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KristenSh

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Everything posted by KristenSh

  1. Ordered one, I love dandelions!
  2. I found one recently that, when I opened it (and it was awkward enough to retrieve while avoiding the ivy) ... hundreds of ant larvae fell out. I actually felt kinda bad for the poor ant nursery workers scuttling to protect their charges. I sure hope that CO heeds the log and checks his cache, though, as it was a royal mess.
  3. We're hoping we get one, as we signed in before the page went down ... but haven't yet received. Did see a couple at the event in Nashville this weekend, so they're definitely on the loose already.
  4. I'm glad there's not an option to watch a user. Can you imagine being able to pinpoint those out-of-the-way trails that particular users might be walking in real time? I try not to hike alone as much as possible, but adding cyberstalkers to the potential issues would take this hobby right out of my hands for sure. Been stalked before, that was enough, thanks.
  5. No harm in logging a DNF if you gave it a fair hunt ... just also note that you're a newbie and you weren't sure if the problem was you or your equipment or the cache ... that's what I do when I can tell my GPS is wacky. I use a Galaxy Tablet and a secondhand Garmin (Colorado, I think), depending on what terrain I'll be hunting, and lately the Google maps don't seem to line up really well. Have a funny story about a recent one that I posted elsewhere ... I marked it DNF, later found out my map and coordinates were way off, but then got an email from the cache owner who'd gone to check after my listing and found out it really WAS gone! So I got to go back to the correct location, this time, and find it. If I hadn't logged, neither of us would've known. Micros can be pretty devious ... it's better to start with something larger while you get used to the quirks of your particular equipment. But there are some 'usual suspects' that you'll pick up as you read through the forums and start to get some ideas of where folks look. It's also okay to email the cache owner for a hint ... they don't have to give one, but there's nothing wrong with asking politely. You might also email some previous finders to see if they'd be willing to help you out ... you don't have to ask where it is, just say "I was standing by the giant rockpile; was I in the right area?" or something like that. Or get a more experienced friend to scan through the logs of the caches to glean clues ... people will drop hints sometimes, even just things like "That was easier than I expected" or "That was certainly a different hiding place" can tell you if it's a more devious than usual hide.
  6. On the lighter side here ... I seem to carry some sort of Geo-Jinx, with a knack for hunting for caches that turn out not to actually be there at all. Sometimes it seems to be 50/50 whether we find it or whether it was muggled. (And yeah, we have regular DNFs where we simply missed it the first few times .... but we also have this knack for the muggled ones that haven't yet been noted.) I'm on a quest to hit 100 at the GPS Maze event in Nashville this weekend, so have been hunting hard to bring my numbers up lately (much to the dismay of my kids). I scouted out some easy ones and went out on my own Sunday, only to find two of 5 attempts. The GPS was just wacky that day. Oh well, at least there were a couple. I dutifully posted my DNFs on the ones I had spent a fair amount of time searching, and started planning for my next day. Later I get an email ... one of the cache owners had gone to check since I was her second DNF in a row (on a cache that had never had ANY before, good for her!), and it turned out that ... you guessed it ... the cache was gone. I joked with my family about the jinx and added the cache back to my list. Went to look for it today ... the GPS was better behaved ... and it turns out I had been looking in COMPLETELY the wrong place! In a way I felt bad for sending the owner out to check a cache where the fault was actually mine ... but on the other hand, the cache had actually disappeared, so my mis-hunting simply sped up the notification process and saved other cachers the dismay of a DNF. Funny to me, and funnier with our history of such mishaps. Love the other stories too!
  7. That is awesome! And the story rocks too!
  8. BlueDeuce, if you swap Flat Stanleys, we'd be happy to swap with you. Assuming our last batch return home safely, anyway. We've got one that will be going with us to the GPS exhibit in Nashville this weekend, then back home with it ... and hopefully they'll send ours back as well.
  9. Wow, hope we got in this in time ... the kids think the gecko is hilarious and would love to send that TB around ... we were able to fill out that form when we spotted it in the newsletter. I don't mind a little advertising when it's cute and if it stays family-friendly. The kids have already had two sets of Flat Stanleys kidnapped this year (the paper doll swap based on the storybook Flat Stanley) so something like this will cheer them up.
  10. Hi! I'm pretty new to the forums, as in mostly just these last several weeks, but have been geocaching (or trying to) since April 2010. We have a few geocoins, mostly that were door prizes, but just bought a grab bag from Toojin so we probably don't count as having 5 or less anymore. (Shoulda read this thread a couple days ago! LOL.) Anyway, we have a blast collecting the coins or pathtags or signature items that come our way ... well, I do, and my kids like the toys to swap. Came out of lurkdom to learn a bit more about the finer points of geocaching, and have learned a lot just listening around here. As for me, I'm a homeschool mom, Cub Scout den leader, Girl Scout troop leader, letterboxer, and so on ... so we keep busy. Geocaching has been fun in introducing us to new areas we haven't found before, and persuading my kids to go on hikes with me, but mostly it's my hobby ... there are lots of micros in our area, and while the kids like the easy finds, they get tired of me always adding extra stops to our errand runs. So I inflict, I mean share, this hobby with visiting relatives, other Scouts, and so on. We're also ultra muggle magnets, so we've gotten to tell LOTS of folks about geocaching. Amabassadors of the Hunt, that's us. Was a librarian in my pre-parenthood life, and doing reference work is a lot like puzzle solving and geocaching ... including the trying to explain things to muggles bit. Am working on planting a letterbox per year for our summer reading programs, this will be our second year of that, and am hoping to get permission to include a geocache with the hide ... that'll be a blast. Thanks for all the nice and helpful folks on the forums here ... it helps a LOT ... you can glean a lot by just reading logs and seeing what other cachers have done before you, but there's a lot you just have to find people and ask. We're lucky to have a good local group too, with fun gatherings every now and then. Happy caching!
