me real harm. Oddly I haven't seen many black widows while geocaching. I say oddly because I usually see 1 or 2 a year around my house. A few years ago I had an invasion of them and there were dozens making webs under my eves.

There are some people who use shrinky dinks as signature items you might check out some of the other boards to see how they look. I'm thinking there was a thread on Geocaching topics about signature items but I'm not 100% and don't have time to look right now. It might also give you some other ideas. One I had after I posted was to do some of those smashed pennies like they have at the zoo with a macaw to put with it. Still not as heavy, but it is a coin. Good luck.

I'm sorry about your bad year and Toby. I know how the rain feels. I have a lot to be thankful for but, it seems like we are always fighting for it. I wish I could help, but right now we just can't. I'd say if I won to lottery, but that is kind of hard to do when you don't buy tickets. Well maybe once every few months, but right now no way. I pray your coins do great for you and Toby heals quickly.

I'm OK with moving a proxy and have done it. However I think I would enjoy it more if it wasn't just a peice of laminated paper. So yes a work of art would help. Even better the work of art and TB type attachment. Key chain, toy anything that hopefully matches or compliments the coin would make me fell better about (and possibly even enjoy) dragging it along to another geocache. Especially if I'm going to be traveling. The nicer the proxy the more effort I might put into finding a nice place for it. I will pick up a real coin or TB anytime I can. A proxy that had little to no effort put into it is going to get passed over when there are other options so be prepared to have them sit a lot. I put one in a pretty new cache in an area that doen't get tons of them It was still sitting there over a month later even though the cache had pretty regular visits. However there was also a real coin that sat there through several visits too, so who knows. Maybe people around here just aren't into trackables and that that's why I seldom see them within 20 miles of home. Good luck.

I've been feeling bad because one of my geocaches is missing with 2 travelers I placed in it. 1 is a proxy so I'm not quite as upset about that one since another one could be made. But I still feel bad. I'm hoping that I can get the cache back because it wasn't stolen. It was sitting in a fake gondola in front of a restraunt and the owner decided to change the landscaping and have the boat removed. He forgot about the geocache under the seat. He thinks the guy was going to take it to his house and try to fix it up, so I’m hoping that’s what he did. But it’s been a couple of days and I haven’t heard back. I wrote the owners of the travelers letting them know I’d contact them as soon as I knew anything, but it was distressing. Even more so because they have been in there for awhile and I though about taking them when I checked the cache about a week before, but I didn’t. I’d been ill and not able to cache much and I didn’t want to hold on to them for 2 long when I just wasn’t sure I could move them fast. I’m not sure why they stayed in there so long, the cache had several visitors but no one picked them up. That’s my confession. I also misplaced a coin for about a week once, but I knew it was around here. My almost 3 year old is great at hiding coins from me, but they are usually one’s I own. Today I got some great butterfly coins in the mail and I let him hold one while I got my camera. I wasn’t watching for about 30 seconds and he calls out. “Mama help me find the butterfly.” I asked him where it went… “It flew away.” I still haven’t found the thing. I’m also missing 2 other coins that I want to add to my collection, but can’t. I hope the coins show up.

Wow, I'd love to do this one. Maybe I can find a group going. Someone for my DH to talk to and my preschooler (3 year old) to visit with as we do the stages. It looks like a lot of fun.

Those are so cute. Maybe I'll meet someone someday who has one to show me. Do you think he dines on geocaches? Maybe that's where some of the missing one's go. No he's too cute I think he's picking pieces of coin thieves out of his teeth. Congratulations.

Sorry about the computer problems. Mines been giving me fits and it's bad enough, worse when the thing goes like yours. I hope you get it fixed in the fastest easiest way. I will look forward to seeing an update but in the meantime I'll just check a few every day to get my fix of where are all the racers. I wish some of the owners would post here when theirs does something fun or interesting. One of ours (Wolf's Song's World Traveler I think) is going to Yellowstone in a couple of weeks. I'm really hoping for some pictures. Fingers crossed. To me that is exciting. Money is tight right now so excitment for us is going to the Childrens Museum for there free day yesterday or doing a little geocaching close to home or not so fun going to one of Wolf Dancer's drs. Really exciting is making the 2 hour drive down to the beach. So seeing where the racers are is one of the highlights of our day or week. I guess that everyone else has more interesting things to do. I think that's great. Hopefully soon we will have better things to do too. Once it's not so hot and we can start longer hikes I know we will.

