The Herd

Dear Chris, Thank you SO much for your VERY nice post. You are always so helpful and nice to other cachers, regardless of their age. You are a great friend, and a really fun person to be around. I am sure you will have lots of friends the rest of your life that REALLY REALLY respect you and value your friendship! From, Amber seriously though, thanks Chris!

Dear Bret, (so close to forty it sounds more like 41) You are a bully. There is no nice way to put it...you're just a bully. Someday, when you are REALLY old, you are gonna need some of us friends who are only nice to you because we feel sorry for you. Well, remember that really old saying about a man in a wheelchair getting pushed of the dock? You should remember it, I think it came out around 1968...WOW...that was a LONG time ago. I believe that was the same year they invented electricity. Anyway, just know that when you get older, someone will do the things to you that you do to me, and I will FINALLY get to say "I TOLD YOU SO!" From, Amber (not even CLOSE to 39!)

you forgot to add that we didn't have a single DNF all day!!! Oh, and that I found WAYYYYYYYYYYYY more of those caches than you did. I believe I had 30, you had 10. Something like that! Hey Justin, went after my bday cache today. DNFd it, (yes, dnfd my OWN birthday cache...who puts a micro in the woods anyway?) Anyway, on the way out, ran into PairOMedicChick, we went back in together, and she found it. In the same place I had already checked...it was funny. Anyway, BGF beat us both to it. VERY NEAT HIDE!!!!!!!!!!!

Ditto that for me too. That winter attribute is very subjective. I have seen no definition. To me it could be whether the park is open in the winter months, or if the cache is high above ground, and not likely to be hidden under a foot of snow. Definately not a time to be hunting micros in the woods. Another vote for a nice winter caching article. I see Mr. Cybret is one away from 1800 finds. Do we suspect some snow caching at the end of the week for you!? Brad

We will HOPEFULLY be caching ALL day and into the evening...so, if someone wants to meet up after work, we could do that, as I KNOW we will still be in the area. If your interested, send Justin (wolverine warriors) an email, as I will be at work the rest of the night. Maybe we could exchange cell phone numbers or something to make it easier.

I nominate this one: CCC's Dam Mistake at Pokagon!

And then there are those of us that log them...only to have them deleted. hehe

Looks like we may be heading to South Bend and caching out from there. If anyone in that area wants to meet up with us, let me know!!!

So, there is room for at least 3 more...if anyone else is interested! I am hoping to hit my 500th cache that day too...will see how it goes. It is gonna HOPEFULLY be a pretty intense cache run!

Just about ALL...wait...yes...ALL...of my hides are themed. We have a kids swag only cache, a dog swag only cache, one where there is no swag, just the stuff to make a sig. card to leave in the cache. We have also had them where you had to log in a certain "accent" or lie about how hard a 1/1 cache was to find. I LOVE doing themed caches, but even more, I love when people log how much they enjoy mine!

Does the cache have a high difficulty rating? I've visited some caches where the owner purposely doesn't put the cache at the coords. Then they list it with a high difficulty. I don't like the practice but I've seen it before. Well, I remember the cache page saying it was a quick park and grab, so I double checked. It is listed as a 1/1. If the reviewer had to update the coords, that means the coords were more than 528 feet off...now, I expanded my search...but not THAT far!!!!!!! Just a side note. Posted a needs maint. log on a cache we found today that we couldn't even sign. My needs maint. log got deleted. Different cache...different owner. Deleted ours and posted their own about how they would be out to replace the log when they could.

Well, we used it today...and it helped us save our sanity...thanks by the way Justin...lol!

HA HA...you admitted it...in PUBLIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So, are all 3 of you coming, I need to know how much room we have for others in the "herd mobile" in case anyone else wants to join!?!

Spankings??? I really shouldn't go there...this IS a public forum...lol. Ok, so you guys are game...any thoughts on where you want to go? I know we didn't have the best of luck in Ft. Wayne...so that's probably not a good place to cache. I mentioned Elkhart, though there are several other places we could go. I plan on leaving early and being gone late...though, you know that is how I like to cache...lol! There is also the possiblity of Lansing like we talked about.

