infiniteMPG

I think I'd of had my 'yak tucked away in my garage. We didn't get much from Ike down here but we west central Floridians were in the crosshairs for a while. Was out 'yakkin' the day it hide and hid a cache in honor of those in Texas (and elsewhere affected by Ike). Glad everyone was okay and we can relate. We were heading back late after geocaching and paddling and some old guy in a beat up van with no insurance, a suspended license and just got out of jail that day for domestic violence pulled out in front of me heading down a rural highway, I blew my horn and managed to swerve around but my GF was following behind and was trapped by cars alongside her and didn't manage to make it around him.... She was okay but shaken up pretty badly.... been meaning to go back to this spot and hide a cache Those close calls are tough... was maintaining a cache hidden in some big rocks at the north end of the Skyway Bridge just as it was getting dark. Couldn't find what I was looking for and started scrambling all over and around the area. Didn't have a flashlight so was working as quick as I could and finally located the cache (was going to relocate it). Reached on my belt and where my MAP60CSx was, was only the belt clip and it was pretty much dark. ACK!!!! I was in a panic for a long while until I found it resting under some big rocks pretty far from where I noticed it was missing.... close calls make you buy lanyards

I have a nice mono-pod that extends to make what's a pretty nice hiking stick and even has a mini-tripod base hidden below the bumper on the bottom. Been trying to get myself to take it but my regular hiking stick cries when I leave it alone in the Jeepster.... Shouldn't that be "Look what you've done! I'm melting! melting!..." ? "Oh, you liquidated her (him?), eh? Very resourceful!".....

I doubt people who love long hiking caches would ever look at a wheelchair accessible cache and think "WOW, how inspiring!", but to someone in a wheelchair, they are. Some people like PAG's and even LPC's. We all know there are a ton of people who live for the numbers and the quicker and easier they can make the finds, the better for their fun. Those uninspired caches referred to are a joy to a numbers hound. There are many ways to get fun from geocaching but there's no one with the right to dictate how someone else gets their fun as long as it falls within the rules. There are some hides that could be better then they are, there are some owners who could hide more then they do and for a wider variety of tastes other then just their own, there are owners who could maintain their hides more promptly then they do.... but anyone who hides a cache contributes to the game, maybe not to the standards that some people wish they would, but it's still a contribution. "We are selfish when we are exclusively or predominantly concerned with the good for ourselves. We are altruistic when we are exclusively or predominantly concerned with the good of others." ~ Mortimer Adler

I totally agree that short log listings do tell a story and if they show up on my hides I start to pay attention... except when they show up from a particular cacher on a bunch of my hides with the same short log entry. In that sense I just ignore it. From http://www.itsnotaboutthenumbers.com Average log size: 60.3 words - Biggest log: 322 words - Shortest log: 8 words - Number of one-word logs: 0 Both the 322 words and the 8 words tell a story but my favorite thing is the fact that caches have inspired me to write around 45,000 words in log entries

That's the cache and it sounded great. We headed up the summit in a clock-wise direction and when we got to an overlook there was a trail heading down the side that didn't look too tough until I hit the ice. Looking at the pictures from there it seems there was an informational sign saying something about straddling the continental divide there. Seemed to be the closest access but from the sound of your email we shouldn't of climbed to start with. We came down the other side where the wooden steps are and some great overhangs that had some incredibly long icicles hanging down. Was supposed to be warm when we went but as we drove around the mountainside from Franklin it started snowing. I loved it but she's pretty thin-blooded from the Florida weather. I'll never forget that as we were exploring the top, I found I still had cell phone signal as my son called me and I was pretty shocked to hear my phone ring (of course that's when my GF had my camera in hand and captured the moment.... hehehe) Nice to know it worked, but we were enjoying the silence.

Ooops.... I was talking on my cell phone when I read your message and in shock at the news I accidentally clicked the camera button and captured some of your soul.... errrr, I mean your image.... My bad......