These are so cool. I'll have to do smoe thinking but here is one I read awile back, that comes to mind. THE DEVIL of Yocum's Inn's Treasure I thought about rewriting it but I really don't have the time right now. Maybe later something will come to me. If it's not ok for me to post the story with a link let me know. http://www.wtblock.com/wtblockjr/Yocum.htm YOCUM'S INN: THE DEVIL'S OWN LODGING HOUSE By W. T. Block Reprinted from FRONTIER TIMES, January, 1978, p. 10ff; also note all sources in footnotes of Block, HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY, TEXAS, etc. p. 78. The best source is Seth Carey's memoirs, "Tale of a Texas Veteran," Galveston DAILY NEWS, Sept. 21, 1879, as reprinted in Block, EMERALD OF THE NECHES, pp. 158-163, at Lamar University and Tyrrell Libraries. Many other writings of recent vintage are pure fiction. Stories about the old Goodnight and Chisholm Trails have so dominated the writings of Western Americana that even Texans have forgotten that their first great cattle drives ended up at New Orleans rather than Abilene or Dodge City, Kansas. When the Spanish viceroy lifted a trade ban between Texas and Spanish Louisiana in 1778, a New Orleans-bound cattle drive of 2.000 steers, driven by Francisco Garcia, left San Antonio in 1779, the first drive of record along the unsung Opelousas Trail. By the mid-1850s, more than 40,000 Texas Longhorns were being driven annually across Louisiana, and no one welcomed the cattle drovers more enthusiastically than did Thomas Denman Yocum, Esq., of Pine Island settlement in Southeast Texas. The first Anglo rancher along the Opelousas Trail was James Taylor White, who by 1840 owned a herd of 10,000. In 1818 he settled at Turtle Bayou, near Anahuac in Spanish Texas, and he was a contemporary of Jean Lafitte, whose pirate stronghold was on neighboring Galveston Island. By 1840, White had driven many large herds over the lonely trail, and a decade later, had more than $150,000 in gold banked in New Orleans, the proceeds of his cattle sales. By 1824 there were others from Stephen F. Austin's colony, between the Brazos and Colorado Rivers, who joined White in the long trail drives, and a favorite stopover was Yocum's Inn, where the welcome mat was always out and the grub was always tasty and hot. Thomas Yocum settled on a Mexican land grant on Pine Island Bayou, the south boundary of the Big Thicket of Southeast Texas, around 1830. It was then a virgin, sparsely-settled region of prairies, pine barrens, and thickets, and any settler living within ten miles was considered a neighbor. The deep, navigable stream, 100 feet wide and 75 miles long, was a tributary of the Neches River and had already attracted ten or more pioneers who also held land grants from the Mexican government. Often they heard the pound of hoofs and bellowing of thirsty herds, bound for the cattle crossing over the Neches at Beaumont. There were more than thirty streams which intersected the trail and which had to be forded or swum in the course of travel. And always Yocum rode out at the first sound of the herds and invited the drovers to quench their thirst and satisfy their hunger at the Inn. Some people who stopped at the Inn were headed west. Sometimes they were new immigrants driving small herds into Texas. Some, like Arsene LeBleu, one of Jean Lafitte's former ship captains, were Louisiana cattle buyers carrying money belts filled with gold coins, and were en route to White's Ranch or elsewhere to buy cattle. The popularity of Yocum's Inn spread far and wide. Its genial host soon became the postmaster of Pine Island settlement under the old Texas Republic, supervised the local elections, served on juries, and was widely respected by his neighbors and travelers alike. Yocum acquired much land and many slaves, and by 1839 his herd of l500 heads of cattle was the fourth largest in Jefferson County. While other settlers rode the wiry Creole, or mustang-size, ponies of a type common to Southwest Louisiana, Yocum's stable of thirty horses were stock of the finest American breeds, and his family drove about in an elegant carriage. A gentleman's life , however, held no attraction for Squire Yocum, a man who literally was nursed almost from the cradle on murder and rapine, and for many years Yocum's Inn was actually a den of robbers and killers. What is the most startling is the fact that Yocum was able to camouflage his activities for more than a decade, maintaining an aura of respectability while simultaneously committing the worst of villainies, with a murderous band of cutthroats unequaled in the history of East Texas. How Yocum could accomplish this since he used no alias, is unexplainable, for he, his brothers, his father, and his sons were known from Texas to Mississippi as killers , slave-stealers, and robbers. If any neighbor suspected that something at Yocum's Inn was amiss, he either feared for his life or was a member of the gang. One account, written by Philip Paxton in 1853, observed that Yocum, "knowing the advantages of a good character at home, soon by his liberality, apparent good humor, and obliging disposition, succeeded in ingratiating himself with the few settlers." Squire Yocum was born in Kentucky around 1796. As a fourteen-year-old, he cut his criminal eyeteeth with his father and brothers in the infamous John A. Murrell gang who robbed travelers along the Natchez Trace in western Mississippi. At first Murrell was reputed to be an Abolitionist who liberated slaves and channeled them along an "underground railroad" to freedom in the North. Actually, his gang kidnapped