infiniteMPG

Got some time out error and then hit post reply and it posted twice.... ::sigh::

A good thing to think about before-hand and for me it's usually a simle note at home and a card in my windshield where ever I park (if I remember). Luckily I have a geocaching buddy who does helicopter patrols for the Sheriff Dept so I always keep his number handy. Brings me back to a most memorable situation for us. We unexpectedly decided to go kayaking (and geocaching) up at a little trickle of a hidden river called Gum Slough. To access it you park at some hole in the wall country boat launch and no one was there. We paddled up a few miles, found the entrance and made our way towards the spring head in heavy cypress marsh and swamp country. We even had to pull over a fallen tree to continue. A storm came out of nowhere, blackened the skys and lightning was blasting all around us. We didn't know if it was safer to be in the 'yaks or on the swamp ground. We were soaked and debating what to do when lightning hit VERY close by and we kicked up rooster tails paddling out. We had to cross two fallen trees on the way out so one went down as we were there. As we were struggling back to the launch we realized we never told anyone where we were going or anything and if we didn't get back the geo-Jeepster probably could of been at the launch weeks before anyone noticed. Not a really smart move but a lesson learned. It's good to leave word with someone and also a card in the car window saying something like : NAME - WE' RE GEOCACHING CELL PHONE # IN CASE OF EMERGENCY CONTACT - PHONE #

Attempted a cache in downtown Tampa while there at lunch one day and coords took me into a little park area. I saw a little amphitheatre neslted in the trees where I was heading and I launched myself thru the small vine shrouded opening into the seating area.... where I immediately found that I had awakened a dozen or so homeless folks engaged in all sorts of 'activities'... my greeting was shouting extremely LOUDLY (in my head) "OH ****!" and made a quick exit without looking back. Naw, haven't been back to snag that find. I like the Aboreal Numericist ID card idea. Was thinking about making a fake SWFWMD (South West Florida Water Management District) ID but then I was told I could get arrested for that. Oops. Personally I like the greeting "Did you guys see three big scruffy looking guys in orange jump suits run by here?"

Sounds vaguely familiar. I have a multi-cache out in the wild and one of the stages is a soda can safe, a fake soda can that the top screws off and the coords to the next stage are inside. A group cached in the area and they looked around everywhere and couldn't find the stage. They gave up and started off to the next cache when one of them thought about the CITO snag they made and they checked and found the "trash" they grabbed was the cache. That is why the listing states to "CITO carefully". Also, with the bone issue, we hike often in an 5,700 acre preserve that a lot of it is former open cattle land and there are skeletons scattered around occasionally and you can tell that the bones have been in place for decades. Have to say that no skulls were around these skeletons, don't know why that was. But nothing was hauling them away. I'm not saying that it couldn't be a critter, but with my dogs when a bone gets dried out and old they never wanted anything to do with it anymore. I think it was a unique hide with the Quikcrete end so if it showed up somewhere at least the word is out. And the biggest loss is that the whole hide was based on the camo job so when the camo vanished, the hide had to, too. No replacements in my geo-Jeepster for that one. And if someone took the bone for a keepsake (not a cacher) then they may never find the container as it was pretty secure in place. And if they did it would be a Kodak moment for sure

Naw.... these bones we snagged are massive sun bleached and older then dirt. Dogs like to chew bones to get to the scent of meat or to the marrow, these would be like chewing on a brick.

A FTF is kind of like a craving for something you really want to eat but don't think about it unless it's within reach. If it's within reach people act like a baseball fans going after that home run ball bouncing in the stands. If it's not convienient or you're busy then it's not a big deal and you figure you'll snag a find later and enjoy the new cache. The issue is when you blast out of the house half dressed and forget to lock the door, you drive a bazillion mph and run a dozen red lights, park half out in the roadway, don't even shut the car engine off and run barefoot thru the woods to snag the FTF then you know you're a true geocacher! Errr... I mean you know you have a problem.

Haven't had this happen that I am aware of, but knowing there are all types of people involved in geocaching, I was wondering if anyone has worked hard on a piece of camo only to have it go missing, then all of a sudden a new hide pops up somewhere else strangely identical to your camo? I just figured that maybe if we post some pictures of the MIA hides/camo that maybe they can be identified if they show up somewhere else. I "had" a hide here named Boney James Jams GC14B4P (archived) and it was a large cow leg bone that was cored our for a waterproof match container to fit inside. I did some molding with Quickcrete around the lid of the match container and matched it to the end of the bone by putting a plastic shopping bag between the lid and the base, screwing the lid on with the bag trapped, and then molding around it and not removing the bag until it hardened. Worked out good. But the cache went missing and not exactly something I could see some critter running off with. Don't mind giving the technique away and I am sure I'm not the only one to hide something in a bone, but would be really curious to see if anyone has had someone heist thier hard work and claim it as their own.

