Team Red Oak

Thanks- That is the only web site I could find. The link on that site doesn't work. I found that web site by typing 'Rimrock landing resort' into Google. That was where I saw the sign that said Masters Resort. The restaurant is open to anyone who wants to eat there, and there is a public boat ramp so the area must be open to the public in some capacity. You can even keep your boat docked there for a fee. So i guess I've answered one question myself. My other question if anyone knows the answer is what is the campground resort actually called now? I found it on the internet by typing Rimrock landing, but if someone was lost and asked where Rimrock landing campground was would he be directed to the right place? Or should he ask for Masters Resort? We have plenty of time to wait for an answer as we haven't even bought the TB dog tags yet. If I can't find a definate answer before we are ready to send the TB on its way we'll just make sure we cover all bases and give both possible names on the goal card we attach to the TB. I just wanted to have a simple goal card and not a novel. Thanks to eveyone Dawn

I bet your 10 year old can open your medicine bottles for you too. Gosh kids are something else aren't they? But I wouldn't know how to use half of my gadgets if it weren't for my boys! Gotta love em! Kudos to your kids.

Hi everyone- My husband and I live in MD, but he is from WA. As a matter of fact his parents briefly owned RimRock Landing Resort on RimRock lake outside of Yakima in the late 1970's. We are thinking of creating our first TB and we would like it to travel to RimRock Landing Resort and have its picture taken near the restaraunt or the boat slips (my husband helped his father build the first slips at the campground). We've looked on the internet and have found pictures of the campground and the current owners are named Masters and the entrance sign says Masters Resorts. My questions: If we have a TB whose goal is to go to RimRock Landing Resort and have its picture taken near the boat slips or restaraunt, 1) What do people call the place now? Is it still called RimRock Landing by the locals, or should I say the TB wants to go Masters Resort? (Off of Naches Highway) 2) Is the campground open to the public so anyone can go in there and hike around or whatever with out paying admission? Thanks for helping us out. Dawn, Team Red Oak

We've found 3 urban caches that are magnetic key holders placed under a park bench. It may be difficult for a handicacher to get to because they are usually placed under the bench near the side but also near the back. That way if a non-geocacher sits on the bench and drops something they won't see the cache unless they really look under the bench. I've found them by sitting dsown and reaching my hand under the side of the bench. One of the benches was at a nice park with a view of the pond and fountain, another was at a playground, and the third was at the beginning of a paved nature trail that wound its way through a townhouse community. We've also found urbans just off of paved walking paths hidden in the knot of a tree. I've found stage 2 of a multi on a baseball field back stop. There are many different ideas, maybe hide in an old rock wall, or a public garden.

Originally from the Southside of Allentown and darn proud of it, 1982 grad of WAHS, but currently banished to Maryland. I left PA in 1983 when I started to follow my hubby around the states and Europe during his Army carreer. I have sisters in Berks, Bucks, and Lehigh counties but so far have only cached in Berks county. I just want to come home!

Normally I print the page the day before (or the morning) I look for the cache. If I find a page that I printed a few weeks ago, then I take 5-10 minutes to check the computer before we run out for the cache. I don't have a PDA so this may be wrong, but what's the difference if I printed the cache page last week or if I downloaded the cache into a PDA last week. It's all old info unless the PDA automatically updates whenever I turn it on.

We went to find one recently that had been placed in an area that was littered with broken glass, large rusted drums, an old shed type structure, old wire fencing, etc. Looked like it was a moonshine haven years ago. The bottles that were'nt broken still had some type of liquid in them. I must say we had a clue of what the area was like because we read other people's logs and we went anyway becasue we looked for 2 other caches in the same area that morning. I'm not sure we would have done this one if we weren't there anyway. The place was awful, I couldn't wait to sign the log and get the heck outta there.

I apologize for being off topic, but ever since I noticed that avatar I've wanted to comment. First AAARRRRGGGHHHHH, and second that is a face only a mother could love.

