KennyHannahJacobKatie

Thanks for the advice on Magellan antenaes - For a Geocacher who likes the shady woods this sounds pretty important. I've got a bid in on a Magellan Meridian for $150 at an E-bay auction that ends in a couple of hours. We'll see if I get it. The Amazon advice was good. They have a Magellan Meridian Gold for $199 right now. This is BELOW the price they show for used Meridian Golds (?) ! I'll pick this up if the E-Bay auction doesn't turn out. This of course is a GUARRANTY that I'll find my ETrex tomorrow but one way or another I'll be Geocaching by the end of the week. Any last thoughts on the Magellan Meridian will be appreciated. /Lefty

Nah .... After a couple of years of reading this forum I "know" and trust you guys. Silly but there it is. /Lefty

I'm about to take the plunge and by a new GPSr and need some advice. Several weeks ago my last one disappeared and I've spend the last two+ weeks moping around and hoping it would show up. Those of you in multi-child homes know the story but nonetheless, it hasn't and I'm going through serious caching withdrawals. My frustration is heightened by the fact that I've spent a weekend Backpacking in the Sierra's and another hiking the Monte Bello and Los Trancos preserves near lots of unclaimed caches. My wife reminded me that the surest way to get my old GPSr to show up is to buy a new one. She may be a cynic but she's probably right. Anyway, my last unit which I've used on hiking and caching trips for nearly three years was the bare bones bright yellow E-Trex. I'd like an upgrade to a better quality screen, downloading and hopefully place names with greater than 7 characters but I don't want to spend more than $250. Walkie Talkie features, built in altimeters and mapping are probably out but they're frills for cachers anyway. Any advice? Are used models available? Should I stick with Garmin? /Lefty

I'm in awe - 80 finds in a single day is beyond the reach of all but the geocaching Gods let alone 278 in a 4 day span. Some quick calculations show that given a 20 hour day your team still managed a 15 minute find cycle with no stops for a potty break along the way! Still, I'm starting to worry about you guys. Are you SURE the group didn't start the day by signing a contract with a guy in a red suit with horns and a long tail? Pretty heady stuff - congratulations on a great weekend caching. /Lefty

I saw this event while scanning the Geocaching home page where new caches are listed. It's kind of a cool idea to use CITO to reward forward thinking from park custodians and to help encourage Geocaching in previously "out of bounds" locales. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...11-10f261c82e73 I hope it works out wll for these guys. /Lefty

Wow ..... The hardest part of my Montalvo caching afternoon was LOGGING the finds on the webpage. Lot's of errors and timeout messages caused the process to take over an hour (including breaks). Other none Groundspeak webpages seemed to load normally. Is this a common occurence these days on the Geocaching.com site or just my computer/DSL connection? On the other hand, it was a clear day after the morning rain and the view from the Montalvo lookout point was spectacular. /Lefty

I saw the mention of Montalvo and realized I hadn't done a Montalvo hike in ages. The last time I was there I was surprised to see no cache's listed! This is no longer a problem and we found four today. We would have cleaned it out (well, with the one exception everyone is making) if not for the onset of darkness. But that's not why I posted. It turns out the hardest part of this day of caching is LOGGING the caches on the website. I keep timing out, getting error messages and server too busy messages. Is this just me or an ongoing problem? Is the traffic getting too high for the infrastructure? /Lefty

Yawn .... My kids and I have lost some Geocaching vigor and need a great new cache to reawaken the cacher inside us. Can you help? Any recent caches caught your eye? /Lefty and kids

Thanks for the props Green Achers! Like Beckerbuns we typically cache as a family so 2 or 3 cache's in a day is a good haul. (I'm amazed at some of you 30 cache per day folks! ) We're happy with our 100 cache total but will try to step it up to two per week over the next year. It's good to be in the Bay Area where we can make our 200 cache total without leaving the county! And wow ... to quote Eeyore "Thanks for noticin' ". /Lefty (Dad to Kenny,Hannah,Jacob and now Kathryn too. (We'll stop there!) P.S. I was a central valley FFA kid growing up so I loved the picture in your profile.

I was out hiking/caching one of the Castle Rock loops with a friend this afternoon and the early morning rain contributed greatly to the already gorgeous scenery. We got to the valley overlook right after the rain lifted and the sun poked through. The fog rising from the river valleys was breathtaking, the colors were changing on most of the deciduous trees and the recent rain caused each leaf to glisten. This is a mild California winter - no need to let the weather scare you away if you're even MILDLY prepared! Or so I think! /Lefty P.S. Full Disclosure: Of course my family is originally from Seattle where nothing would get done if a little rain scared you away.

