Kameharem

On Monday I took the whole family, myself, wife, son, and daughter to Pt. Defiance park in Tacoma Washingtion for a day of geocaching. downloaded 17 caches in the park which is known as the bremuda triangle because of jumpy gps readings. we teamed up Mom and son vs Dad and daughter for who could find the most caches. we would hike the trails and then when we were within 30 feet of GZ I would read the hint and point in the direction the GPS was indicating and we would all search for the cache. end of the day results Dad and daughter with 9 finds and Mom and son with 4 finds. Lossers treated at starbucks; it was a good day.

I think what is "good" is pretty subjective. I don't think there is anything wrong with "McToys" as long as they are clean, intact, and in good working order. Just keep in mind how long something might possibly sit in a cache, and how fragile it is. Fair enough - so maybe I'll ask it another way - what causes someone to complain that something is a McToy? That it was cheap, or seemed too easy (they reached into their lunchbag, then threw it in the cache) or too commonly available? Or does it literally mean toys from McDonalds only? In full disclosure, I only ask as I've seen the McToy term on some of the lists of lingo translation. But it has me really hesitant to participate in the swapping aspect of this, fearful I'd piss someone off for the sake of leaving some trinket others find distasteful. I could just leave $10 bills, but I'm pretty sure I'll sour on the whole thing pretty quickly doing that. Am I making a mountain from a molehill? the thing is, my 11 year old daughter who goes caching with me only wants to go if I'm looking for large conatiners that are sure to have many of these "mctoys" in them because she enjoys going through the "treasures" and doesn't care where they came from or how "cheap" they are. She has a collection of rubber ducks, picture coins, and other trinkets to trade and I wouldn't say any of them are of value to anyone but her. I have to search for micro caches on my own.

I was thinking of leaving fishing flys that I hand tie myself as a sort of signiture item. I was going to put them in a small plastic cup, with a lid, like you would get salad dressing in at a to go salad bar and write my name and date on the bottom. Is that a bad idea?

my valentine goes with me sometimes but I cache on my own the majority of the time.

went to grab a cache in a small neiborhood park and my wife told me as I stopped it was not a good neigborhood but we were there so went to make the quick grab. a couple who apeared to be living in the park watched us closely but the cache was out of thier view so we signed the log and left.

There are good places to hide, you just have to take some time and be open minded. I thought there were a lot of caches near me and I have been holding a container for a month thinking I would never find the perfect spot to place it. But then when not expecting it, I discovered a small park with no caches not far from me so I have visited it and found an ideal place for a cache and my first hide will be comming shortly.

Does it cost money to visit the castles? If it costs money to visit and a cacher would have to pay to find the cache then it is against the guidelines.

Thanks Kameharem. If your avitar is for the Seattle Sounders Soccer Club, cool ! We lived in Magnolia until Christmas 2001 and used to walked daily in and around Fort Lawton and the shores of the Sound. If only we knew about Geocaching then as Discovery Park would be such an excellent spot for caches. Not sure about the security rules though. Good luck with your goals. yes, that is the Seattle Sounders FC which reminds me I was going to use HQ as a milestone too.

Where have you been caching? I have found a lot of Lamp post skirt caches in and around Seattle. Very funny video, thanks for the link to it. I'm south of the city but work in the city and don't see them there; however I did just see a LP that would make a good cache spot near me, single post, in the middle of a park, and looks to have a skirt. need to take a closer look and see if it is a candidate but I just don't see the loose skirts around our area. that's loose lamp post skirts.

I'm with you rascar, I'm looking at 25 as my next milestone and have been preparing to create my first hide and also to let my first TB loose but have not decided when to do it; maybe 25 for the TB and 50 for the hide.

we don't have lamp post skirts in seattle and if your dog touches the lamp post it's electricuted to death so I guess I won't be finding any LPCs anytime soon.

I bring my daughter and she carries all the "stuff" because she like to trade swag but if it's only me I just have the GPS and a pen.

I don't like to hike or walk for exercise alone, I only like to hike or walk if I have a goal and geocaching gives me that goal.

I didn't know there was a prize for the most finds logged, that information should be posted somewhere so us new players know what we are playing for.

My GPS was also stolen from my car but got the 60CSx for chirstmas as a replacement and don't think you can do better for the price.

It's really too bad that these moral less people take them for collections and not to move on. I am new to the sport but the coins and TBs was one of the biggest draws and my kids especially love finding them. If there are none to find and everyone is too afraid to drop them because they will disappear then a big part of the fun will disappear as well.

thanks MrsB!

I have never heard of Stargate caches before; are they listed somewhere? I would like to know if there is one near me so I could send one in the future.

IMHO - it looks like a lot of people just want everything easy and handed to them: 1. they don't want a GPS, they want a free phone application. 2. Don’t want to look at city maps, they want parking place included. 3. Don’t hide the cache, put it in the open so they can quickly find it and go to dinner. If you don't want a challenge, go play tic tack toe with yourself and leave the interesting activities to people who can handle a challenge and some adversity. Was just seaching for a cache the other night and couldn't find a place to park, cache was near busy road and it was rush hour, so had to leave and come back next day at a different time and try again until I found someplace to park and found the cache. Now I feal like I accomplished something instead of being spoon fed by my mother in her basement. I will not include parking coordinates in my cache hides, I feel you should work for it or don't bother looking.

Been watching the site for half a year but finally got a new GPS for xmas after my old one was stolen from my car. now me and my kids are starting to find caches and enjoying the sport.