halley-peabody

You're my hero.

Here are the two vehicles we use for going caching. These pictures were taken while we were camping in the San Juan Islands a week ago. The truck is good for when we need to go long distances or up into off-road areas. The scooter is good for around town and anywhere that parking is limited.

As soon as I saw the picture I instantly thought it was a breast

Amen to that!!! Out in the suburbs or rural areas this is seldom a problem, but in heavily urbanized areas it can be a nightmare. I did one cache that was in a tiny park, surrounded on nearly all sides by heavily industrialized -- private property -- areas. We only found the access point to the cache by accident, later on, after we had given up. In a situation like that I think it is wrong of the owner not to give better information. Not only do you run the risk of having people trespass on private property, but also of having them look suspicious and possibly get the police called.

I'm one of those people that often finds micros to be frustrating. I have nothing against a micro when I get there and find that it has been very creatively hidden or is the perfect solution to the "problem" of how to hide a cache someplace. What I don't like is when I find micros that are boring or that could just have easily been a larger size. I know a lot of people talk about how its the hunt that is the important part for them, but I happen to enjoy looking through what other people have left, leaving something of my own, and being able to write more in the log book than just my name and the date. So getting back to what I was saying, creative hiding or camouflage is one of the most important factors to me, whether the cache be a micro or not. It just seems like a micro, by default, should be something more interesting than just a film canister or a bison capsule. I tend to think of something like an ammo box or medium tupperware as being the "base" size of a cache, and any variation on that being done for a good reason, such as to make the container more interesting. I also don't like it when an area becomes so saturated with micros that there's no room for anything else. I like a little variety, but sometimes the nearest dozen or two dozen caches to any given point will all be micros. This is especially frustrating in a park setting where there could easily be a variety of caches and experiences if only two or three people hadn't run through, flinging caches to either side.

When we start a cache of our own we like to start it out with some CDs and other nice things for adult cachers and some decent tows for kids. When we are out caching we generally leave things that are more likely to appeal to adults or older children. I enjoy carrying around some small camping or hiking items and a few quality toys (still in their packaging), as well as a couple of CDs. We probably leave more CDs than anything else, though not every cache container is big enough for that. Seeing little, cheap toys in caches doesn't bother me. What bothers me is when the toys (or anything else) are in poor condition. There's nothing inherently wrong with a little rubber or plastic toy, but when it is filthy or mangled I really have to question the intent of the person who left it. Caches are not places to leave your garbage. Leaving something you no longer want is fine, but only if it is still in good shape. I generally think that you shouldn't leave some really cheap item unless it is brand new.

I've used one and I thought it did quite a good job. Perhaps it's a case of there being some that work and some that are just rip-offs.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if churches in Washington and South Carolina are quite a bit different. At the same time I am sure that Ms. Ceips has been very selective about which churches to include in her list of 50.

I spoke of my parents before, so I'll do so again. If they were to receive a letter like the one you described they might say something like "how nice" and then forget all about it. Telling them that you have an active forum with many helpful and friendly people wouldn't mean anything to them. I've told them all about these forums and they've said that they're not interested. So you can't count on forums to alleviate misunderstandings.

Since you feel so strongly about this subject then perhaps you should be talking to the Geocaching and Groundspeak powers that be, petitioning for a rules change to make cemetery caches against our rules. You could start a new thread and ask for people's support. See how many feel the way you do.

Personally, I prefer things that are low profile and understated, as well as blending in with other, "like" objects (in this case widgets). Yours is a cute idea, but it's not to my taste.

It might be a good idea to carry around some written information. I've seen the brochures and cards that are available, and those would be good to show to friends and family. What the current materials aren't as good for are the press. As a couple people have pointed out, dealing with the press can be touchy because they are looking for the shortest, simplest statement (if they are unbiased), or for something that can be easily misconstrued or twisted (if they are biased against). To that end I would suggest that someone come up with a press release or brochure that delivers the basics of geocaching and a short history in the most concise and straightforward way possible.

There are public cemeteries and there are private cemeteries. If a cemetery is private, such as one owned by church for instance, then the rule about getting permission before placing a cache on private property applies. If a cemetery is public then it's a matter of selectively banning some public areas to some members of the public for a certain activity which is not in any way illegal. I have my own feelings about caching in cemeteries, but regardless of that there is no call in my mind to put in place a new law that singles us out for no good reason at all.

I guess you just have to ask yourself whether or not someone new who comes along might not find it discouraging if all of the caches you have placed fall into the areas that they are familiar with and would have chosen. I know I certainly would. And as for posting to that web site before you place a cache, that's a nice gesture but I'm sure there are a lot of people who geocache and don't visit these forums often or at all, let alone the forums on some other web site that they may very well never have heard of. It's possible to enjoy the game without liking online discussions.