slaves, later selling them to the sugar cane planters of Louisiana. Murrell soon graduated to pillage and murder, but slave-stealing remained a favorite activity of the Yocum brothers, and on one occasion two of them, while returning to Louisiana with stolen horses and slaves, were caught and hanged in East Texas. When law enforcement in western Mississippi threatened to encircle them, the Yocums fled first to Bayou Plaquemine Brule, near Churchpoint, Louisiana, then in 1815 to the Neutral Strip of Louisiana, located between the Sabine and Calcasieu Rivers. Until 1821 the Strip knew no law enforcement and military occupation, and hence became a notorious robbers' roost for the outcasts of both Spanish Texas and the State of Louisiana. In the Land Office Register of 1824, T. D. Yocum, his father, and two brothers were listed as claiming land grants in the Neutral Strip; and during the 1820s, according to the Colorado "Gazette and Advertiser" of Oct. 31, 1841, Yocum's father was tried several times for murder at Natchitoches, La., and bought acquittal on every occasion with hired witnesses and perjured testimony. By 1824, Squire Yocum, once again feeling the pinch of civilization, had moved on to the Mexican District of Atascosita in Texas. He lived for awhile in the vicinity of Liberty on the Trinity River. Writing about him in 1830, Matthew White, the Liberty alcalde, notified Stephen F. Austin that Yocum was one of two men who allegedly had killed a male slave and kidnapped his family, and as a result "were driven across the Sabine and their houses burned." But Yocum was not about to remain so close to the hangman's noose and the fingertips of sheriffs and U. S. marshals. And he soon took his family and slaves to the Pine Island Bayou region where he built his infamous Inn. Having acquired some wealth and affluence by 1835, the old killer and slave stealer could become more selective with his victims. Among the many travelers along the dusty Opelousas Trail, the eastbound cattleman often stayed at Yocum's Inn and left praising the owner's hospitality. And of course the genial proprietor always invited him to stop over on his return journey. It was the westbound Louisiana cattle buyer and the Texas rancher who had already delivered his herd in New Orleans whose lives were in danger. Usually drovers paid off and dismissed their hands in New Orleans. Texas cattlemen often traveled alone on the return trip, and if any of them lodged at Yocum's Inn, a bulging waist line, which usually denoted a fat money belt of gold coins, virtually signaled his demise. The drover's bones were left to bleach in the Big Thicket, at the bottom of the innkeeper's well, or in the alligator slough. In East Texas, Squire Yocum's crimes spawned more legends, many of them about his buried loot, than any other man except Jean Lafitte. And every legend tells the story differently. One relates that a Texas rancher was backtracking a missing brother, who was overdue from a New Orleans cattle drive, and stopped at Yocum's Inn to make inquiries. A Yocum cohort informed the rancher that no one had seen the missing brother on his return trip; then suddenly the missing brother's dog rounded a corner of the Inn. Glancing elsewhere about the premises, the rancher recognized his brother's expensive saddle resting on a nearby fence. When the conversation became heated, Yocum's partner grabbed for a shotgun, but the rancher fired first and killed him. As told in the legend, Yocum overheard the conversation and accusations from a distance, and quickly fled into the Big Thicket. Another legend tells of a foreigner who was carrying a grind organ and a monkey with him when he rode his big gray stallion to Yocum's Inn in search of a night's lodging. Earlier the stranger had played the hand organ for some children who lived nearby and who had given him directions to reach the Inn. The story adds that Yocum traded horses with the foreigner during his stay. When the children later found a battered hand organ abandoned beside the trail, there was little doubt about the foreigner's fate. There are many early records, written at the time of Yocum's demise, which chronicle the innkeeper's death, but they sometimes conflict. The longest of them was written by Philip Paxton in 1853, and his account of how Yocum's misdeeds were exposed appears to be the most plausible. {{Indeed, his account is deadly accurate. See sources at end}} Paxton claimed that a man named (Seth) Carey, who owned a farm on Cedar Bayou near Houston, had killed a neighbor during a quarrel over a dog and fled to Yocum for asylum. It was agreed that Yocum would receive power of attorney to sell Carey's land grant and that Yocum would forward the proceeds of the sale to Carey in Louisiana. A gang member, however, told Carey that he had no chance of escaping to Lousiana. Yocum planned to pocket the proceeds of the sale and, besides, Carey had wandered upon some skeletons in a Pine Island thicket and thus had learned "too many and too dangerous secrets" about the murder ring at Yocum's Inn. The earliest published account, which appeared in the San Augustine "Redlander" of Sept. 30, 1841, stated that Yocum was killed by the "Regulators of Jefferson County who were determined to expel from their county all persons of suspicious or bad character." The newspaper chided the vigilantes for killing Yocum and not allowing him the due process of law and a speedy trial. But the editor conceded that Yocum had a notorious record in Louisiana "as a Negro and horse stealer, repeatedly arrested for those crimes." Three