VirginiaGator
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Posts posted by VirginiaGator
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Thanks for this! I just subscribed and am looking forward to some fun and interesting reading!
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I would definitely hesitate opening a coffin found in the woods, and would absolutely would call the police.
The sheriff dept and the hikers did nothing wrong and this is not a case of, "if you see, something, say something" gone way to far.
Its a coffin folks, perhaps things may have been different if permission were granted for the oversized cache by hte parks dept., the coffin were camo'd or maybe marking the coffin with GEOCACHE CONTAINER- NO HARM would have been beneficial.
I agree with this. A geocaching sticker on the outside would have helped the cachers. Non-cachers?
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We must have searched/found close to a dozen in cemetaries. They're always interesting places to visit. I can't help but say a prayer while we're there. It's always interesting to read stones along the way. I can think of two caches off the top of my head where we needed information on a stone to go to another stage of a multi. Placing one? Not sure about that.
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We're year round geocachers, but we stay away from the woods in the summer. We used to not care. But after a few trips with stagnant, HOT air and the critters including ticks and snakes, we'll skip it until the fall and winter. We like urbans in the summer!
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There's a wide variety of caches in Manhattan, and we like to plan which ones we want to find beforehand, so we use the Geocaching Maps to look at each of the caches manually beforehand.
I know that's not what you're asking for, but you may want to peek at the caches beforehand rather than just setting out on foot, hoping to find everything nearby.
If that doesn't work and you use GSAK, I'd use hallycat's suggestion of filtering by county. Manhattan is in New York county.
I still miss the zip codes being faded but visible on the maps. Now I resort to going to zipcodes.com, enter the city and state, and choose one of their zip codes that comes up, then enter it in gc.com.
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I've sent out 6 TBs/coins. Out of those, 4 are either missing or being held captive...for over a year! Why bother picking up a TB when you know you won't be caching due to other commitments for an extended amount of time.
They seem to go missing a lot in our area. I almost want to add a tag...don't leave your TBs around here!
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Yeah, there's even a TB with a similar issue not far from my home. It has been in the cache since December 20, 2008 though the cache has been found several times since then. Whenever I get around to finding it, I might take it somewhere if I know a good place to drop it. There's one cache that I guess I can drop it off in a lot closer to my home just for the sake of it no longer sitting in the same cache for months.
Did you read through the past logs on that cache? Did any of the latest finders indicate whether the TB was still in the cache? It might still be in the cache, or it might've been picked up and not properly logged out. I wish that was a rarity
Either way, it's worth the trip to retrieve the bug or to verify for the bug/cache owner that it's no longer in the cache it shows in. Bruce
In the past couple weeks I posted notes on cache pages asking whomever stopped in the future to verify whether or not our coin and TB were in the caches. One person picked up the TB...YEA!!!! With the coin the next person who stopped posted that they didn't see the coin in the cache.
At least I was able to mark it missing at that point.What's the right way to get longevity out of a bug?! If you send out something too interesting or cute, it's gone quickly. The missing coin is a USA geocoin...plain gold tone and tarnished.
Probably the least attractive coin I could send out. Yet it disappeared. -
I inherited the name from a friend I've had since we were 4 years old. I had lived in FL 15 years and was ready for a new place! Ended up moving to Virginia. My friend said...I can't call you Florida Gator any more. Now I have to call you...Virginia Gator!
Ta da!P.S. I had a good laugh a couple years ago when there was a small alligator found in one of the lakes in our community. Unfortunately, they attributed it to someone letting a "pet" loose.
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I've run into police officers at two caches and one park ranger while enroute to one. I have to say...the officers were very nice. The ranger was nasty!
I've been approached at caches while wandering around without a clue where something is. Hate it when there's no hint on the more difficult ones. Once was someone asking me if I was an inspector. LOL! Yeah, that's it!
The other times I just tell them I'm on a scavenger hunt. Depending on the interest or questions they ask, I sometimes explain Geocaching to them.In general, I love urbans. So much better than the ticks and snakes in the woods! And if I'm caching in an area that's a distance from home, you better believe that I'm going to get that cache no matter what it takes.
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Count me in as one who will clue a muggle in if they are in my way. Stealth goes out the window. If someone hides a cache in such an area, expect us to do what we must to get the cache.
I usually start by telling them I'm on a scavenger hunt...if they ask me about what I'm doing. If they persist, I explain Geocaching to them, find the cache, and show it to them. Either they'll join in the fun or have fun watching others searching!A few months back we took a trip to Arlington, VA and DC. Loved the virtuals in DC!