Thanks - That makes sense. So... Geocaching recalculates cache finds for all finders each time a new entry is logged. Thus the longer it has been since a find, the more inaccurate the count will be. The Marky & Joani log entry shown above is from an archived cache so it fits the theory. /Lefty

Anybody know how the Geocaching log pages select which number to put next to your name as the "Cache's found" number? They seem to update them in a haphazard fashion leaving some interesting older logs where someone said a year ago that this was their first find but the log page states they have 200. Here's an example from a well known caching duo ... July 5, 2002 by Marky (1805 found) Our first cache after getting a GPS on the 4th. It was an adventure learning out to use the GPS. ..... Of course we know Marky&Joani are well past 2000 now! So ... I'm confused but guessing this has something to do with software reloads/update schedules. /Lefty

Hi Kreebelle -- How are things going with the "cache of the week" selections? I noticed it's been stalled on the Oct 17 date and was guessing you were out of town. It might be good to scale back to "cache of the month" once you get through the initial rush. That would give some of us a chance to visit multiple cache's prior to voting and might lower your workload! Anyway, nice work getting the process up and running and sorry to hear about your Utah misadventures. /Lefty

quote:Originally posted by boulter:... So, I decided to fix those problems and put up my own page. You can just slap in a string of coordinates and click right on over to a map. http://boulter.com/geocaching/convert.html Jeff Cool !! I've benchmarked your page and will definitely try it in the near future. /Lefty

I found a helpful site on the web that might be of use to other geocacher's. The URL below links to a site that converts between three coordinate types. The most useful for me was the conversion from the standard Geocache format to one of the two MapQuest compatible formats. Yes, you can do this in Excel but here is another option! Coordinate Conversion

Hmmhhhh ..... Check out the Motley Fool article linked below. Garmin is considered a hot stock. Here's a quote. "With most small planes in America equipped with Garmin technology, aviation products account for about 20% of Garmin's sales, while consumer-product sales -- which are steadily growing -- account for the majority" How many of these consumer oriented sales do you think are directly or indirectly due to Geocaching? Garmin Article

Kealia -- You should enjoy Bass Lake particularly after school starts. For our trip the lake and surrounding areas were pretty crowded but that should all change after labor day. The evenings were already cooling off and the mid-Sierra's are always beautiful. AND .... there are quite a few caches in the area. Less puzzle caches than in the Bay area but lot's of scenery. Most of the caches in Yosemite have been turned into "virtual" caches due to NPS regulations but south of the gate and in the small areas of private land within there are many regular caches. Within 5 miles of Bass lake there are about 8 caches so good luck. /Lefty

Team KHJ is just back from our pre first-day-of-school vacation to Bass Lake and we would like to share an experience that sums up why our family loves Geocaching. On the third day of our trip I took the extended family (we were at a reunion) to a beautiful stream where we had our own private sand beach next to a waterfall fed pool. The pool was safe for kids to swim in and less than a quarter mile off the beaten path, at a spot that even Grandma could walk to. Of course, the family wanted to know how I could have found a spot that only the locals should know. That my answer was Geocaching should be no surprise to those who read this board. I had found the pool while tracking down "Beyond Angel Falls" the day before. What other way can those with a love for the outdoors find the best local spots within days of arriving at a new locale? On the way home my daughter opined that the GPSr had to be "One of her best Christmas presents ever." Anyway ... Thanks to all of you cache placers who make such moments possible. /Lefty

Hmmhhhh ... My URL link above didn't work so well so I'm trying again. Here's the Greenland glacier cache with pictures. El Conquistador's Treasure I'm wondering why it only got 4.5 stars under terrain with warnings like "chance of injury is high.", "steep, nearly 45 degrees with about a 1400 foot elevation drop" and of course the always inviting "let a responsible person know when you should be back". Still living vicariously. /Lefty

quote:So I guess this one is before the vacation cache thing came up? Don Nah ... We'll get that Antarctica 5/5 on the way home. It'll toughen up the kids! North& South - Maybe we'll make it a double with THIS one. The pictures look so attractive. LOL /Lefty living vicariously

OK ... For those of you who think you have done it all in this sport, it's time to expand your horizons . You're limiting yourself to the bay area - think further afield. How about this cute little 5/5 cache just waiting for a FTF? In fact most of the cache's in this locale are waiting for their FTF. Unfortunately, you may need to wait for the season to turn. Chilly Willy at Onset - D Well ... at least it would be a new challenge! /Lefty

I'm going to be over in the Oakhurst/Bass Lake area with the kids Wednesday-Sunday next week. Anyone have "Can't Miss" cache suggestions for the Southern Yosemite foothills area? We love interesting hides and medium hikes with a good payoff. It's time for this ex-Valley boy to see how the Central Valley Cachers work! /Lefty and Kids

Marky -- Darn! I was hoping to drop off a recent TB find in the "Hospital" for first aid. Fluffy could use a better look. Your TB's that I've seen looked well done and it's a shame to lose such a valuable service. I love to see people "giving back" to a community and this was a great example of someone doing just that. Perhaps just take the feedback and keep up the good work while you can afford the time! -- Lefty

Speaking of puzzle caches ... Mavericks just put up an interesting one that acts as a travelogue of animal statues in the Downtown San Jose area. It's fairly easy (2/1) but looks like fun. For all of you FTF fanatics it's unlogged as of 11:15 am Friday. That won't last for long. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=6c2b32a9-b457-4bd3-9cd9-3e5a37850dcd I lent my GPSr to my brother-in-law to get him hooked on the sport during his Tahoe vacation or I would give it a shot at lunch. /Lefty

Thanks Kablooey and Beckerbuns for your South Bay cache suggestions. We've tried several over the past week (Forbes Mill, Teens and Antelopes and Arc of Art scored high) and enjoyed them immensely. The Los Gatos caches in particular were a hit for my son and some guests on a birthday weekend. Unfortunately some of Kablooey's suggestions have been archived but between the two lists we still have a few to work through. Anyone else want to share their "Best of" lists? /Lefty