stldenise

I have an old Garmin 550 that we got as gift to get us to Florida and back, and I've been using to get into geocaching. Yes, I know it's not the perfect device, but hey, it works. Sort of. The good news is my hubby is now interested in canoeing, so he borrowed the GPS for the river and discovered it stinks at that too. It can only do roads or as the crow flies. (The good news being that he's willing to pony up for a new device if it can work with both our hobbies.) Question: is there a GPS out there that would work nice for geocaching AND would know that it's on water, so it could follow a river?

Girl Scout here! I started as a Pixie (that was the pilot program for Daisy scouts in St. Louis) and went all the way to Seniors. I spent my last 4 years as a member of a Mounted Girl Scout Troop, one of the last. We weren't so into the badges with all the horse stuff to do, but I did get my Silver Award in Cadettes. My parents were both old school scouts, so we did a lot of camping. Dad is the Eagle Scout of the family, and I'm hoping my boys will make it. I was a Cub leader for my oldest and served on the committee...I've stepped back while my kid is in Boy Scouts. He's currently at First Class. My little guy will be ready for Cubs in another year, I can't wait t get him started. I want my kid to earn the geocaching badge, but he's not into it. His troop does camp every month, so he enjoys being outdoors, he just doesn't understand why I'd want to look for boxes of crap in the woods.

Texting is sort of an age related thing too. Older folks may have a disdain for texting, never got into it, prefer to talk on their phones. And seeing how a lot of people who visit my kid friendly caches mention how much their grand kids enjoyed the cache....I think there's a lot of older folks playing this game. I put myself in that category, and I'm just 42. I've always seen texting as something for kids. If I have something to say, I'll use my big girl words. I'll probably have to figure it out if I ever let my kid have a phone.

Of course Incredibles helped! What I was trying to say is this board is sooo full of helpful people.

Here's something helpful I found if anyone else finds crosswords headache inducing...I found a site called oneacross that helps solve crossword questions. Its not much help for geoslang, but if it's a regular word it's good. You type in the clue, the numbers of letters, what letters you've figured out and it searches for possible answers. I now have this puzzle solved with just one blank, so I think I can muscle through the math portion. Or, you know, bug the CO.

Awwww, sorry I over reacted. I'd been banging my head against the wall over this crossword all afternoon (I have a 5 year old who loves to constantly interrupt my thinking, that doesn't help). When I read the response it overly annoyed me that someone would take the time to see what I'm working on, then come back to say, hmmmmm, nope not gonna help. Sorry to get snippy. This forum is full of so many helpful people, I was just surprised. I got the puzzle worked out with just 3 blanks. Though it's not solved perfectly enough for the puzzle checker to approve, I played around with the coords and I'm most likely close enough to go look for it. If I turn up empty handed, I'll go back for a hint from the CO.

You're kidding?! It's a 42 question crossword and I still have to do the math once I get this finished. This is by no means posting a spoiler to a puzzle, just looking for a slang word. AND I didn't say what puzzle cache I'm working on, so how much snooping did you just do to find the cache owner's name? That's a little creepy.

Hey guys! I'm doing a crossword puzzle for geocachers to solve a puzzle cache. Does anyone know a 6 letter word that ends in M for "Log book too full to sign"? The crossword puzzle is full of slang, so maybe there's a term I'm not familiar with? Or I'm just feeling dense today. (I hate crossword puzzles.) The last letter has to be M--"multicache" fits in the last square going down.

Can I just mention how annoyed I am? I'm looking for a place to put a new cache and all the great places near me are occupied with a micro. I want to hide a big box! Why hide a micro where you could hide an ammo box? And even with only 50 finds to my name, I've come across a few micros with the logs all filled up. Why would you want to place dozens of micros that require constant maintance runs for new logs?

You said series...is this a multi cache? Maybe the first bit could be a virtual/micro? Then it wouldn't need to be so close to the woman's house?

I just got into Permethrin, and it's working so far. I sprayed my jeans myself and bought a pair of treated hiking socks and nice treated shirt (the sort that doesn't get soaked in sweat and has built in sunblock too). THOUGH I have to add the first time I wore the shirt I did get a tick--it landed a little south of the armpit, so I'm thinking it either hopped in my open collar (it's a button down shirt) or crawled up the sleeve. I was almost ready to send a furious letter to the shirt manufacture, then remembered how other recommend spraying Deet where ever the treated clothes can't cover. With Deet on my lower arms and neck I've been fine. Also, the kids have joined me a few times in the woods and have come out ok with just a spritz of Deet. But I don't drag them off trail too much and never in front (I find the best path for them without thorns and try to catch the spider webs for them).

I'm newish here, but I'm thinking the challenges would be more popular if you could count them, or heck, even see them on the map.

Thanks, that's about the funniest thing I've seen today.

I should hope you can talk about puzzles in a generic sense--how else are new people going to figure out how to solve them? I'm a mass comm major, I wouldn't know a resistor if it bit me on the hinder.

I decided to ask the CO on the pirate puzzle that I've decide to tackle. His hint was to print the page in black in white and stare at it. Or something like that, he was very nice. I hope I get the swing of this, my neck of the woods seems to be a dumping ground for puzzles.