I've contributed my opinion on this topic before from the point of view as someone looking for caches. To add to what I've previously said, here's my feeling as a cache owner. I've only had one DNF posted so far on one of my caches. It was a person saying that they searched for the cache, could not find it, and thought my coordinates might be wrong. Because of this message I went back out with my GPS and checked on it. As it turned out they were right and I corrected it. I have not had anyone post a DNF yet saying that they got to the park and then decided not to look, or were walking toward the cache and then had to leave for some reason. If and when I do then I will probably write to them and ask that they change it to a note. That's just my feeling on it.

This is just my personal feeling and preference, so take it for what it is. I'll probably never go after a puzzle cache. I'm not particularly fond of puzzles and I think that geocaching is most fun when it is at its purist -- follow the coordinates to a certain spot and then find a hidden object. I even avoid some otherwise interesting looking multis if I see line after line about finding this number and then adding it to that one and then locating this other piece of information... I don't like riddles either. But I realize that is my preference and not everyone else's, so I would say go ahead with it as there are probably many people who will enjoy it. The only other thing I would say is that I'm always a bit disappointed when I see a complicated puzzle cache in an area I might otherwise like to visit if there were a regular cache there instead. I think that if an area is special in its own right then a regular cache is nice, while a puzzle cache is enough of an attraction that it may not need to be in the most fantastic area. But again, that may just be me.

My parents are new to geocaching, and one of the things that drew them to it was the idea of hiding their own caches. They didn't have any great ambitions, just two or three ideas that they thought would be really good. Then they got home and started looking for spots and quickly realized that they had already been squeezed out of many areas by other cachers. The worst example of this is that there is one cacher or team which has 61 caches hidden around their area. Now this might be none too big of a problem if you live somewhere like Seattle (as my wife and I do), but in small-town Ohio it means that your choices are greatly narrowed. It's not impossible and they have managed to place one, though not in any of the five or six places they initially thought they could use. They had to drive to the next nearest town to do that, which isn't too big of a deal either, but still. I think it's a shame that they've lost some of the enthusiasm that they initially had because some other cachers went crazy and dumped caches all over the place. It would be nice if there were some way, as part of the approval process, for the PTB to look at someone's application and say, "you've placed 20 caches, in a five square mile area in, six months -- maybe you should let someone else have a chance."

Regardless of whatever my feelings are about the use of marijuana, it would piss me off royally to find out that someone was using one of my public parks for the purpose of growing it. I would definitely report it and follow up with the police or park rangers to make sure that the situation had been investigated.

I would much rather have lower personal numbers if they all count as great experiences that I am glad to remember. I'll never be someone who has 2,000+ finds in a game/hobby/sport which has only been around five years. Maybe I'll hit that number after I've been doing it for ten years. But to get to such high numbers in so short a period of time just wouldn't be any fun for me. When I go out geocaching I like to have a nice walk that leads someplace interesting and gives my opportunities for taking pictures. It's hard to do a lot of those in one day, and hard to do many days like that in a week or a month. I would far rather live in an area with fewer caches of high quality as opposed to a glut of boring and poorly thought out ones. I live in Seattle and I hear a lot of people say that this area is great for geocaching, but getting to the kinds of caches I like still takes time and planning, and there are still way too many [boring] micro caches. One of my greatest gripes is the saturation of micros in areas that would be better served by a more creative placement. I'm tired of people just sticking magnetic boxes and bison capsules in every crevice and cranny. In other threads I have seen discussions of people with really high numbers who would count as a find any cache that they got within shooting distance of, whether they saw it, touched it, or singed it or not. Of course that isn't everyone with high numbers, but I would contend that those are people who aren't having a good experience as I would define it.

Headphones are a great idea: all that's necessary is the headphones and a small piece of tape to hold the jack to the back or bottom. I've also done the phone thing, and I have a Magellan Meridian. I wish my cell phone were as large and well constructed as my GPS.

The two caches my wife and I have placed have both been started out with four CDs a piece, most of them still wrapped. We always carry around several CDs to trade, though many times the cache containers are too small or two full for us to leave one of them.

In that case I would write him back and tell him that you will be actively supporting his opponent in the next election, doing your best to insure that he is not returned to the state capitol in the next term, enlisting others in the effort. With his firm statement of support it might be the only thing that will get through to him.

Nanocaches Buy an ammo can instead Ed Amen

My wife and I have placed two caches of our own so far. We started both of them off with about four CDs (all unopened) and a variety of small toys and games that we hope will appeal to children. I'd like to stress that the toys were all new and relatively nice, so we think they were a good idea. We found a cache a couple of days ago that had some of the worst garbage in it that we've see yet. What really annoys me, though, is when you find things like Chapstick that has obviously been used or little containers of lotion or shampoo from hotels. Not only do I think those things are just absolute garbage, but they have the potential to leak and ruin the other contents of the cache, or attract animals that will destroy the cache trying to get at the sweet smelling substance.

I grew up in Ohio and am accustomed to the idea of there being a solid haze of mosquitoes in the air in a concentration of one bug per square inch, from pretty much April through September. Then a year ago I moved from Cleveland to Seattle. I think last summer I saw two mosquitoes, total. I like the idea of not having to worry about the dadgum little things any more