Moore9KSUcats

I have used both. If the cache is directly exposed to the weather, the paint works far better. The duct tape fades, frays and eventually starts to peel. I use a special clear plastic primer on my Lock n Locks and basically any spray paint over that and have yet to see a problem with chipping. We found a cache a few months ago covered with camo tape.... it had faded to a very pretty (and visible) blue!

Before knives were put on the "banned" list, our son found a very nice Gerber multi-tool in a cache. He still uses it, and frequently takes it on scout campouts.

Is the nature trail on school property or on city (like a city park) property? Yes, both are by nature public property, but most school district governing boards do not like a lot of people on their property during school hours. If it were in a park, like a city or county park, that backs up to the school, it would probably be ok. If it is a trail that is on school district grounds, I would leave it alone.

We have/had a cache that was nestled in a small rock cave behind a tree at the base of a very rocky slope. It was fine for a couple of years, until this year. Well, we had some massive flooding this summer in central Texas, and the access to the path the cache was near was blocked. Some people parked on the road (something I don't like to do) and did find the cache in August and September. The river is finally down (they've been letting water out of the lake since late spring or early summer, I think) and I went to check on it. Now I understood what the cacher in August meant when he said he had to DIG for the cache! I think more rock fill was pushed over the slope this summer, also..... the area it was hidden was not only devastated by the flood, but covered with more rubble! They had to DIG for about 10 minutes to get to the cache..... I think we are planning on archiving the cache now... trying to get to the area is very trecherous from all the flood debris, and it really isn't the pretty place it was before. Really.... I wasn't the one that BURIED the cache... nature and the construction work on the land above buried it. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LU...ae-46e0540c4192

Lost? Well, not really... confused, maybe. We knew where we were..... but couldn't find the right trail to lead us back to the car! The car was waypointed, but where the side trail met the main trail was not. We kept trying to find the trail, but couldn't. Bushwhacking in cedar forests is not fun..... The trail we were on finally led us into the back of a gated apartment complex. We were tired, dirty, and very thirsty! Fortunately, we got some water from the front office, and found out we were several miles away from our car. We started trekking back along the frontage road, to the next turn, (a very busy by-way), and hubby left us on the side of the road under the trees and we waited until he came back with the car. We've not been back to that part of the greenbelt since! (That was back in 2002, when we first started, I think.)

I would think that you could still hide the cache at your business (outside), and place the coupons for a t-shirt in the cache. They could choose whether or not to take one of the coupons and come visit you if they wish. Just don't advertise it as "Joe's T-shirt company cache" or something like that. You could also put other geoswag in the cache, also, for those that don't want a free t-shirt. Another suggestion: Start placing the t-shirt coupons in the caches you visit as the geoswag you leave. That may also start introducing yourself to other geocachers in the area. One thing to remember: If you are wanting to use the geocaching logo, you will need to get permission (I am sure you already know that, being in a business that uses logos and pictures owned by others). Contact your local reviewer to see how it might be worked out beneficially.

Depending on where you live, and how busy the reviewer is, it may take a couple of days for a reviewer to look at your new cache. The reviewer will check over the coordinates and other things, and then "publish" or activate your cache to make it available for others to look for it. Be patient, and it should happen soon!

keep us posted on the babies, please! Looks like you found the best prize, yet!

Sooo....... you are there for the smiley, and if you don't get the smiley, it is a failed trip? We are there for the adventure, the scenery, and the family time together. If we were there for the smiley, our numbers for 5+ years of geocaching would be probably in 4 digits, or at least a lot higher than we are. Instead, we are just over 400. We look for the adventures, nice hikes, and more adventures!

We've found berries several times in Central Texas, and the pecans should be great this fall! We've had a very wet summer! The last few weeks we found a few wild plums... the skin tends to be tough, but the flesh is great! Look for the ones that have that "frosted" look on them.

I have no idea why someone would want to put cigarettes in a cache, but it is against the guidelines: Please! No alcohol, tobacco, firearms, prescription or illicit drugs. Let's keep this safe and legal. Did someone feel they really needed to leave a trade item? Or.... was that possibly left by a curious muggle? Just trash them out!

I just tried to access a trackable from the cache page, and the same thing happened. "Sorry, you haven't chosen a trackable item for me to look up."

Where were you caching, Austin? I wish you had gotten a picture of the grasses. Many years ago, I hiked through a marshy area, not realizing what was in there. Well, being marshy, it was loaded with sedges! It looked like grass.... but it sliced up our legs really good! The ID part to remember is....."Sedges have edges, and rushes are round." Those sedges sure did have edges... it was almost like going through all the green briar there is in central Texas! These were scratches, though, rather than a rash. I still have scratches on my ankles from getting tangled up in green briar Sept. 15 .... ouch! It is just too hot to cache in jeans, so I usually cache in capri length pants... protects most of my legs, and I am cooler. I just have to watch better.

One cache we found recently that had been covered with camo tape had degraded quite a bit..... The colors changed, and some of it was a very pretty blue! We use spray paint... using several colors can come up with combinations to match your surroundings very well... a dark paint for putting it in a dark hole (base of a tree or in a crevice in a rock), tan or rust colors for different rocks, some gray, maybe a touch of green... Hubby painted a matchstick container that we tucked in a hollow root... it was originally sprayed black, then he got different grays and browns to paint wiggly stripes... it blended in nicely. I hid one recently my hubby had to call and ask where it was! He couldn't find it. It was painted primarily in a rust color, with some other colors on it, and it was hidden in the leaves at the base of a sycamore tree. (Sycamore leaves turn a reddish rusty brown... and are very big, hiding the container very well.)

