Miragee

Jay Leno does his "Headlines" feature one night a week. He thought it was REALLY funny that someone put an ad in the paper for a lost GPSr, as if that wasn't possible. I felt for the person who placed the ad . . . and knew that wasn't funny AT ALL!

Personally, I prefer 100% cotton for hiking. I found some really wonderful, very lightweight Prana cotton pants at Adventure 16. They were on sale . . . otherwise I wouldn't have been able to afford them. However, the fabric is so durable, they will last for years. My other favorite pair of back-country pants are zip-off "convertible" pants/shorts. I found one pair of those at my local Thrift Store for about $6.00.

Excellent Point! One of the most fun caches I searched for and found was PVC, but the last person had tightened the end cap so much I could not loosen it. Fortunately, the cache was close to the road and my car. I took it over there, dug around in my emergency kit to get out my jumper cables, and used the clamp to open the cap. If that cache had been a mile from the road . . . I really don't want to have to add channel locks to my "Ten Essentials," so I hope people won't close the end caps too tightly . . .

EEEWWWWWUUUU! Glue . . . that would be another one I would want to know about so I could avoid it . . . Nothing worse than having to hike back to the car with a splitting headache. Maybe that could be added to the description . . .

There is one that I didn't find and swore it wasn't there anymore. Now I find out from more recent logs that it is in place. I don't know when I'll go back since it is a long round trip drive, but I need to bag that one . . . except I really, really looked the first time. I'm worried I'll make that long drive and not find it the next time.

Thanks for that vote of sympathy. (O.T. You joined on my birthdate . . . )

Oh, but to me the smell of perfume is AWFUL!! Although, the smell of mildew, which I've also found, is equally bad. Edited to include quote of post I was answering . . .

I'm new at this wonderful hobby/game/pastime and I'm definitely hooked. However . . . I've already run into a few caches with heavily-scented items inside them. I'm very sensitive to perfumes and it is disturbing to be out hiking in clean fresh air and finally succeed in finding the cache only to open it and have the strong scent of perfume emerge from the container. I don't know what the offending item was in the last cache, but the item I took in trade is still outside my house "airing out" because the scent lingered. Have others run into this? In my area the scent won't attract the bears that aren't here, but in the Sierras, the scent would be a lure and the cache would certainly go missing . . .

How about mine . . .? It is a picture of an old school building out in an Idaho field that I took a long time ago. Also, my Avatar is likely to change as I get pictures from my Geocaching adventures . . .

That is EXACTLY what I was thinking . . .

Jumping in late, but I bought a Necky Looksha Sport a few years ago. It was purchased second-hand from an outfitter who was downsizing. I really wanted a brand-new Perception (similar size and shape as the Looksha), but for some strange reason, my back would hurt after being out in it for a couple of hours. My Looksha doesn't have such a problem. Many years ago I had an inflatable Sea Eagle and it was very serviceable, and super handy when my car was a tiny Honda Civic. I used it on the Salmon River in Idaho and on other streams. It wasn't good for flat water if the wind was blowing . . .

I learned about Geocaching last spring from a segment on NPR. I went to the website and printed out the information for some nearby caches and gave those pages to a neighbor. I thought it would be a great activity for him, his wife, and their little girl. I didn't think it was something I would get interested in . . . Well, when I saw a friend's GPSr last December, I started coveting it. So, I bought myself a Garmin eTrex Vista for Christmas. I finally got out to find my first one January 17 and I've found 20 so far. If I had known how much fun this was . . . even going it alone . . . I would have gotten my GPSr months ago.

My screen name is meaningful because I am . . . well . . . idiosyncratic . . .

Uh . . . didn't anyone mention T.P. or Kleenex . . . in a ziplock bag. That is one of my essentials. The other day it was cold and windy and I needed the tissue for my runny nose, but you never know what else you need it for . . . depending on how long you are out in the boonies.

I carry four, including a hand powered one in case I run out of batteries I'm new at this Geocaching thing and each time I go out, I learn something new. Yesterday I went to a nearby location where I thought I could bag four caches in just a couple of hours. Well . . . my headlamp and extra batteries have now been added to my fanny pack because I just barely made it back to the car while I could still see to walk on the very rugged trail . . .

I've found some cool cache swag at Thrift Stores. Sometimes they bundle a whole bunch of items in one bag for only a few dollars. These things might vary from Beanie Babies to Yo-Yo's to a little calculator to collectible toy figures. Looking for cool stuff this way is almost as fun as looking for the cache later . . . Well . . . not really. []

I just started using my Palmie, an M500, with Cachemate software. I'll never print out a hard copy again.

The coolest one I've found so far was a cache in the top of a Fibre Optic cable warning pole . . . However, the last person to find it really closed it tight and I could not get it open. In my Geocaching equipment, I don't carry a pair of channel locks. I'm sure glad this was a roadside cache so I could take the cache back to my car. I used the clamp from my jumper cables as "pliers." The clamp provided just enough leverage to open the cache.

I just went "paperless" with my old Palmie and Cachemate software and a Premium membership. It is way better than carrying around the hardcopy. Now my printer cartridges will last longer.

I've been a lurker for a while . . . but I've been learning while lurking. See, I'm new to this activity and haven't had much to offer. So far Geocaching is the most fun new activity I've had in my life since I bought my last new horse. Alas, that was a while ago and I don't have horses anymore. If anyone in my area (San Diego County) has an extra horse and wants to go Geocaching on horseback, I'd love to join them.

I sympathize . . . My German Shepherd rolled in something dead on our first night out on a camping trip. The next morning I found a campground where I "bought a shower." I gave my dog a bath in that shower and boy, did we make a mess in there. I tried to wipe down the walls and floor where she shook off all the water so it didn't look so bad after I left. Fortunately, my own shampoo did the trick that time . . . Although my dog was very stinky, it wasn't as hard to get rid of as fishy or skunk odor.

This happened long before Geocaching existed, but I thought the picture was worth posting. The driver was a macho co-worker of mine who thought he knew everything, so he didn't check the often-dry ford at the Bill Williams River to see if he could go all the way across, even if this hadn't happened. If he had, he would have seen it was impossible to get up an eroded river bank more than three-feet high. We spent a long, cold night with no food or water, then hiked for hours the next day until we were rescued by some off-road motorcyclists out for a Saturday ride. Finding a four-wheel-drive tow truck, with a driver willing to drive 75 miles to rescue this truck, was another adventure, as was the drive in and back out to this site from Parker, AZ. Oh . . . I wasn't in the truck when he did this. I was crossing the river on the nearby gas pipeline for a little "adventure" since prior to this I had been bored . . .

I have some, but can't remember for sure where I got them. However, it might have been at a computer shop. They have to use those for packages of small screws.

I only earned $.15 yesterday because that was all I could carry out, but next time, I will have a trash bag so I can collect every can or bottle I see.

I found a Root Beer can the other day that was one of those "can safes." I thought it was a very clever container, but worried it would get picked up as trash if someone was cleaning up "litter" in the area.