What I have sometimes fallen back on (this relates to hiding caches, not finding them) is take a bunch of readings, run back home and plop them in Google Earth, then zoom in as tight as I can and see which one "looks" like it's in the right place. You'd be amazed sometimes at where the readings show up when you do that. Sometimes on the other side of a fence or down in a river. Even Mr. Garmin has his bad days. This beats posting coords that are 50-feet off. And we've got a few around here that I have found and checked, double and triple checked and found they were over 125-feet off

As long as they're "stretchy pants", right? We have caches in beautiful areas and when you chat with someone about it you realize they didn't even notice what was around them. I mean even any guard rail hides we have are located like where a beautiful stretch of river winds beside the road or something, but some people don't see the scenery that's past the steel. We did a guardrail PAG in NC near Whiteside Mountain and the view took our breath away. But I bet there were some people that snagged it and shouted "Hurry up and get back in the car, the next one's only 2 miles away!!". Sad....

I'm definitely in it for the fun and the numbers are milestones, but by no means very important. I am sitting at 695 finds right now and pausing while I determine what I want 700 to be. But historically I could be at 2,000 or so if I put effort into cranking the numbers. And if all I cared about were numbers I could of knocked out the 60 or so bus stop caches nearby, but they don't grab my attention. Having over 250 well maintained unique hides I think I have found as much pleasure placing hides and reading people's fun and adventures in their logs as I do in searching and logging finds myself. What ticks me off is people who think they need to stand in judgement of someone else's hides. The "Why did you put a micro out in this preserve when it could of been an ammo can?" people who don't have and don't realize what it takes to haul and maintain a full sized cache 12 miles out in a brutal hiking preserve. Like someone hiking 12 miles needs to trade swag to feel good about snagging a find???? I balance my hides for where there are, try to make the places and techniques unique, some just to bring people somewhere, some to challenge their skills, and some to challenge their geosenses. IMHO if you don't like finding certain caches then don't seek them. Duh! Just like the local bus stop series, I'm not hunting them but I'm not knocking them as some people do like them. Geocaching has all types or people and it takes all types of hides to please everyone.

Nearest found not owned - 0.3miles Nearest owned - 0.2 miles Nearest not found not owned - 0.4miles ...and this is due to not doing my homework. Was doing a bike ride around the area for exercise and to clean up some unfound locals. Just dumped a quick PQ on the PDA and uploaded the coords to the GPSr and headed out. Was pedalling to this one and as I was getting close I noticed it was at an interstate overpass. Thought that was odd so stopped and whipped out the PDA to read "Cache is not at listed coords".... oops. Didn't have time to do a puzzle while riding so it's still sitting in the unfound pile

Kind of like a multi that requires you to visit and get some info, then get back online to solve the puzzle, then re-visit to make the find. $4/gallon says "Nope!". I get nailed by that like biking around to some local caches, I just PQ'd to my PDA and snagged my GPSr and took off. Started heading to one several miles off course and when I looked at the PDA I saw the first line state "Cache is not at listed coordinates". Oops, on a bike ride is no time to try to figure out a puzzle cache. Lesson learned, do your homework first

Agreed, but after a few trips to maintain the hide (wet log sheet, squirrel chewed container, light weight blew or floated away, etc) and gas at +$4/gallon, the 35mm canister can get expensive, too. Kind of a pay-me-now or pay-me-later. But at least the 35mm beats an Altoids can hands down!

Hmmm, I never this but it just dawned on me that you can pick "recommended at night" in PQ's..... ACK! And all this time I was just thinking I had to stumble across them! Grrrrrrrrrrrrr..... Where's my flashlight?!?!?!?!

Those are the best kind! Probably a bit of both, most cachers I know are a pretty respectable bunch.... most of them Still a dang good number. Here in Florida the 12 mile hike caches hidden in a bazillion degree weather in August can sit for a while.... but the others : Don’t HESSitate GCYEMF September 22, 2006 by BigMahma (174 found) Ughhhh! I was PLACING a cache here when the notification came across my mobile email! No kidding on hesitation! new record on FTF... under 2 minutes of publish Awwww... don't fret, they're as fun as you make 'em.... like mine : My BIG Five Oh - GC10VKA

If only one specific set of caches can be used to compile the information to solve the challenge correctly then why not just have the clues or puzzle pieces in those particular caches and make the final (mystery?) cache have some chart/listing/code listed that would be used to plug this in to? Then you could also put bogus clues in other caches in the area so if someone solved it incorrectly they'd not have a valid answer. Then you could plop the coords in a site like geochecker and let people check what their solution was before they headed out.... no emailing of coords... only one solution.... no actual coords on the final listing page... and not many ways to cheat around it.