other accounts, however, two in the Houston papers of that era and another in the "Colorado Gazette and Advertiser," published at Matagorda, Texas, alleged that "Thomas Yocum, a notorious villain and murderer, who resided at the Pine Islands near the Neches River, has been killed by the citizens of Jasper and Liberty Counties . . . ." "Yocum has lived in Texas twenty years and has committed as many murders to rob his victims. The people could bear him no longer so 150 citizens gathered and burned his premises and shot him. They have cleared his gang out of the neighborhood," thus putting an end to the Pine Island postmaster, his gang, and his Inn. Of course, only Yocum could reveal the true number of murder notches on his gun, which may have reached as many as fifty. According to Paxton, the Regulators found the bones of victims in Yocum's well, in the neighboring thickets, in the "alligator slough," and even out on the prairie. They then burned Yocum's Inn, the stables and furniture, but allowed his wife, children, and slaves a few days to leave the county. The posse trailed the killers into the Big Thicket and eventually caught up with Yocum on Spring Creek in Montgomery County. No longer willing to trust a Yocum's fate to the whims of any jury, the vigilantes gave the old murderer thirty minutes to square his misdeeds with his Maker, and then they "shot him through the heart" five times. Paxton also reported that "not one of Yocum's family had met with a natural death." Little is known of the fate of Yocum's sons other than Christopher, who in 1836 who had been mustered into Captain Franklin Hardin's company at Liberty, and who had served honorably and with distinction for one year in the Texas Army. Chris, whom many believed to be "the best of the Yocums," may not have been implicated in the murder ring at all, but he fled, leaving his young wife behind, perhaps because of the stigma that his surname carried and the public anger that was then rampant. Believing that the public clamor for revenge had died down after a span of four months, Chris Yocum returned to Beaumont, Texas, one night in January 1842. Sheriff West, although he had no specific crimes to charge him with, was aware that a thirst for retribution still lingered and he arrested young Yocum for his own protection. Jefferson County's "Criminal Docket Book, 1839-1851" reveals that Chris was lodged in the county's log house jail on the afternoon of Jan. 15, 1842. What the book does not reveal is the fact that young Yocum faced Judge Lynch and an unsummoned jury of Regulators on the same night. The following morning West found him swinging from a limb of an oak tree on the courthouse lawn, with a ten-penny nail driven into the base of his skull. During the second administration of Sam Houston as president of the Texas Republic, there were many excesses and assassinations, principally in Shelby County in East Texas, attributed to vigilante bands, who called themselves "Regulators." On Jan. 31, 1842, he issued a proclamation, ordering all district attorneys to prosecute the Regulators stringently for any offense committed by them. The proclamation began as follows: "Whereas . . . . certain individuals . . . have murdered one Thomas D. Yocum, burned his late residence and appurtenances, and driven his widow and children from their homes . . . ." Whether or not President Houston's paper might have been worded somewhat differently if the chief executive had been forced to witness the bleached bones in Yocum's well or to bury some of the skeletons out on the prairie is, of course, another question. Almost from the date of T. D. Yocum's death, legends began to circulate concerning the murderer's hoard of stolen treasure, because the vigilantes knew that neither the old robber nor any member of his family had had time to excavate it before they were driven from the county. Some of them thought that only Yocum and one of his slaves actually knew where the loot was hidden. Others claimed that Chris Yocum knew where the treasure site was, and that one of the reasons for his returning to Beaumont was to dig up the gold so that he and his young wife could start life anew somewhere under an assumed name. For years treasure hunters dug holes along the banks of Cotton and Byrd Creeks, and decades later sinks and mounds in the Pine Island vicinity were said to be the remains of those excavations. Time passed, the Civil War was fought, and the Yocum episode became only a dim memory in the minds of the early settlers. Finally it was an elderly black woman in Beaumont who triggered the second search for Yocum's gold. She told her grandchildren that about 1840 she was a young slave girl who belonged to the owner of a plantation in the vicinity of Yocum's Inn. One day whe was picking blackberries when she heard voices nearby. She moved ahead along the banks of a creek until she finally spotted Yocum and one of his young slaves at a low spot or crevice in the creek bank. Both of them were busy backfilling a hole in the ground. As a result of the old lady's story, another network of pot holes were dug up and down the banks of Byrd and Cotton Creeks. And once or twice a stranger appeared who claimed to have a map drawn by an old Nagro who said he was formerly Yocum's slave. But if anyone ever found the treasure, that fact was never made public, and one writer claims it is still there awaiting the shovel that strikes it first. Maybe so, but gold hunters usually don't print their findings in newspapers. And they, like buccaneers, ain't especially noted for their wagging tongues either.

