Lissus

I like cheese

Look for some of Bajatym's, or Squishypet's caches in the area. They're usually really creative and they've got them all over the place. Lots and LOTS of good caches in Huntington beach. "Got a dime, make a call" GC11GNF is awesome as well. Check out the ones people have favorited in the area. There's a lot of creative hiders around here

Ran across this little guy in Anaheim last week. Looks like someone's dinner escaped Definitely the oddest cache guardian I've run across while urban caching thus far

*giggle* I almost spit coffee on my keyboard. I R amuzed. Thank you.

Check out Everytrail too. It does what you're looking for. I have both MotionX GPS and Everytrail. Haven't decided which one I like better yet though.

We'll be going in a Rav4. I believe those are only 2wd?

My brother was stationed in SD for a few years, so I'd like to second the Badlands (there's a prairie dog village at the end where you can hand feed the adorable lil critters), and Wall drug (the zillions of billboards on the drive there is quite amuzing) oh, and obviously Mt Rushmore. If you stay near Rapid City, the Black Hills maze is there and that's really fun to do. Crazy Horse was pretty impressive as well, and I really enjoyed hitting the Reptile Gardens and the Black Hills caves too. If you like gambling, there's also Deadwood (though I wasn't very impressed, but I'm not a gambler), it's a cute lil old school Wild West town though. And if you want to head over to Wyoming from there..... Devils Tower *starts humming the Close Encounters theme*

Well, RL issues have prevented us from planning a trip too far *pout* so it looks like it'll just be a quick jaunt up to Big Bear for a couple of days. I still consider myself a "new" Californian and I've never been there so it'll be really exciting for me, he's been there often, but not since we discovered geocaching, so that'll be fun. Now to try and hunt down some really good caches to see in that area before we head out. There's SOOO many, we wont even be able to put a dent in them on the couple days we'll be out there, so I'm hoping to find at least a couple unusual/must see caches to plan on.

My sweetie and I are planning a trip to Big Bear in a couple of weeks. Anyone know of any "must see" caches in the area that we should put on our "to do" list while we're there? Would hate to miss a really good one, but there's just so many there and we'll only be there for a couple of days, and it's a bit overwhelming.

Those places ALL sound great!! I know when we were discussing Vegas that we were going to do Red Rock one day. Thank you SO very much for the great suggestions. BF doesn't read the forums (life's too busy at the moment, hence the need for a mini vacation) but I'll make sure I pass all these suggestions along to him. I'll just be glad to go anywhere NEW. LOL.

The day star is EVIL (says she sitting here slathered in Aloe from her last caching adventure)

Lone Pine! Head to the Sierras. So much more fun then going to Las Vegas and spending lots of money to sit in the heat with 50,000,000 other people. A nice small town where you can go out camping for a few days. Spend the time near a stream just relaxing. That would be my ideal vacation. That sounds lovely. I'm not big on loud noises, lots of people, bright lights etc... so Vegas has never really called to me. I suppose I'll go someday just to say I've been there, but there is no urge to get there anytime soon. We're tossing around the idea of going to Seattle and doing the triad. I watched the video blog on here of those three caches and it sounds like it could be an interesting quick trip. I think it's going to be one of the options, but we're still poking around at ideas to see what jumps out at us. Thanks for the idea. I'm a displaced New Englander living out here on the "left" coast now, so most areas are still new to me. He's a native Californian, and would like to go somewhere he hasn't been yet and that's what's narrowing down the list of ideas. I'll suggest Lone Pine to him and see what he thinks of it. Thank you

So, my boyfriend and I want to take a mini vacation sometime in October. We're both new cachers and would definitely like to do some on the trip. The original plan was to go to Vegas, but we're looking for alternate options. We would love any suggestions for a 3-4 day trip either staying here in California, or going to Washington, Oregon, New Mexico or Nevada. (Basically a short flight away and staying on the west coast) Can anyone think of nice city to head to to just get out of LA for a few days and do some sightseeing and caching for a couple of days?

I've told my family and friends. Mostly they think it sounds like a great hobby and expressed "mild" interest. Though the roomies that I drag out to accompany me for a few twilight urban caches (I'm a woman and I burn easily so there's a few that I don't want to go to in the blaring sun, or out alone rummaging through the shrubbery) roll their eyes and I usually have to bribe them with dinner/coffee to come out with me. I'm a little concerned though that my roommates who are long time MMORPG video gamers (like myself) tend to think it's "too geeky". I thought we'd hit the high geek standard with 24 hour raiding runs. So when the geeks in my life tend to think I'm getting too geeky... *shrug*

I noticed someone already offered from California, but they're up north If you need someone from SoCal let me know. I'd love to help out.

