Quossum

My husband and I did this one last year on a layover. It's very do-able in two hours. The counting isn't too onerous (restricted to a small section of floor which is easy to find), and the research needed can be done with a smartphone. My previous fossil knowledge did help, but I still learned something! Here's a link to my log if you're interested. http://tinyurl.com/zh828rj --Q

We just finished the Calendar challenge, as well. We've always dated the log, even when we weren't actively working on filling the grid. It's cool to look at a cache log and say, "Wow, the last find was a year ago!" or "Someone else was here earlier today!" or whatever--we just always notice the date on the last log. Though we usually sign with a sharpie, I also have a stamp that includes our names and the date. It's neat! --Q

Re: Smartphone app and logging I wish more people were aware of and would utilize field notes. I'll log on my phone if we're grabbing just a cache or two and I know I'll have time to type in a few sentences. But, if we're visiting a trail with several caches, or if I'm using my GPSr for caching and just have the phone as backup, or if we're in an area with spotty reception, or if I need to leave a much more substantial tale of the cache, I utilize the field notes capability of the app. On the iPhone app, it can be found here: Just touch the three dots at the top instead of the usual "Found it" green bar in the middle of the screen, and you can jot a quick field note: "saw raccoon, log wet;" "car travel bug, wasps;" "almost fell in creek;" or whatever. You can send these logs and they don't show up on the cache yet, just in your field notes on the website (last item on the "Play" dropdown). Now when you're back at your computer (or have more time and / or an easier to use keyboard) you can write more substantial logs with the help of the quick notes to jog your memory and submit them to officially log the caches. Hope this helps someone out there! --Q

A sad fact. More than half the caches we hit the last two years didn't have the trackables listed in them. - But what's your advice? This makes absolutely no sense to me... Haha! I guess to some it wouldn't. If you don't feel comfortable losing them, for heaven's sake DON'T put more out--it will only lead to frustration. BUT, if you're the type who can let go of emotional attachment to an individual traveler, then putting out a lot of them is a great strategy. You see, *some* of those bugs WILL go forth and travel. Some will luck out and travel extensively! It can be a lot of fun to get a "live one" that ends up in another country, with photos taken in exotic locales, with interesting logs...that's so worth it! The more travelers you put out, the more likely you are to get a few that travel the way they're supposed to. If you put out no more travelers because of the bad fortune that befalls many / most of them....you never will get to experience the fun, vicarious journey of a successful traveler. It's up to you! --Q

Well, there's your problem right there. Considering the track record of travelers in this game, you just can't afford to get emotionally attached to them. In sociobiological terms, you're better off being an r strategist, putting out many, many travelers and enjoying the journeys of those that happen to survive, than a K strategist, putting all your love and attention into one precious traveler, which, more than likely, will die a quick and unceremonious death. I've had many travelers disappear from their very first cache, never to be seen again, some taken by seasoned cachers, others taken by newbies. A couple were excited enough to find a traveler that they commented about it, or even took photos...but still, the travelers were never placed again. Then I have other travelers that have gone thousands of miles! You've gotten good advice about possibly getting it on the move again, but really, there's nothing you can do except hope. It might get placed, it might be gone forever. Put out more travelers! Despite the travails of this portion of the game, I'm not the least bit discouraged and still enjoy putting out travelers. I love starting races with groups of travels and putting out proxy travelers for my geocoins so that I can enjoy the travels AND the beauty of the coins. Good luck! Don't become disillusioned--travelers can be a lot of fun if you just keep the right mindset! --Q

Here's my Dad (CadetDon1942--he's not tech-savvy and doesn't log online, though he's found many caches with us) and my husband (Don-Giacomo) caching a couple of weekends ago. The photos were taken the same day, same park, slightly different areas, but very different landscape. Except for the thorns. The thorns where *everywhere!* --Q

Oh, my gosh, I love reading all of these! My favorites of mine are two "dog tag races" that my husband and I started on our two trips to the Grand Canyon, 2011 and 2013. Of the first race, two are missing and two are still going strong with thousands of miles. Of the second race, a couple seem to be stalled but the race is still underway. I took a lot of time with the pages for these bugs, and it's been a lot of fun watching them travel. Flame of the 2011 race (23000 miles) Sugarfoot of the 2013 race --Q

I had to go look, too. That is an amazing cache! Props for the idea and keeping it up. As previously noted, don't worry about cachers "cleaning it out," especially since you've made it a puzzle cache. In my experience, it seems like only serious cachers even bother looking at those, so it's probably a safe bet that anyone taking several bugs intends to move them along. My husband and I like moving bugs. If we were right before a vacation, we might have visited and done the same thing, with full intentions of spreading the bugs we took all along our route. If we were just "caching around," we would probably have done the swap a bug for a bug thing. I hope you manage to keep up this cache. The cachers in the area will know it's a great place to get bugs moving. Good job! --Q