You got it! We like to visit the Highlands area when we can (my folks are still in NC), reminds me of Sarasota's St. Armand's Circle only with snow and ice. And I really like Van Hook Glade and trout fishing across the street each morning, but my GF isn't too much into rustic camping nor things below 75-degrees... We did the cache at the top of the mountain but there was another nearby at Devil's Overlook or something like that and I was determined to do it. My GF told me the trails were too iced over. I said I could do it. She said I'd be doing it by myself. I got her to hold my camera and gear and I started down. About the third step I took I busted my butt slipping on the ice covered rocks and slid down a ways before stopping suddenly by crashing into an ice coated bush and the rocks it was growing out of. The I-told-you-so's didn't stop for a while It's still on my to-do list I can relate to that, too. There is a 5,700 acre preserve here that has a lot of rustic trails, mainly old farm trails used for equestrian. Not really people or bike friendly but I still do it (usually to maintain caches). Some are 11 miles in so it's a tough 22 mile bike ride and usually I can't find anyone insane enough to join me. Dumped my camera in the sand on several occasions balancing it on a fence post or something while trying to pose... I like the view where you were much better.

Not a bad idea and we have seen some deck cases that sit in front of the cockpit opening and seal water tight. My problem is we were at Boca Grande right after I got my A100 and paddling open water (salt). I pulled my camera out to shoot and a roge wave bumped against the side of my 'yak and splashed a drop right on the top of my camera body and I FREAKED OUT. I wiped it off as best I could. sealed it in the water proof bag I had and didn't take it out again the rest of the paddle.

Any homeless wandering around at night, crashing under the bridge in a sterno-induced-stuper and waking up to that thing would tend to have the crap scared outta them quite involuntarily Guess I am missing the point of why someone would want to jack their numbers for hides rather then finds. Once you have a find you're done with it. Once you have a hide, you have to maintain as it's now your responsibility or else it will get archived. It's a lot of hassle and work (some of us enjoy it and think it's worth the effort). Or ants, or spiders, or squirrels, or wasps, or snakes.... good hiding spots are good homes for critters, too. And unfortunately for the homeless, too. GC is for people's fun and I would bet some people, in their own twisted perspective, actually have fun judging and attacking someone else's efforts.

Well, even though it's often a rear view she is often the primary subject in my pictures when 'yakking : And also when biking : Which also tends to have hundreds of pictures of our adventures that people ask me if I was there (as I'm not in any of the pictures unless I loan my camera to someone and then they end up being 'stand over there and smile' pictures.... bleck!) A couple things I found work, take her out of her element... like from the nice Florida weather to freezing on the top of a mountain. When the steps are frozen I glide down and can actually get front views of her inching down 'beside' the steps... Oh yeah, I love the information signs, especially historical ones, she's always stopping to read and it gives me a chance to catch up!

Similar situation with a cache I placed in NC that my nephew maintains for me. A few cachers complained of a "smell" on and around the cache and it turned out a homeless muggle had used the ammo can as a dinner table and spilled pork and beans all over the cache and the hiding spot and left the remainder of the can or beans nearby. A little clean up and some airing out of the area and all is well.....

Wanted to see how the photo-cachers handle this situation as I know I can't be the only one that this happens to. You and your significant other grab your geocaching gear and snag your camera and hit the trails or load it up in the 'yak and hit the water. As you're traveling along you see something really REALLY neat and you stop in your tracks and reach for your camera. As you're trying to frame the shot, or get the light or angle right, you glance over to see your caching-mate disappearing around the bend. So you snap a could quick shots and run (or paddle fast) to catch up. So the next time you see something, you compromise the camera settings and framing and snap and run. Sometimes you don't even stop while you shoot. My girlfriend and I run thru this constantly. She doesn't give me grief about it and have she is pretty compromising about it but I can tell she's bored while I'm shooting and I try my best to do it quick. She loves the pictures and re-living the trip with them later, but while we're on the trail or the water, I think I'm compromising some of the shots by not taking my time. She doesn't like hauling stuff with her as I'm the pack mule so having her haul a camera of her own is pretty much out of the question. I can see both sides of the issue but wondered how others handle this situation.

