TheSapaFamily

I saw one in St. Louis today on the way to work. The decal was a small one, only like two inches high, impossible to read without me rear-ending the guy at the stoplight. DH did snap a pic with his Iphone and hopefully he can enlarge the picture later to read the code. I was just surprised the guy picked the small sticker instead of the big car vinyls for his car. Anyway, this is the first time I've spotted one in traffic. Made the boring drive to work a little more interesting.

I have seen several travel bugs with laminated tags attached with the tracking number on it instead of the metal tags. I thought the laminated tags was a clever idea and plan on doing that with several TB's I'm on releasing on my next vacation.

Mice also eat antlers for nutrients among other forest animals. The antler wouldn't last long in a heavy forested area.

Wow, I love this! Great job!!!

Pathtags are meant to be kept. If you don't like it, then drop it in a different cache. If you like it, log it on the website. Besides letting the tag creator know you found it, a benefit of logging it is to keep track of your personal collection. I love finding tags in caches.

Probably not if the cacher uses common sense. I've found four bird house caches and by inspecting the birdhouse before touching it, I could clearly see that the house wasn't occupied by birds. All four caches looked like bird houses but the CO's made sure birds couldn't actually get into the houses.

I've come across one proxy coin and I moved it along, never once did I think about destroying it just because it wasn't the original coin.

a wet cigarette, restaurant receipts, rocks (plain boring rocks) and golf balls***. ***Now I realize lots of cachers would probably love trading for golf balls but golf balls in a cache is a pet peeve of mine only because St. Louis has so many golf courses with apparently really bad golfers that anyone can amass a golf ball collection just by hiking through nearby parks. Seriously if I had a dollar for every golf ball I walked by hiking I would be a millionaire. So anytime I see a golf ball in a cache I sigh and think "how original."***

Yep, I visit one cache several times a month to either swap out travel bugs or just drop off bugs.

We did 12 out of the 15 caches for the Havana Portion of the Illinois Byway project. They were all pretty easy finds, just a cold and rainy weekend.

No where on the website or brochure is an expiration listed. I am sure they will keep the program going for at least a year, just my guess.

Wait...SLAGA has a forum? I had no idea. I guess I should browse the SLAGA website a little more.

I used the search feature but couldn't find anyone mention this so I thought I would. Illnois River Road National Scenic Byway just kicked off a geocaching trail with a reward of 6 different coins. Here is a website link for more details. My link I currently live in St. Louis but grew up in Havana (one of the towns on the trail). I just happen to be going to Havana this weekend for a graduation party so I definitely plan on at least finishing the Havana part of the trail.

I'm not fond of journals anymore. Instead I take pictures...sometimes I even post pics in the cache gallery but for the most part the pictures are for me. I've traveled a lot in the last fifteen years. When I first started traveling I wrote a journal for each trip. Now I have a wooden chest full of travel journals that I have not looked at since I finished them. I'm too busy creating new memories to worry about reading about past memories. Just my opinion.

On the physical log, I just sign "Thesapafamily" and the date. Some virtual logs, I have just wrote "TFTF." I do try to type something but if I don't for whatever reason, it just bugs me that the CO will delete my log because I didn't go in depth with my caching experience. Sometimes I log at home, most of the time I log on the field. The reason I log on the field is because I have the screen up anyway navigating to the cache so one more click and I virtual log after signing the physical log. I am glad to hear that I would get an email notice if someone deleted my log...not that I would do anything about it. If a CO hates "TFTF" that much, so be it. There are always more caches to find.

Wonderful response. We cache with our iphone and log out in the field. I have never left a blank log but I do use "TFTF" quite a bit. If a CO was to delete my log, would I get an email from Groundspeak? If not, then I guess I would never notice because I rarely ever look back at caches I've already found. Just because I only sign "TFTF" alot, doesn't mean I'm lazy...it doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the cache...it simply means that is how I signed the log.

I have an online business and last time I checked I am a person with a real job. The majority of Best Buy's products come from China so do I really need to point out who you support when you buy at Best Buy?. I think it is great that geocaching is becoming more popular. Anything to encourage people to enjoy the outdoors is a good thing. Anything to encourage kids to have more hobbies besides computer games is a good thing. I am one of those dreaded Iphone users. We have a handheld Garmin too but only use it when the Iphone has 32 feet accuracy. I have seen several of these threads lately of cachers upset that there might actually be more cachers out there. Why is that a bad thing? Since when did caching become a secret club that only certain people get to join?