I visit a small park frequently. It has a trail that goes under a bridge and connects to another trail on the other side of the river. Anyway, a month or so ago, I was at that park checking on my cache, and noticed a lot of graffiti on the bridge supports. When I got home I called the police to alert them of it. An officer called me back for information. I told him of the graffiti (F*** the establishment and 3rd street gang forever) and he basically seemed to brush it all off, saying that we don't have a gang problem here. I don't care whether it is truly gang graffiti or not, it really looks bad on that trail! And yes, we have other instances of graffiti in town, also. I saw some on a park building (different park) Thursday morning, and by Thursday evening, it was gone (sandblasted off). I'm sure the event that was being held in the park on Saturday had a lot to do with it getting removed, though (I don't know how long it had been there). Needless to say, nothing has been done about it yet..... I think he was wanting to put it off to the parks department, although the bridge has been there far longer than the park has! I would think it was the responsibility of the roads department, not parks.

Nto if you wire them in parallel. Four D's in parallel is still 1.5V, it just last longer because you're draining each battery at 1/4 the rate. I asked hubby about it after he got home, and he mentioned that you could wire them in parallel and it would be the same voltage. I later read the comments at the bottom of the clip, and several questioned the same thing I did, and the same thing was pointed out. I stand corrected on the voltage point. Thanks for clearing that up!

I'm not claiming to know a great deal about batteries, but a couple of things: 1. The videoclip says gagfilms.com. Is it really true, or just a gag? 2. AA batteries are still 1.5 volts... D cell batteries have 1.5 volts... 4 d cell batteries equals the 6 volts in the lantern battery. 32 AA batteries would equal 48 volts. huh????? I don't believe this video. They don't actually show opening the case and seeing the AA batteries... look at it closely!

We searched for a cache recently that was just on the other side of a stone/cement fence. You could see the upstairs windows from the cache site. I was very uncomfortable searching for that cache, not knowing if the owners of the house have noticed people rummaging around the backside of their fence. One person searching isn't so much of a problem... you could stoop down and not be seen so easily, but we were a party of 5... a little more obvious! (Yes, the fence may not be technically theirs... but it creates the border for their yard, so I am sure they consider it "theirs".) Looking at the rest of the fence, or the area, there were other places it could have been placed, too.

Several months ago (before Feb 2007, actually) I had checked on a cache on a walking trail I frequent. After I checked on it, I went on with my usual walk. As I came back to the cache area, I saw someone in the area, and it looked like they were holding something (their GPSr). I asked them if they found it, and they acted startled... I told them it was there, and I was the placer. It is a tricky hide, so they needed a bit of help, which I was happy to provide. Meeting other cachers on the trail is fun!

If he does log finds online, but hasn't logged yours, it may be that he just hasn't gotten around to logging that one yet. Every once in a while I'll have a find logged from months back, with a note saying that they finally got around to logging it. Unfortunately, these kinds of logs are just very blah... "Found it with so and so back in June. Thanks" It does seem strange, though, that he took the time to e-mail you about the cache... why not log online? I'm like Starbrand... I live for the comments and stories posted on the cache pages! (That is one reason why we don't enjoy letterboxing as much.... there really is no place online to log comments, etc. Some boxers send you an e-mail, but not many. Not so much of a gratification for the work you put into the box.)

It would be interesting to find out which has a greater potential monetary value... the ammo can shredded and sold as scrap, or the pallets of ammo cans sold to resalers. Any information out there?

I've logged caches from the tailgate of my pickup. Just back into position and hop right up!!! We found a cache nearby where finders mentioned standing on the bumper to retrieve this cache. Being forwarned, we looked for the right spot (on the side of the road), and there it was! Son hopped up on the bumper, stuck his hand in the tree limb, and it was an easy find! Without the car, it would have been a definite struggle for just about anyone. The hint, however, suggested looking up.

Combine two of the above ideas, and find a bunch of the smoother river stones (about an inch across, maybe). Paint a small skull on one side, and your name (Lotho) on the other. Another idea is to create a small stamp (you can get the cutting tools in hobby stores) and create a stamp (like people use for letterboxing sometimes). Use the stamp to put the picture on the stone, and then spray it with a waterproofing spray to make it more durable. The stamps are really easy to make, and you can put a lot of detail on them. (We've made several for letterboxing, too.) As far as sig items, ones that people put TIME into are what I would prefer to find. Business cards usually stay in the cache container and get soggy if moisture gets in.

Back in 2002, Moosiegirl and TheOutlaw in Austin started using the term. I don't know if it was used earlier, but here is YAPIDKA #2, and it was published July 24. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...76-a0954951ad3b http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?key=yapidka In a search for caches with that in the title, here is a list of 20. Of those 20, 6 are from Moosiegirl and TheOutlaw, and another 7 are hidden by another Austin area cacher.

As a future middle school science teacher, I also like the idea of integrating geocaching or the use of GPSr in some way. Knowing, however, the attitudes of some of the middle school boys/girls I would be involved with would make me leery of showing them any "real" geocaches, and would only use ones I planted (with school permission) on the school grounds for temporary use. Unfortunately, some kids do have access to GPSr's through their family, and may be likely to vandalize other community caches just to see what kind of reaction they get. Teaching the ethics of land use, etc. may help alleviate this, but I still see a problem with some of these students. I really haven't figured out how to work around this yet. Hubby and I are going to sponsor a geocaching activity at a boy scout family campout, though. There will be a family campout for our son's troop in a month, and we will teach geocaching and plant several temporary caches in the park for the scouts and families to find. I plan to contact the owners of the real geocaches in the park to see if they would mind if we also hand out the coordinates to the caches at that park for the families or scouts to find. If they are concerned about future vandalism, etc. I won't give out those coordinates. (There are probably 10 caches in this fairly small park, of which two are ours.)