I'm so glad I live in the suburbs where we have plenty of parks to geocache. My biggest fear are ticks from the high weeds, not cops.

I'm so glad I live in the suburbs where we have plenty of parks to geocache. My biggest fear are ticks from the high weeds, not cops.

Ooooo I hate puzzles. I have enough challenge just finding the dang cache with coords. I was so annoyed to find a bunch of regular size caches in my backyard are actually puzzles located who know where. One is just a a bunch of pirate flags. Grrrrr. Or rather, arg.

I'm guessing it was part of the challenge to get it without being noticed.

It's more a matter of whether a cache falls under the guideline at all. For example, the OP wasn't entirely sure if their cache falls under the guideline or not, which is why they asked here. The reviewers are well-versed in the guidelines and will have a lot of experience with various levels of "buried", so they can tell you whether your cache is "buried" in the eyes of Groundspeak. The same goes for the commercial guideline. For grey areas where it isn't clear whether a guideline is violated, the best person to ask is a reviewer. Edit for more clarification: Unfortunately, not every cache falls completely on one side or the other of a guideline. What if I mention a business in a parking waypoint? Does that violate the commericial guideline? What if I very strongly hint at a particular business in my description, but don't actually state the name? Commercial or not? The guidelines aren't a matter of black and white, which is why we have reviewers to make judgement calls for the cases where it isn't clear. That's what I was thinking...if the OP couldn't figure out the rules from his reading, then the perfect person to ask is the reviewer, who should KNOW the rules. Not a bunch of Joe Smoes on the forum. We could be experts. Or not. But I do see the point now that you shouldn't take liberties even with your own property. Somebody around here mentioned a cache hidden as a sprinkler head, so seekers were dismantling some park's sprinkler system. Y'ouch!

Dan--if it's YOUR property, the rules may not apply. I think the idea is not to mess with other people's property. Check with the reviewers, you might be able to be more creative on your own land.

That's what I was thinking. When you mean "adult" as in XXX I think of college boys, not grown ups. From what little I've seen so far, a lot of geocaching is "grown up". My kids certainly don't want to go after a dime sized micro at the end of a 5 mile hike. They want the giant box of goofy toys about 100 feet off a nice playground. There's a thread around here on upgrading swag items. Suggestions for grown up trinkets are things like flashlights, handwipes, packets of tissues, carabiner clips, handmade trinkets to dangle off your keychain...The problem is that cheap trinkets tend to be toys, so toys are what we find.

I got a membership so I could do paperless caches--I don't know how many times I walked in circles because I let my son plug in the numbers on our way to a park! I don't have a smartphone--could someone tell me, does the phone app give you all the details? Maybe it's just gotten a bit TOO easy. Of course, a solution could be to read the description of the cache, including the hider's profile. If they look lame, pass it up.

I have enough trouble finding things in my county park, I would never dream of wandering around a genuine forest looking for a cache! Plus, there aren't a lot of National Parks in my area--the two I know of here are either a historical place (a president's home) and the Gateway Arch. I think the feds would shoot anyone trying to hide something on the Arch, they added metal detectors after 9-11.

Glad to see you're doing your homework! First, don't expect much out of the "treasure" a lot of it is just silly trinkets and aimed more or less at the kids. You're expected to trade for AT LEAST equal value and trading up is commendable. If you find something worth keeping, keep it or save it for the next time you find a cache and trade it there. My kids have found super balls, Lego men, dice, Hot Wheels...most of the stuff are cheap party favor type toys. UNLESS: you find a geocoin or travel bug. These things are meant to move from place to place. Technically they still belong to whoever bought them--they will be monitoring their progress online to see where they go. If you pick one up you don't need to "trade" but you do have to promise to move it to another cache. Some items have a plan--maybe they want to see the world, maybe they want to go to grandma's house. Whatever. Sometimes the owner will have left a note on the bug saying where it wants to go, sometimes you have to wait until you go online to see what it wants to do. You're not obligated to take it to it's destination, just get it in the right direction. Remember to log any travel bugs/coins you find, so others can track them online. I've only found 30+ caches myself, so I don't claim to know everything. I would say that newer caches are going to have the most interesting "swag" while it's potluck what you'll find in an older cache. Some people don't play fair and leave crappy items. Others like to play nice and leave more than they find. Also, geocaches that aren't as waterproof as the owner thought can ruin the items inside, so sometimes you might find a box of soggy stuff. It happens. If you're doing this with a kid and want to avoid disappointment, then pay attention to cache SIZE and read the last few logs from other finders. If a cache is regular to large and has comments from others about finding or leaving things, they you'll likely find something of interest. Small caches often have no room for trade. Micros have room only for a tiny little strip of paper for the log. Right now I've got a little bag with assorted stuff I've found at the dollar store (party favors & flash lights), a few cool fake coins and metal tags I got at the craft store and a couple charms that I don't wear anymore and would have just ended up in a yard sale for trade items. You might want to just get a couple interesting things and see what kind of trade items you find in your neighborhood, then decide how to play it. Have fun!