Reminds me too much of letting a baby cry it out. I want the back to be someone picking up that baby and going caching. Happy baby with an ammo box. But the front is cute and so is the idea. Just no loving the back. I have to love the whole coin to dip into my meger funds for one.

I always wait about 3 days and then try to see if I can figure out who might have moved it and I send them a note asking if they did and if they would like me to wait a few more days so they can log it. I like to give it at least a week after I dend a message if I don't get a responce or after I pick it up if there isn't a way to guess who might have moved it, before I grab it because sometimes people are traveling or having other issues. After a week I wouldn't feel bad about grabbing it either from a cache or the cacher. Although I have waited longer when asked to. Oh I also send a note to the owner letting them know that I have it and asking if they want me grab it right away or wait a bit. Oddly I don't think I have ever gotten a responce from the coin owner. Someone found one of my racers in a cache recently and it wasn't listed as being there. They grabbed it the same day and left a note about the person not logging it properly. The person had already sent me a note that they were going on a trip and it might be a couple of days after they dropped it before they could log it. They were mortified at the suggestion that they had sone something wrong. I tried to nicely tell the person who had grabbedd it that while it is fine to do that it's nice if you can wait a few days to just make sure you aren't msking someone feel bad. Of the few coins I've picked up before they were listed in the cache most were listed there within 3 days. One was moved at an event that day and I'd guess whoever did it wrote the number down wrong when they hopped it from one cache to another in the series. The last one had been missing for about 9 months and I did track down who had forgotten to log it and they asked me to wait so after sending a note to the owner with no responce I did. I think they way I do does the most to avoid stepping on anyones toes. I also try to make sure that coins I drop in one of my caches are logged after they are picked up and I've sent out notes to try and track one down when it was still listed a few days after I checked the cache. I just think it's nice to do that.