A traveler-loving cacher from Texas who would love to help out with the HQ bugs here! I, too, would be happy to pay the postage to get a small box of them down here to distribute. Yes, there are some frustrating aspects to travlers: going to a cache where one is supposed to be to find that it's long gone (mitigate this by reading the last few logs); putting out travelers that soon disappear; having travelers in hand only to encounter micro after micro, or, worse yet, caches listed as "small" (a size which should be able to hold a small bug) only to find a tiny key hider or a soda tube (which can't even accomodate a signature coin). But, I still think it's worth it. I love to move them around and I love to put out my own. I put out Cachekins, coins, and engraved proxies for fancier coins. Put out enough, don't get emotionally attached to them, and it can be fun to follow the journeys of those that travel for a while. --Q

Run the PQ to check for inventory, then take a quick look at the last five logs (GSAK makes this very easy). It should be quite obvious from those whether the listed bugs are likely to be there or not. "No travelers here," vs. "Dropped off a bug," etc. My husband and I always do a bug hunt before going on vacation and have been very successful this way. --Q

Mine arrived today, thank you! I admit, by the name on your list, I thought "CacheDragons Geocoin" was this one: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=297308 , but the one I got is nice, too. The Crowesfeet coin is beautiful and striking, and the Laval one is very sparkly. A lovely group of coins! --Q

I interested in a few of those. Sending PM. --Q

You can do whichever pleases you, but don't send out a coin that you highly value or has emotional attachment, because it's very likely to go missing. I've done both. Fifteen of the 26 travelers I have activated right now are the "real" coin (or travel bug); one of them has over 23,000 miles, others 17,000 and 12,000 miles. Coins that are too nice / expensive / pretty to look at...well, it seems a shame for them to remain unactivated and just sit there in my collection when the tracking number could be put to use doing that it's designed to do: travel. So in those cases I have no qualms about using a proxy. Heck, the fancy-schmancy coin my husband bought me for my birthday is SO fancy-schmancy that it *came* with a nice-looking proxy. I take a lot of care even with my proxies, though. I like the Replicoin place linked to above, but I prefer these proxy tags, which I then attach to an appropriate hitchhiker. A geocoin shaped like an oyster got an actual oyster shell, a zodiac coin got a toy lion (for my sign, Leo), etc. I always try to give nice write-ups for my traveler pages, too. I admit, I've been disappointed when what was supposed to be a coin in a cache turned out to be a moldy piece of paper in a plastic bag. But when it looks like a "real" traveler, with the proxy done in a cool and imaginative way, I don't mind at all, and hey, I got another icon! Finding a real coin in cache as a traveler...that is undeniably cool, and I love it. But it's almost bittersweet, too, and I know even as I carefully choose a new cache for it, it's almost bound to disappear. Not that proxies won't, too...but if they do, I've still got a gorgeous coin at home to admire, and I had fun watching its travels for a while. --Q

Found one of them: http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=3866977 Doesn't look legit to see it on eBay, not at all. --Q Edited to say I found another one: http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=4204185 Picked up by the same guy as the one above. And here's a third: http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=614927 The person who picked them all up has 700+ finds and one would think knows better. The eBay seller mentions his son "finding" them. Maybe there's some major misunderstandings going on here rather than malice, but...it doesn't look good.

Yes, trackables disappear all the time, sometimes from the very first cache they're placed in. Sometimes you luck out and they travel for years. Sounds like you just got hit with a burst of bad luck, having two go missing in quick succession. Advice for now: You can look back through the logs of the cache from which the patches disappeared and write *politely* to the cacher(s) you suspect might have taken the bugs, inquiring about them and asking if they need any help logging. Sometimes newbies don't quite get the ins and out of trackables. Advice for the future: Go for magnitude. Put out a LOT of trackables, and at least a couple will probably make it for a while. Don't put out anything "valuable" or indispensable, either emotionally or mission-wise. Note: Though this is rare and hopefully unlikely in your case, there are areas of the country known to be the home of notorious trackable thieves. If you have the misfortune to live in such an area, it's probably best not to put out trackables except when you travel, as the thieves will inevitably get all the properly logged trackables in their home area. Hope this helps! --Q

You have to be in the account that owns the coin to delete the logs. Hope this helps, --Q

Update: Oakcoins happily and promptly sent me the activation codes of the two coins in response to my email with pictures. Yay! Two more to activate and send into the world (mostly by proxy except for my less-fancy coins ). Thanks again for the tips! --Q

The best one I've seen like this had you head to the usual lamp skirt. Picked it up, found the film can...and in the film can was a note saying something like, "Look up!" The actual cache was a nano stuck way up high on the lamp post. It gave us a chuckle and really "elevated" the typical LPC. So I think this would be a fun idea, so long as the "real" cache wasn't all TOO diabolical. --Q