What lens(es) do you use and are you more manual settings or automatic? I'm still learning and stumbling more then walking (or crawling). Have to check them out. It's a tough balance between protecting and hiking comfortably and having it readily available for snapping the quick shot. I still have 'yakking to keep in mind, too.

Nooooo, but I did take my Hurricane Tampico 135L on a charity paddling trip yesterday (for a big cat wildlife sanctuary and yes, I placed a paddle-only cache while paddling based on Hurricane Ike). They included livery service back to the parking area and loaded 'yaks up by weight which put mine on the top of the steel tube rust pile rack pulled behind the rust bucket short bus. The guy was flying back the bumpy and winding dirt roads away from the state park and I was watching as the nose of my Tampico slid further and further back. Couldn't stand it anymore so I got the driver to stop so I could adjust it. After backing into a tree and denting my bumper when arriving, my luck wasn't running on the good side of center and I didn't want to see what was going to happen when we hit the 60MPH highway part of the livery trip WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That looks like (it was) a beautiful 'yak!!! Don't want to pry but if I had a beautiful boat like that it'd be locked in the garage with a security guard protecting it Wish you luck on the rebuild. You wanna come down and borrow my old Perception? But I need it back by dark You should check on inflatables. They're not the best thing in the world but they fold up and can be stored in the closet.

But did they find the cache? There are some caches lurking out there that are made from plastic poo.... I'd have to go with the doggy doo-bag stance in the hypothetical debate, clean it up or wash it away, end of story. And here in Florida this time of year, the wash away would happen every afternoon between 4-6PM. But from what I have been reading here, "lame" is implied to be more in the lack of effort to make a good hide rather then something detrimental happening nearby. And IMHO it's only lack of effort if the owner has placed other quality caches yet one shows little effort with one particular one (if all their caches are similar then it's probably just the best they can do). Maybe people complaining about "lame hides" should get pro-active and organize and sponsor a big geocaching event and teach people how to hide what they think are quality hides. Anyone can complain, it's a special few who actually put forth effort to remedy what bothers them.

The average geocacher is usually a travelling financial investment trucking around with stuff like their GPSr, PDA, cell phone, digital camera, personalized hiking stick, mountain bike, kayak or canoe, ATV, Jeepster, and all kinds of gear worth a good chunk of change. And being as this is a sport with risks, some of our investment gets accidentally destroyed along the way, sometimes due to lack of thinking (duh). A bad one for me was a local paddle cache run. Was pushing my kayak over a log on a shallow part of a local river and when I stepped over I didn't check first and dropped into an 8-foot deep hole. Accidentally flipped my kayak as I fell and watched my digital camera dump in to the river and zap out. I luckily managed to find it (and got it working again later) but my mood took a few days to recover, especially after denting in the rear quarter panel of my new car backing into the end of a bent guardrail after loading my kayak to leave. How much property damage have you done geocaching?

Not my governor and not my state but supply and demand have little to do with price gouging to make a quick profit off scared people during disasters. We already handle that harshly in Florida.

Just got a text message from my nephew in NC who caches up there and he said due to Hurricane Ike the gas prices this morning shot up to $5.75 a gallon. Then later in the day the governor passed a no-gouging law and prices dropped to $3.70 a gallon. Amazing at how people react....

Agreed... but if I can't get a new cache where I want then I move on, there's a lot of great places without caches and there's an art to finding them. Sometimes when I have a few minutes and some extra gas, I just drive around and wander. Found a neat hidden away open spot where a winding river passes between housing developments that from the road you'd never know existed. Found a little butterfly garden with a cool statue down a hidden away alley downtown and people who've worked nearby for years never knew the place existed pre-cache. Regardless of the cache size, those spots are a find in themselves.