I'm not SET on where I am going caching yet, those are just 2 areas that have some I haven't hit yet...but...if there are other people that want to go, and want to meet up somewhere else I am game...as long as I have unfound caches there!!! Happy early birthday markz68!

Well, I still haven't heard back from the owner regarding the deletion of the DNFs...BUT...out of curiousity, I went back to look at the cache page to see if anyone else had found it. Seems we WERE right about the coords being off, because the reviewer update the coords, and when I mapped it...it shows it being on the complete opposite side of the rest stop...hmmm.

On a recent trip CYBret hit 1700...a bit over that actually. Wonder how long it will take him to log all those finds THIS time! Congrats on the milestone...and glad I got to be a part of helping you get there...but I still think you have WAY to much freetime!

Well, thanks to a few people...who shall remain unnamed...it is no secret that next week is my 30th birthday. What better way to spend the day than CACHING!!! So, there are quite a few caches (mainly ALL OF THEM) in Elkhart that I haven't hit...and still some in Ft. Wayne that I haven't hit. I am still trying to decide where I want to go. So...I place the call out...because, well, Brad is working, and I don't want to spend the day caching alone. Are there any cachers that want to get together on October 9th (the day BEFORE) my birthday, and spend ALL day caching with me? If so, let me know so I can start making plans.

We have: Dog themed items Owl themed multi Sig item creation cache CCC history themed cache. Natural history themed cache Deer poop! cache We had a hillbilly themed cache where you had to write your log silly.

I believe it's there...I just REALLY believe the coords are way off. Owner says they checked on it before our second visit, but mentions nothing of using the GPSr to double check the coords. And I know from experiance how bad the reception can be in that area. The page states it is a quick grab and go...but...I think that if that were the case, one of the 4 people that looked for it would have found it. That is what leads me to believe maybe there is an issue with the coords.

Ohh...making a bookmark...now THAT is a good idea! lol! Seriously though...on our first attempt, we expanded our search to include just about the entire plot of woods we were in. I will admit, on the second attempt, we only expanded it about 30 feet....maybe a bit more. I still have not heard from the cache owner. The team I was with on my second attempt and I have both reposted DNFs on the cache. Guess we will wait to see how long those stay on there. I agree with pretty much everyone here that DNFs really help you weed out what caches you want to do. I also see them as a way for the owner to see if s/he maybe needs to check up on the cache. On our run a few days ago, we avoided lots of caches because most of the recent logs were dnfs. I still don't get it...

I've sent an email to the cache owner. So far no response. I may understand him deleting one of my DNFs, but deleting both is what surprised me. Also the fact that he deleted a DNF from another caching team. A DNF from a well known cacher in the area, was left intact. Just confused, thanks for the input. Amber

We recently tried to find a new cache in our area. When we got there, we found it was in the middle of a Maple Stand, and had REALLY bad sat. reception. There was however, a field right next to the plot, so we stepped out there to get our reception back. Well, after a LONG time searching, we gave up. I posted a DNF. Isn't that the right thing to do? Fast forward 2 days later. I met up with another local cacher and went back out to look for this cache. Again, both GPSrs led us right to where we had been looking before, and we even expanded our search out 30 feet like before...JUST IN CASE...and again, no cache could we find. We both posted DNFs on it. The logs were NOT offensive, just basically said, we looked...again...couldn't find it. Maybe the owner could double check his coords. I woke today to see that all 3 of our DNFs had been deleted. Now, seeing all the talk of DNF logs in the forums lately...I realized that they are REALLY helpful to other cachers. Strange thing is...he left the DNF log by a local well known cacher. My question is, is it common practice to delete peoples DNF logs? This is the first it has ever happened to me, and I am not sure what the "etiquette" on it is. I am glad there is a DNF option so I know what caches to avoid.

Well, I guess we should listen to the old man...though I think he is just offended that I found out how old he is! AND he had the nerve to pick on ME???

And if you need me too, I would be willing to put it together.