Great idea. I'm going to try that because I have sheets left over from a crafting craze a couple of years ago. Right now I leave pin buttons with my pathtagger avatar. If the cache is really awesome I leave my signature pathtag.

Choice #1. My husband and I always hunt together so we log our finds under one account. My sister and her family of four use one account too. When we hunt together, whoever has the pen signs the log with both of our geocaching names.

10 caches in one day is our best. When we cache during the week after work, we limit ourselves to only 3 per trip so we aren't stuck in the woods in the dark because we like caches that require hiking to get to.

Let's get this straight. Wading out up to my waste in cold water, having to log a DNF because the waves were getting too high, and then finding some MOGA staff had claimed the cache as a find in exchange for volunteering at the event does not give me a right to complain about the cheating? Fighting through an invassive jungle to find a cache, having to use my compass to find my way back out, and finding people who were nowhere near the cache claiming it as a "find" does not give me a right to question this practice? Your other complaint is off topic, but since you raise it I will respond. I had been disappointed the last few years of MOGA failing to provide caches for those who enjoy a nice walk or bike ride finding caches. I don't like caching in invassive jungles. Since I knew there were lots of nice trails at Rend Lake, I made multiple offers to help hide the caches. I spent several days at Rend Lake GPSing every trail, parking lot, grass road, gravel road, etc. I also looked for good places to hide caches. I then made a map to make it easy to plan caches where people could enjoy nice walking or bike riding caching. I never heard anything until a local listserve announcement for a workday to hide the 100 caches that the MOGA cache page very clearly stated would be along the bike trail. The areas where the cache had been preselected were not along the bike trail-it was like the trail was being avoided. Instead of finding nice places to hide caches on the bike trail, it was more like a carpet bombing. In fact, there were no caches planned anywhere near the nicest parts of the bike trail. For the caches my partner and I were assigned, I tried to get them hidden consistent with what the MOGA page was advertising (i.e., along the bike trail). But I was overruled. I volunteered to go back down and hide some more MOGA caches along the nicest parts of the bike trail that had no caches. But my offer was not accepted. As a result, while the cache page promised 100 caches along the bike trail, less than 10 could be accurately called along the bike trail. If you want to provide caches for people who like to go through invassives jungles, that fine. But if the event advertises 100 caches along the bike trail, an attempt to hide caches along the bike trail should be made. But that is not the issue of this thread. I am not sure how you equate you must find the cache to claim it as a find a "narrow view" of geocaching. I totally agree with this complaint. I almost brought my bike because I remember reading about how there were going to be 100 caches placed along an eight mile bike trail. I didn't bring my bike because of the forecasted snow but I still figured we would have a nice hike along a trail to find the caches...which was totally not the case. All of the caches we found involved lots of bushwacking. I don't mind bushwacking..when I am warned a head of time in the cache description. Anyway, I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in because Myotis has some very good points about the event.

I tend to clean out garbage too and tend to leave extra swag to make up for the garbage I removed. At first the garbage in caches were annoying but now I find it amusing to see what crazy garbage cachers think is "appropriate" to leave behind. My personal favorite was a cigarette. Yes because I am sure the cacher thought leaving a cigarette in a kid friendly cache was very "appropriate."

I agree with this. I was at MOGA and cachers logging caches they didn't find definitely annoyed and effected me. I wouldn't have wasted my time trying the "kayak" one but I looked at the log ahead of time and several people found it without mentioning an issue so we drove to it but quickly realized it was next to impossible to find. At the time I was amazed at how dedicated cachers were to brave the water. Now I realize they were just lazy cheaters.

I took a look at your profile... all of your finds appear to be in the same general area. Where I live, the same thing happens. In my fairly limited experience, it appears that the longer the hike to the cache, the better the swag. Finding stuff around town is fun, but if you can get to a more remote area you might have even more fun. Thanks for the tip. Yeah we do plan on expanding our search to different areas. Next weekend we are going to Branson and in July we are going to Michigan, can't wait to see what other areas are going to be like.

I'm very creative. I use the term "non-geocachers" ;-)