Blue Grass Tom

Hello, from Blue Grass, Iowa!

Thanks for the info! What I'm thinking of is an actual cache classification with its own icon - like a seed of corn, in the style of the one ammo can for a single, the two cans for a multi, the question mark for the mystery/puzzle cache. By formalizing it to this extent, I feel it would really show an endorsement of the idea of all cachers contributing in some fashion back to the sport.

Hi! Blue Grass Tom from Iowa here. I'd like to briefly tell you about an idea I have that I've been bouncing off some fellow cachers. The concern is keeping a supply of new caches available and rising gas prices. We've found that many of us in the Quad-Cities (Easter Iowa-Western Illinois) and the surrounding radius of up to 90 miles are encountering this problem. Here are the components: 1) The supply of caches in many areas of the state is not sufficient to support continued geocaching in the immediate areas. This is especially true in lower population areas like ours. 2) This necessitates traveling outside the immediate areas where many of us reside. 3) For many, this problem intersects with rising gasoline prices. I'm fortunate that this is not a problem for me, but it is for many friends. 4) To counter the prices, many cachers are engaging in team caching. 5) Team caching results in more finds per trip than when caching alone. 6) This in turn exacerbates the problem in #1 above. Now, there is one easy answer to this, and that would be if every cacher in a reasonably equal way would hide caches. You and I both know that more people like "finding" much more than "hiding." So, that alone rules out the equal amount of hides for each cacher. We are not an area like Chicago or Los Angeles or other large cities where the supply of hides is not endangered, due to the sheer numbers or participants. NEW CATEGORY: So all of the above is preface to this proposal of a new geocache category - the Seed Cache. It would generally be classified as a Large cache size-wise (a 5-gallon plastic container) and would be stocked with a number of various sized caches like decon containers, camo peanut butter jars (plastic), etc. TO RECEIVE CREDIT for the seed cache, you take a container, fill it with a little swag and post it on geocaching.com. When published, you notify the Seed Cache owner with a link or GC number. It's kind of like sending the photo to the webcam cache owner. I'm thinking of including a bag of laminated small notes for the finders to take and put in their new cache, something on the order of "This cache descended from..." The owner of a Seed Cache makes the commitment of course to keep eating peanut butter, consuming vitamins and other medications, etc. to keep the cache stocked, but when you consider that the average cache in medium populated areas is hit a few times a week, it's not that onerous a task. Plus, with a little thinking you can get friends saving containers for you and there are a lot of commercial places like photo developing departments and paint stores that can help you with empty containers. If Seed Caches were located conveniently like a lot of Travel Bug hotels are, this could help solve the problems of adequate caches in an area. I think once someone begins hiding caches, they might well continue on their own with their own containers. Jeremy, others, what do you think?

Well, as one of the largest hiders of micros in Iowa, allow me to put my two cents in on this topic! I don't think the issue is so much one of size, as it is of proportion - how does the size of the cache fits its surroundings? There will be a column in an upcoming IGO newsletter called "What's Reasonable?" (modesty prevents me from naming the author ) which addresses exactly this controversy. Consider some of these situations, with my opinion: 1) Micro on ground in woods in half-acre of fallen leaves, bad. 2) Micro on tree in woods (thinking of Mad, Mad World of Micros in Marion), no problem. 3) Ammo can in plain sight in woods, bad. 4) Ammo can hidden in fallen tree, better. 5) Ammo can hidden in place 10 feet from what appears to be logical hiding place, great! Everything in life grows and evolves - things that stay the same we label as "dead." For some, caching is a long walk in the woods. Others say there is no challenge, no "game" or "sport" to that. I've been to a cache series in a park near Peoria, IL, where every single can is highly visible. What's that called? Hiking! Actually, I was a hiker before becoming an "off-road" hiker, i.e. a geocacher. I think a good thing to remember is that no one "owns" the sport. It's nice if you were here in 2001 or 2002, but does it make you better, or more qualified to judge another? Innovation is always challenged and criticized, but I wander...back to topic,,,it's really a question of striking a balance between a challenge and a feeling that it can be found with a minimum of frustration. If cachers feel it's a fair contest, then success has been achieved....And, then there's Hanna Park Micro...arrrrrrrgh!

I'm trying to download waypoints from MapSource to my new Garmin 60csx, but it won't recognize that a unit is even connected. I had downloaded a patch a while back, but it seems not to be helping anymore. Ideas? Solutions? BGT

Seems to me this is much ado about nothing. It's January, hence the need to meet inside instead of a picnic at a park. I see absolutely nothing wrong with a restaurant requiring an order for us to use a room free.

I thought that many of his posts showed thought in his caches, but I can shed some light, perhaps, based on personal experience. I was the first cacher permitted to place caches in Mines of Spain State Park. I had previously been permitted to hide in others, too. Upon placement I was "flamed" by a particularly vicious email from the cacher in question - so vicious, that I questioned if he thought he owned the park. He was a member of the "Friends of the park" but I didn't think that justified it. Apparently, some overzealous cacher had dug up an area where I had placed part of a multicache in plain sight, and he took offense at that. I later had some trouble with the ranger, too, but I had filled out the park permits correctly as I had with other parks, and still have two caches there. I would definitely recommend the park in June and July for great raspberries! Also, the Catfish Trail will test you calves with about 700+ steps up and down! Just some background - don't know what precipitated, but perhaps it was a similar angry post to someone else? I wish him well at the other site, which seems to let recommending cachers control those whom they sponsor. Who knows? BGT