Really enjoying reading this thread. I’m hoping that it’s clear but just in case it’s written to the rhythm of “The Night Before Christmas” Twas the night before last night and dark round the house When an owl swooped down near me and snagged him a mouse Myself and Wolf’s Song and Wolf Dancer were there When the latter said what is that up in the air? We looked up and saw the most fearsome of sites A UFO hovered all covered with lights Wolf’s Song was pointing like he’d spotted gold But he loves outer space and ain’t quite 3 years old Twas over the pasture and out past the trees We were shaking so hard we were knocking our knees “I going to Mars.” My son blurted out And I snuggled him close and said “No” with a shout. The rocket came closer and he called out with glee I promised my husband “I won’t let him free.” We watched as it landed a few yards away And we wondered if we would be here to see day. With a whirr and crackle a door opened wide And we peered thru the darkness but could not see inside We looked at each other saying “what should we do?” As fright poured from our pores to drench us like dew. When what to our wandering eyes did appear? A bright shiny package that lessened our fear. It hovered and floated and glowed eerily Wolf’s Song reached out way too, too eagerly. I opened it up as the door whistled shut The dread started easing that’d been clenching my gut. Into my hand fell the strangest of things If felt light and yet heavy like cast iron and wings. It stood up on end and spun in my hand From its radiant luster I knew, it was quite grand. There seemed to be energy coming from dots It seeped into my body and warmed the cold spots. A coin covered with symbols and the strangest of G’s A note floated down on an alien breeze It seems, this was a plan that was carefully laid It was clear from the message Cointact had been made. We’d had an encounter of the incredible kind When I hold the thing now it just boggles my mind I was not a believer in the years of before But now I have proof in coin one eighty four. The moon seemed to twinkle and the stars seemed to dance The ship whirled bright colors, and lifted our trance I exclaimed to my Wolf as it flew out of sight “A mystery coin; what a wonderful night!” Thank you, WolfsLady Accepting mission. We are so proud to have been choosen. Edited for a typo and to add a note.

I'm running behind too. I was sick for about a month and didn't g et on the ball right away. My bad. I'd also never done a mission so I wasn't exactly sure what kinds of thing people sent and I was reserching that. (and reading the ones that came in on this one. I've also been trying to get a coin that fits the mission, but I've had no luck. I was holding out hope that I'd win one on ebay by today, but my computer went wacko for 3 days and I missed the end of one auction and the other's I saw I've already bid as high as I can and I've always been outbid. I have an email out to someone asking about a coin and I'd planned to send mine out the last day unless I was waiting for a perfect coin to be delivered. I have everything else ready to go. I haven't recieved mine yet, but I'm not worried about it. I know life happens and after seeing some of these posts if it's a few weeks late getting out I'm fine with that. This was so much harder than I thought. But fun.

Just wondering who tasted it? I mean I don't care what you put on the caches I've found I am not eating one. Maybe God is a Geocacher and he turned a muggle to salt. Or if it was a bad cache the CO.