We always use paper and we hand enter coords into the GPSr. Our GPSr came with a cable to download from the computer and I tried it once but didn't have enough time and apparently I need to have some kind of program. Tried easy GPS, but it seemed confusing. Quite frankly entering coords by hand is just fine by me. If the instruction booklet that came with the GPSr had picture instructions with the written instructions it would have been great as I am a hands on please show me the basics learner. I had to read the instruction book a few times and there are still things that I don't understand about the GPSr but we can find caches and that is what's really important. We always plan our caches together before we go out and that is part of the fun. We keep all cache pages in a folder until we find them. If we log a DNF, we write notes on the page that could help us in our next search.

Keystone you'd be the reviewed on this since the cache is in PA. Should I PM you with the cache name or post it here?

Recently I went back to one of my logs to add pictures and I noticed the cachers after me picked up the TB I dropped off and in their log they put the TB number. I emailed the owner of the TB and told him that his TB number was out there in a log and I never heard back from the owner and I checked the cache logs about a week after I sent the email and the logs still had the TB number too. I feel better for trying though.

I think a glowRing would be a good idea for a TB. However, I bought my kids Swiss Army knives when they were in 1st grade so they could widdle out their very own Pine Wood Derby cars. So maybe I'm not the best judge for what is good and not so good.

My husband lived in Yakima WA when Mt. St. Helens blew her top in 1980. We have a very large glass jar (industrial size pickle jar) full of ashes he scooped up from his back yard. The ash is very fine and grey in color. He labeled the jar so if someone down the road finds it in our attic after we're gone they will know what it is. I don't know of any similar incidents in TN that would make someone put ashes into a bottle though. Girl Scouts still keep a chain of ashes going and since you were near the Great Smokey Mountains maaaaaaayyybee they were lost by a scout troop or a church group, or campfire girls/boys. What an interesting mystery, tossing them in the trash was the best idea.

I think that I would have logged a note as long as you found each stage when you looked for it. For instance if your intent was to only find stages 1 and 2 and you found them, then log a note saying you only intended to find the first 2 stages and you found them. If your intent was to find stages 1, 2, and 3, but you only found stages 1 and 2, and you searched for 3 then log a DNF for stage 3. The important thing is the feedback to the cache owner. If you log a DNF each time you looked for a stage when you never intended to look for the final, the owner may think something is wrong with the cache. When in fact you just can't do the entire multi in one try. We've logged more than one DNF on a cache becasue we didn't find the cache until the 3rd try. So we logged 2 DNF and one smiley. One of the attempts to find was cut short becasue we had to pick up kids, but we still made it to the final stage and looked for a few minutes, even if we didn't make it to the final stage we would have logged a DNF because our intent was to find the entire cache. At the end of the day you have to log in a way you can live with no matter how anyone says you should log. We found the forums very helpful when we first started caching, especially the smiley vs DNF threads. More experienced cachers brought up factors we never considered.

We on Team Red Oak are finders not hiders. Although we want to hide one day, we have lived in our area less than 2 years so we don't have the advantage of being familiar with the parks and other neighborhoods. So far the only way we've found some of the parks in our area is becasue we've hunted caches there, we just don't really know an area to hide a cache that doesn't already have a cache or 2 placed there. We will hunt every hide, micro, regular, virtual, although in the woods we would rather hunt a regular cache. We love a challenge, and have no problems logging every DNF even if we DNF more than once on the same cache. Once we find the cache, ie sign the log, we leave the DNF(s) in the log because it is a true representation of what we did to find it. When we log, we try to say something more than thanks and we make a point of logging as soon as we come home from caching. The only exceptions are when we are traveling, then we log as soon as we come home. We are currently at a 78% find ratio. We've never done a puzzle or a night cache, but hope to one day and we've never had a FTF. We've been to one event and had a very good time. We like TB's but we only pick them up if we can help them reach their goal and we strive to move them in a timely manner. Currently we have a bug and a coin that we've held onto way too long, our plans changed and we didn't make our trip as planned and I feel guilty for hanging on to them. We only log TB's we physically pick up and move. Usually we don't trade anything. For us the fun is just finding the cache and if we don't find it, we've spent time together away from the house and we've explored a little bit. Sometimes I will stop on my way home from work and find a cache solo, but those finds are still logged under our team account. Normally we plan what caches we're going to look for and we will read the cache pages and even the logs several days in advance just to make sure we are prepared. Then we print the pages (sans logs) of the caches we plan to look for. Normally by the time we get around to looking for the cache, we've forgotten what the logs have said and we never decipher hints unless we have looked for 30+ minutes. We like to feel as though we have found the cache, not like we've been told where the cache is, so we've only asked a cache owner for a hint once and then we told her where we were looking and just asked for confirmation that we were in the right spot.