Thank you for the advice! I took photos of the coins, showing their tracking numbers, and wrote to Oakcoins explaining the situation and attaching the pictures. Lesson definitely learned. Addressing Bartians's point... Long ago I purchased several unactivated coins; I think it was through eBay. None of them came with the codes indicated, and I had to look them all up. For some, this was no problem. For others, it took a lot of hunting and was a bit of a pain. I got them all in the end, but...I would say that the best course of action would be to obtain the activation code right away and put it *with* the coin, preferably on the little card in the coin sleeve if at all possible. Then the code is associated with the coin whether one activates it oneself or sells it later. The eventual buyer won't have to jump through hoops to track them down. If one displays them in such a way that the coin is not with its sleeve...maybe a note at the front of the book in which the coin is displayed? Would love to hear other thoughts about it. Thanks again for the help! --Q

Hello, all! Nowadays when I buy a coin, I retrieve its activation code and write it down to keep with the coin until I'm ready to activate it. I didn't used to be so diligent, and while cleaning up today found a stack of coins with no activation code noted. Retrieved most of them without incident, except for two found deep in the recesses of my husband's caching bag. Apparently he DID retrieve the codes at one time, but did not activate the coins...and now, (you see where this is going, right?)...those codes are no where to be found, and Oakcoins won't let you retrieve them again. Any advice? Write to the company and explain the situation? Is there some mysterious way to get the codes? One is a Ten Years of Geocaching coins (I think it's the "Multi Event" one, as I have a very similar one in green, and this one is red), and the other is the World Travel Coin. Thanks for any help or suggestions! --Q

Fellow Texan here! I've been snapping a pic with my weather app to attach to my August streak finds, and so far the hottest one has been 103, feels like 106. Yikes! Having lots of fun. Today we re-visited a cache we had DNF'ed a couple of years ago. After an exhaustive (or so we thought) search, we DNF'ed it again. (To indicate how determined we were to find it, we unloaded a couple of boxes of pork riblets from the car to form a stepladder to reach higher up into the cleft of a tree. Where the cache wasn't, of course.) Left, found another one from the same series...and went back to the first one with another idea. This time we found it! --Q

Great thread! Finding hidden treasures of this sort is one of my favorite parts of this hobby. I can't count how many cool parks or historical markers I've found this way, but here's one of my favorites, a collection of funky folk art along a remote roadside: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LUID=568cb1d6-dc09-452b-a385-d9147d63b579&IID=e736bfff-38dd-457a-9e2b-d66efb87ecda This is for a cache, now archived, where a strange figure had been carved into a lightning-struck tree in front of a house (the cache was in a small park across from a house). The new homeowner sadly chopped down the art, so if it hadn't been for geocaching, I wouldn't have ever seen this piece. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LUID=f64aee61-5fc2-4652-82c4-4b29627e454f&IID=5a749e79-f1f1-420f-bc3a-13de63e51834 Good stuff. What a hobby! --Q

The non-caching (or caching-but-not-finding a cache) activities are fun, too. We've had many a cache-free month...and about to come up on a couple, probably, as the dog show season gets on a roll. Gotta be well-rounded! I've also finished a couple of quilts this month. In fact, school is about to start up again, and I know that these last couple of weeks will be the most challenging in keeping our streak alive. I'm treating this as a fun-and-light-hearted part of my Geocaching hobby, trying not to take it too seriously, though I love the little "officially sanctioned" incentive and knowing that a lot of other cachers (if not a whole lot of forum readers) are in it, too. I can count the number of times I've encountered a fellow cacher on the trail on one hand, but a few days ago we encountered one at one of the hides. It was fun introducing ourselves and hunting together (it wasn't a skirt-lifter so it took a little sharp-eyed hunting), and I gave her a geocoin of mine to move to another cache. It was a neat experience. Guess I need to get to some events! Take care, everyone, cache on! --Q

Umm...this was supposed to be the one positive thread about the 31 day streak. There's another one for griping / hating on / general disdain about the streak. C'mon, can't we have nice things? We're still going strong! Spent much longer on a bush hide than we should have this evening, finding only duck eggs rather than the cache (no, the cache was not one of the eggs!). Finally DNF'ed and moved on. Wouldn't have spent so long on it, but it finally cooled down some here: only 91 degrees. I've enjoyed reading about the adventures so far. --Q

Sure! That's perfectly fine and a fun goal. I've seen many bugs with a goal to make it to a target cache so that a target person can retrieve it, to keep or whatever. See this one of mine, which is similar: http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=3720880 Once a bug reaches its goal, some people change its goal to make it back to its home base, or even contact the last person and ask it to be mailed to them if there's a sentimental attachment. Some change the goal to simply travel around. Just be realistic and realize that a very small proportion of travelers meet their goal; most disappear along the way. So don't send out anything with emotional value, or perhaps send out several travelers with the same goal and release them in scattered places and times, maybe in the form of a "race." You might have better luck that way. Have fun! --Q