There was a local cache that contained the handiwork of a local cacher's taxidermy hobby and it ended up muggled just before we got there and we regretted never seeing it. I don't think size matters a bit, hide the cache, technique and container that fits. If a micro cleverly hidden in the middle of a massive preserve fits the spot the best then so be it. I think what makes a cache good or not is an overall experience and not just one aspect of it. Totally understood, I have even had people send me emails stating that they see people have been in the wrong spot looking for one of my hides and requested me change the hint or description to keep them from damaging something and I do it immediately. One particular cache I hid near my home coords, someone tried to get the FTF at night and rearranged the entire location looking to the point of me having top spend a couple hours putting everything back (including my cache that was camoed well and they tossed it aside). Luckily it was just rocks but it shows that some people are so hungry for the find I'm glad they aren't carrying a chain saw

Nice shots. Tractor pulls.... makes me miss the good ol' days before I moved down to Florida from NC.... ::sigh::

A micro hidden in the eye socket of a deer skull causes no damage to the area and is a lot more fun a find then clunking an ammo can tossed at the base of the tree. A waterproof match container 30-feet up in a tree or a decon precariously hanging over a ledge that you can find quickly but are challenged figuring out how to get doesn't damage the area. IMHO the technique of seeking a cache has more to do with tearing the area apart then the technique of hiding it, and it doesn't matter if it's a full sized or a nano if people don't respect their environment. We recently found an ammo can in the woods with a dozen DNF's and the whole area trampled to pieces. We finally found the very sneakily hidden ammo can but the size of the cache didn't prevent people from being careless and disrespectful of nature. Maybe it's just us but we don't trade swag as we see that mainly a draw to keep the kids entertained, and not many kids are going to be making that 10 mile hike on a 4/4 cache. And when there's a challenge in finding the actual cache it's as much fun at GZ as it is getting there. Guess we could classify ammo cans hidden in the only place you could possibly hide an ammo can at ground zero as HAG's (hike and grabs), as they're about as much of a challenge as PAG's after you park. But we still have fun with both. Not knocking any of them but I think the best thing is a good mix of everything and everyone just have as much fun at each one as they can. If you didn't like the hide or the container then appreciate the area and if you didn't like that then check the GPSr for where the next cache is hidden.

Sounds like a fun twist but hiding the coords in someone else's cache might be touchy. I don't think the OP was actually going to have the secondary container published, just hidden and referenced with the coords. Best we found like that was a cache had a little sheet in it with coords listed on it and a cacher's name. The card said to go to the place listed on the coords and he had a deal with the pub owner to buy the cachers a free beer. Now that was cool!

This is where I get into a bind. We'll do a weekend at a state park or something and over that couple days I'll shoot 350 pictures. When I get back I don't mind browsing thru them and yanking out the ones I want, cropping and resizing them and popping them into a shared album. Now if I shoot all in RAW when I get back I can either go thru them picture by picture with PS and edit them or enhance them and convert them to JPEG's, or I can batch convert them to JPEG's and be stuck with the compression settings being the same for each picture. A short task shooting in JPEG, a mega-task shooting in RAW. Question is what do you all do? And when you get all these bazillion neat cachin' pix, what do you do with them? How do you share them? We started a webpage, not just for caching stuff but for Florida outdoors stuff at infiniteMPG.com and put some of the better ones in a customized album but we have gig's of them sitting at home that have never been sorted or posted. Not expecting to be some top photographer but like sharing shots. Kind of curious what all you other photo-bugz do with yours.... And if you share them online, what do you think is the best site? Kodak? Picasa? (been using Kodak forever but don't like you can't get big images like Picasa).

I should of been more specific, I meant the inviting spot was near a bus stop already WITH a bus stop cache. At 122' I wouldn't get it published. If the bus stop didn't have a cache I couldn't care less about it as I'm not in the biz of leaving the door open for more caches I won't seek. Geeze, and here I sit a mechanical engineer who was schooled in marine biology... Don't care for management and it's been offered. I enjoy designing, creating and using my imagination and that's worth more to me then the ulcers and headaches of resource planning and dealing with corporate types. Good luck!