JVJL

So early on in our caching adventures we were out with friends seeing how many caches we could get in one night. Well someone spotted us and call the police. As we are getting ready to leave (2 cars with wives in one and husbands in the other) on to our next cache a cop walks up out of now where with gun drawn and as he does that 5 cruisers surround us and shortly after a police helicopter flies over head. They have our husbands get out and start patting them down and running all our licenses. Us wives were asked how long we'd been in the area and if we'd seen anyone else around because we weren't who they were looking for. Turns out the caller told the police they saw 2 guys with guns trying to steal a catalytic converter off some truck that was parked close to the cache. We showed the cops the cache. When the whole thing was over the cops were laughing at the whole thing and we changed some of our caching habits and started carrying around the guide to geocaching provided on the website. We still have encounters with the police but that was the scariest moment we have ever had. Strangely enough it hasn't stopped us (maybe part of that comes from living in Cali). We still enjoy it and are now starting to place them ourselves.

Is there any way of telling if or how many member only caches are in my area? If you look up your area on the website they will show you where they are (minus exact coords) but will give you no other info on them. You can tell them in the list by the premium member icon. If there is another way I don't know yet. We started out with the free app ourselves and went out with friends who had just started. After one night we bought the app. Since then we paid for the premium membership as well because we felt we were missing out on caches. We were definitely hooked after one night of caching. We just passed 100 last night and have only been at it for 2 months now. We are more urban cachers so we don't have a problem with the GPS. We have both the iPhone 4 and 3GS and both work great. As far as battery life, sometimes we trade off or we just use the charger in the car if we are driving around to a bunch, but mostly if you play with other settings on the phone (ie. brightness, etc.) you can help your battery last longer, not just geocaching but even in everyday usage. We love geocaching and look forward to hopefully meeting some cachers in our area soon. It's a lot of fun and something you can do with the whole family.