WOW! Must of been a fun birthday drive between Effingham and Marshall. A belated Happy 40th to ya, too. And it looks like it's just about a week and a half away from adding another cache to highway 40

Good share! Thanks! I have a decon container in a hollow of a tree with a little more room available. It's a fine hide but when it rains hard the hollow fills with water and the thing leaks! I thought decon's were waterproof (maybe the seal is shot). But looks like this would be able to take it's place. I still don't see what people hide 35mm canisters when the 86-cent waterproof match holder from WallyWorld can be stepped on and stays durable and water tight for years Thanks!

Don't see why not just make the final a mystery cache and break the coords up into puzzles or hints or clues in the other "regular" caches to find them. We have the Back 2 Nature series that's several caches called Packed Like Sardines (something) which are located around sprawling condo/apartment mega-complexes and they each hold a piece of a puzzle that solves the coords for Back 2 Nature, which is hidden at a location... well, let's just say the opposite of the preliminary caches type locations. Never had a problem with it (other then the occasional damage or muggling). Doesn't have to be coords, could be puzzle pieces. We have eight individual caches hidden in a large nature preserve with neat trails and each of them has a tag with a letter in them. Each cache + letter equals something on a chart and after you plug these into the puzzle for a bonus (mystery) cache, you get the coords for the big cache for the finale. Works well so far. And did do a lock box one that had numbers in several smaller caches in the area and they ended up being the combination to a combination lock on a big ammo can locker box. So you might find the final, but you can't get IN TO it to sign the log without the combination. Lots of options that work within the guidelines.

I've had several in one day when a friend hid a bunch in a 5.700 acre preserve that is brutal to hike thru. I probably could of waited a month to snag 'em. But around here FTF's are like gold and there's a major rush to get them. Even puzzle caches. The best one I saw was a tough paddle only multi cache we placed and thought it would be months before anyone got them.... the FTF was 2 days after being hidden. I was impressed.

Went to see what cache got muggled and your profile doesn't show any caches owned or found. What cache got muggled????

Was it too exposed or in a high muggle area? Not bad but I would be sure to disclose what people are up against with the hide. If the final is night only, would stage one be findable at night? I'm not sure how many people like to make two trips to a cache location for one find. Since you stated the first stage would have coords for the "trailhead", I would assume that at night you're expecting people to leave stage 1 and go somewhere else and then look for the firedots??? How would they figure out where to go to find the firedots and snag the final??? Have good possibilities and I like night caches, as long as they're not near hogs or gators )

I deifnitely wouldn't archive and start over as you would loose the log entries to the sands of time unless you chang the containers, camo or locations enough to warrant it being a new cache. Then archiving and starting over would be a better bet so the people that found it before could try the new challenge (and get a reward from it). I'd say the amount of change you make should help you decide to leave it or start over. Will your daughter search for it again and then ask Daddy what happened to it? And if so, what will Daddy say?

Being in west central Florida, we go thru really, REALLY dry spells, but we also go thru really, REALLY wet spells. Yesterday upon returning home from work I found my rain gauge was sitting on 4-1/4" of rain (and I had just emptied it the day before). And it was the horizontal kind that comes sideways (with massive wind gusts) and soaks everything not indoors (and even some things that are indoors, not the day to leave your fireplace damper open). This is when the hiding skills and techniques get tested. I have found several caches in the last couple months that were hidden as in a 35mm film canister laying at the bottom of a tree on the ground, or delicately balanced on the crook of a tree limb, or on the ground covered with pine needles. We're about to get slammed again this evening. Try to warn people, but...... I have some hides that even need upgrading like in hollow tree trunks that have no drainage and after big storms the decon container is literally floating (aren't decon's supposed to be water tight????). Anyone have issues with people hiding things not robust enough to handle your local area's bouts with Mother Nature? Maybe it's a learning curve but would be nice to offer HIDING 101 classes...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaCKKK..... PUH-lease. If I have to break another bike tire tool and dent my frame pump up beating the you-know-what out of a rotted, rusty Altoids can just so I can open it and find a gooey, rusty, puddle of slime that used to be the log sheet I think I'll.... Altoids cans are good for Altoids but unlessl it's somewhere 100% out of the weather and humidity I'd avoid them. #1 micro container IMHO is the 86-cent waterproof match containers at Wally World. Paint 'em camo green and they're ready to go and handle anything short of a controlled burn