Sooooo very true. I'm fairly new to the geocaching community myself, and my Facebook time has dropped substantially. My crops are withering, my restaurant is empty, my garden keeps wilting, my vampire hasn't bitten anyone in weeks, and I think I've been kicked out of the sorority. Oh well.... sorry FB games, but I'd rather be geocaching.

I'm pretty new myself, and agree that there is a bit of a learning curve. One I found today I have gone back to five times now. Reading all the logs I figured it would be a nice easy one, but this one just kept eluding me, and started to get me frustrated. Well, since the first time I went. I've done some research, located a few different hides, read through the forums and learned some things, browsed some of the threads (spent 2 days looking at the cool cache containers post and discovering the deviousness of some of the caches) and today went back there looking with the attitude of "where would I HIDE something" instead of "where should I look for something hidden" and it made all the difference in the world. Bingo... there it was staring me in the face. As a fellow newb I can understand your frustration, but take a deep breath, and try to enjoy the adventure rather than the number of smileys you get, because at the end of the day.... who cares how many lil smiley icons you racked up if you don't have a REAL smile on your face?

WOOT!! 2 days and 81 pages later I have officially read this entire thread!!! Kudo's to all of you and your ingenious containers. I'm still a newb, but this thread has definitely got my creative juices flowing, and though I'm going to wait for a while and find quite a few more before hiding my first cache, this thread has inspired me to make sure it's a CCC worthy of adding here I've also learned a few other things while browsing these posts. ~You all are creative, devious, evil people (and I LOVE IT!!!!) ~I'd better learn to look for caches with a "hiders" eyes, as well as a "finders" ~Develop the skin of an alligator before truly giving up my lurker status to become a regular poster ~There is no 12 step program for geocaching addiction ~Poke the poop with a stick, and leave no stone unturned Thanks for the thread and the really cool pics Now.... back to your regularly scheduled programming.....

A picture of what you're talking about might help. It sounds like an unusual item regardless of what it is. Perhaps it's just a souvenir that someone dropped?

It's a bit more challenging, but it is possible to hunt for geocaches without a GPS. As I stated in another thread, I'm broke right now, saving up for the iPhone4, but currently my phone is a 1st generation iPhone (no GPS at all). What I do is look on the site for caches I might want to find in areas that I'm already somewhat familiar with, paste the coordinates into Google Earth and zero in on the location virtually, before heading out the door to actually hunt for them. That way I can view where I'm headed, before aimlessly wandering around once I'm there hoping to pick the right spot. It's a bit more time consuming, and sometimes frustrating, BUT... it is possible. (and until I can afford to upgrade my phone or run across a really good deal on a GPS.. I'm working with what I've got) Good luck. I'm a newbie too just getting hooked on this wonderful hobby, and on a real upnote..... it's been helping me get really motivated to quit smoking so that I can use that money to upgrade my phone (or buy a GPS) just so I can feed this addiction instead. Have fun!

I had a bit of frustration with the free app as well. Viewed some of the caches I wanted to look for on the site then set off for adventure, just to find that the demo wouldn't pull up the ones I was looking for. The official app is SOOO much better. Definitely worth the $10. I'm working with a 1st gen iPhone right now (ancient dinosaur with no GPS at all), while I save up for the iPhone4, so my caching is limited to when I'm out hunting with my boyfriend (and his new Android phone) or urban ones close to home where I can Google Earth the area and see where I'm headed before actually adventuring out. The $10 I spent for the full version of the app has been very beneficial, as I can pull up the cache page, description, recent logs etc while we're out and about, even if my poor tired phone cant GPS us to ground zero, it's really been worth the money. Plus you can log your finds while out in the field. The demo app, was just that. Introduction and a demonstration about what geocaching was about, and I'm glad I checked it out, but once I started getting really interested it was worth the upgrade. It really gives you a TON more than the demo does, and WELL worth the cost. Good luck

I'm new myself, so I have no sage-like advice for ya, but I can relate. The little ones make me feel "geo-dumb"

OMG I "almost" spit coffee all over the monitor. ROFLMAO!!!

I'm finding spiders absolutely everywhere too, and I'm not a big fan of them (one trip to the ER for a spider bite is enough, ty) ICK!!!!! I'm a big fan of poking things with sticks first before sticking my hand/face anywhere near it.

Do you not search for it the first time? There is nothing wrong or negative about posting a Did Not Find log on a cache. You get to decide but I really don't get the concept of not posting a log for the first visit. I am in the camp of posting a DNF when I actually spent any time searching for the cache. If I arrive and do not search because the area is full of muggles I will post a note. If I search and do not find I post a DNF log. Seems simple to me. That seems reasonable. There have been a few occasions where I could not search due to high muggle activity. I want to record that I made an attempt, but a DNF didn't seem appropriate since I didn't actually search.