Sounds like a lot of fun. During the quest, maybe you can include parts that require the skills dexterity, strength, and intelligence. I'd leave out charisma or most of us would never be able to find it.

Team Red Oak is 42 and 49 (almost the big 5-0 hehe). We have 4 kids, 2 girls, 2 boys, one grandson and 4 cats. I'm originally from PA and the hubby is from the other side (west coast) we met in Germany. Our boys (twins) think geocaching is dumb, we'd thought they'd love it since they are boy scouts and love to camp etc, but whenever we ask them to come along they feel the need to clean their rooms or some other horrible thing. Our other main hobby is the SCA (www.sca.org) and we like to watch the kids play sports (although the boys are the only ones left in school). I like to weave, garden and put up food. My husband likes to build things, I've never known him not to be able to make something. We also enjoy camping and the men folk like to fish and hunt. I really hate bugs, so when we cache he walks in front with a stick to clean up all the spider webs. If you ever cache in Maryland and happen to hear a scream and then laughing, it was probably me becasue I found a spider or other bug crawling on me and then of course the laughter is from the husband who is receiving the stare of death from me. I'm in business management with a gov't contractor and my husband is the facilities maintenance manager for a local produce company. He spent 20 years in the Army retired in 2001.

Welcome Swantown! Just want you to know that we are usually Take Nothing, Leave Nothing cachers. We cache for the hunt and the fun. We always sign the log book and will move Travel Bugs (TB don't require a trade item) if we are going their way, but rarely do we actually trade anything. So don't feel like you can't try to find a regular cache because you don't have anything to trade. Just get out and have as much fun as you want.

YUCK! Moth balls. Who would want swag that smells like that. Please mention it on your cache page. Something like that will make me ill and I would prefer not to puke and have a migraine while out caching.

The Rainbow Bridge story was so nice, it made me cry a little at work! I hate to cry and crying at work is even worse. But it also made me smile because I pictured my favorite cat Pumpkin waiting for me, then I pictured all my cats who have gone and the ones I have now who will probably go before me and the ones I get after that and it made me realize that I may be the crazy cat lady at the Rainbow Bridge and that made me laugh and then cry. All my cats have been and will be rescue cats. Except one I got from a farm at 8 weeks old, they all have been several months old or a few years old when I get them. Anyway Dana we'll keep you in our thoughts and remember to smile so he can see you'll be okay. Dawn from Team Red Oak

We usually take all TBs we know we can help and leave the others for someone else. However, there is always an exception to that rule. For instance we picked up a TB this past weekend only because it had been in the cache for over 2 months. Even though people had come to this cache no one picked it up. This particular TB wants its picture taken with engineering structures such as bridges, cool buildings etc. We are not going to any place that fits that description, but I feel like we helped the bug just by taking it from the cache it had been sitting in since mid July. We will place the TB this Saturday about an hour north of Virginia Beach and hopefully it won't sit very long before being picked up again.

We will usually only pick up a TB if we are traveling outside of our area as we see no point in moving a TB just 2 miles. I also like to go back and look at the logs for TBs that we have helped along the way, I like to see if they've reached their goals or what adventures they've had along the way (we don't have any TBs of our own). The other day I saw the log of a TB we helped out and I was very disappointed to see the people who found it right after we placed it typed the TB number in their cache log! I emailed the TB owner to let him know that the TB number is now out for all to see. I hope to see the logs edited soon.

What about using different patches or other girl scout trades? My daughter went to Manchester one year with her troop for camp and they stayed with host families and traded patches and things with other troops. The trick would be to attach the items so they don't get stolen, ruined or mangled.

Sorry to hear about your dog. I still get choked up talking about the cats I've lost even though I have different cats now. Each time I say I'm done, no more furry little pets, but I always get more eventually. Just remember all the fun you've had together and give him all the comfort you can in his remaining days.

I sure hope those bio hazard containers don't have any lingering bio hazard stuff on them.