  11. I think the signature items are cool, and it would be a pity to toss it. It could make a really neat bundle for a meetup door prize if you don't want to put them in another cache. Or clearly, there are folks here willing to pay shipping.
  12. I didn't know about the souvenir, that'll be fun! Our last local geo-flash-mob was a multi-stage ... gosh, was that hard to find! We caught up somewhere in the middle. LOL.
  13. Ironically, my husband just introduced this game to the kids last night. Still wouldn't want to put a strange drive into our computer, but I can see the appeal with sharing creations. They're all just tinkering with the classic one right now, if I heard him correctly. Not a paid thing yet. So my kids would be amused by a Minecraft TB, whether it was interactive or not. Hope you find a way to make it work out safely!
  14. Jumping in cluelessly here, but for 11-11 we always end up spending part of the day at the Veteran's Day parade and helping the Scouts with the flag retirement ceremony afterward ... very moving for me. In our area, a new veteran's memorial will also officially open on that day. So if we have a geocache event in our area on that day ... I'd want it centered around those events. (A bonus, there's theoretically a cache hidden in the park they use for the staging area, but since the new memorial construction, they've blocked off the WHOLE PARK so that'll be the first time in months cachers can get at that geocache! I am sure the owner will be celebrating.) On a personal note, it's also going to be our 11th wedding anniversary. So I am sure we'll be celebrating somehow that day. I wonder how geocachers would enter a float or group in a parade? That could be interesting... the vehicle would need a travel bug decal for sure, LOL. Hmm, since the memorial will have brick pavers in honor/memory of folks, could lead to interesting scavenger hunt events. I can't wait to see where the one is that my sis and I got in memory of our father.
  15. Disguised as garbage or not ... if it looks like it's possible to contract a disease while retrieving a cache, it goes on the DNF list. And depending on who's with me and what materials we have on hand, CITO may be in order. There's one in my area, currently disabled, that seems to be hidden in a well-trashed area. It's just plain not safe to search in that particular spot. I have NO idea what the container itself may look like, but I have some very bizarre ideas of what might be occurring after hours in that park... after a couple attempts we finally had to write that one off. I won't even let my kids search in that area, it's that bad. The rest of the park is fine. If the owner would confirm the hide, it'd be a good spot for a group CITO but it's not an area I want to tackle by myself.
  16. LOL. I guess it just feels like a zillion. I don't log every attempt I make on some of them, just when they're spaced out over time or I've given it a really good search again ... I don't want to clutter up someone's logs and scare off other cachers, because the more experienced folks will find what I've overlooked and that's helpful all around! I just log enough DNFs to let a cache owner know what's up over time. Well, and my ego won't let me admit how many failures I have on some of those. LOL. Had some fun muggle run-ins lately ... sigh.
  17. Don't know if this is what happened to you, but on my Galaxy tablet I found out my app had a little button that made the screen stay with my location, or not ... and I kept bumping without even knowing it. Finally figured it out. Definitely worth practicing on your own for a bit. My kids get irked too when we don't even come close to what we want to find. Been there!
  18. Thanks for the validation! I'll wait till closer to our departure date, and then see if I can find it. And as for my concern about ticking off the cache owner ... if it wasn't a prominent and prolific cacher in the area, I wouldn't fret, but I don't want to set off a ruckus. I'm finally breaking out of my shell and making some friends in the caching community, and I kinda like that.
  19. Knowing nothing about minecraft, but skimming the thread ... Someone said use a card to explain the game, and someone else said to have it hosted on a special website or something ... could you create one of those QR barcodes or somesuch, that users could scan to get to your game? That would be easy to put on a card, it would look really cool, and presumably it wouldn't be subject to the hazards a flash drive would. I dunno, I just keep seeing those barcode things popping up everywhere and it might get folks' attention who wouldn't just go to a printed website. You could maybe incorporate it into some nifty graphic that relates to the game. (though there will still be folks leery of visiting an unknown website, I suppose)
  20. True, that may be what's happened. Which I guess would technically be worse. I will definitely have to take a look myself at some point.
  21. What would you do if, say, you found there's a geocoin hotel type cache nearby, and you wanted to check it out, but beforehand you looked at the coin missions to see which ones you could best help (thanks to a tip I read here someplace) ... and you discovered that the cache ownere wrote a "Take one, Leave one" rule for the cache and none of the poor coins (about half a dozen) have moved since the middle of last year? Folks have visited and dipped their own coins into the cache during that time, but it doesn't appear that many have been moved at all. I don't happen to have any moving coins on me at the time, and I am pretty sure that cache owners aren't supposed to set that sort of rule. We'll be (hopefully) attending a big geo-event later in the month. I am SO tempted to go rescue the poor coins, take them with us, and distribute them (with mission printouts) to anyone who wants to pass them along. On the other hand, I figure if I do that, I'll tick off the cache owner. If they were your travellers, would you want a grand rescue staged? Or is there a better middle ground that I'm overlooking somehow? Thanks for any advice!
  22. Very cool! I'm interested.
  23. That is one gorgeous coin, love the red-yellow. May be outside my price range, but I'm interested to see how they are when they're done.
  24. We hope to hit Nashville for the GPS Adventures Maze thingy soon, and there's a Dinosaur Train one right nearby ... we'll have to see how those look before we do one. These both look like fun ways to make kid-friendly ones, and I'm all for that! Thanks for the heads-up on these!
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