We didn't have any problem with signals. But in Arlington, reception was less than spot on. All the tall buildings around us really made the GPS less than accurate. There was one right near our hotel that we tried a few times while there. We just couldn't come up with it. 
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Hello!
I am new to geocaching and really love it. Its a great way to spend an afternoon with my kids. What I'd like to know is if its ok to grab a random TB and take it to Greece with us when we go later this summer. We plan to do some geocaching while we are there (already have some caches in mind!) and I'd love to take one or two bugs with me to place there. Since I'm a new member I'm nervous about doing something bold like that. I don't want to anger anyone this early in my geocaching career! I know I'd love it if someone grabbed my bug and took it to some distant land, but I've often been told I'm weird, so I thought I'd ask for advice first! I've looked at some TB pages to try and find a TB with an international goal, but many of the TB pages don't list a "goal" or the goal is not specific...
Thanks,
Arizona
PS: If anyone wants their bug to go to Greece, please let me know. If the bug is in a cache near Chicago I'll go get it and take it with me.
Can I get you to stop by one of our caches in VA? Just the other day I placed one of our coins in the cache. It wants to go to...GREECE! There is a particular cache there we've been watching a long time. If we can't get there ourselves, it would be great to get our coin there!
You could e-mail the TB owner and ask them if they mind your taking a TB of theirs overseas. I recently had a cacher e-mail about a coin of mine he picked up. He's headed to another state on vacation shortly. I told him...no problem! PLEASE take it! And thanks for asking!!
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Why not post a Note..."I found this cache on x/xx. The owner can't find it. Will the next finder please check the log and report if my signature appears?"
(But I would be pissed if I had a find deleted because the owner can't find the cache. I've been to more than one cache where the owner put out a replacement because he couldn't find the original...and I found the original.)
I can think of one around here that had DNF after DNF posted. The owners went out to replace the cache. They found the original cache a distance away from the original hiding spot.
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sorry everyone for ruining your day. I didn't realize sharing an opinion on a forum was wrong.
The problem being many on this forum are "dead horses" - they have been here so long they have heard it all and get "upset" I guess that is the word, when someone does bring up a subject that the above named dead horses have beat to death in the past and on some occasions many times to the waste of many hours of said dead horses.
Now if you are a dead horse as described above - do not get upset, I was just trying to explain why there is a penchant for mockery when threads like this (even if done with good intentions) get started.
I disagree.
The real issue is that these threads repeat so frequently that many times, they don't even fall off page one before a new one is started. It's a wonder why people don't try to do a search before sharing their 'new' idea.
So for anyone that does search and finds a "dead" thread, would it be preferred to add your comment to a dead thread and resurrect it than to start a new one?
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The best finds include a gift card for Barnes & Noble. There was a cache that was missing and the owner replaced it. When he replaced it, he added the gift card for the first finder of the replaced cache! Nice surprise! Also, anything military related...patches, coins, ribbons, pins, etc.
From time to time I've left an unactivated geocoin in caches. And a signature pencil. I really need to get the geocaching pins out there. They've been in a box for a while.
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Last weekend I placed a new cache.... It is a homemade super hide. within 24 hrs. I had 5 DNFs three of which left some rather negative logs. I'm new to placing hides and did make some mistakes as far as my listing. I have revamped my listing since then. What do you do when everybody is coming down on you over your cache. It kinda takes the fun out of it when you get tore down on your second hide......
I looked at the logs and I really don't see anybody tearing you down. Some complaints about the difficulty being wrong, which can be legit. I see you raised it already to 3.5 stars which should cut down on complaints. As long as your difficulty rating is somewhat accurate you shouldn't get too many complaints. It's when people see a bunch of DNFs on a 1 or 2 star difficulty hide that you'll see some beef spewing.
Another issue is that you don't have the size listed. I know a few people who get pretty miffed by that. It's becoming more and more popular among micro hiders to list the size as unknown so those who dislike micros won't avoid the cache.
We have someone around here who hardly ever chooses a size. I've learned to watch his caches for a while before going after any. If I see a TB or coin listed, it's not a micro. At least that helps some.
What gets me is a lack of information on a cache page. No, I don't want a hike in the woods to look for a micro that's impossible to find. When I do get to an area like that, you better believe I'm highly ticked off. There's even micros out there where the owner has supposedly told me right where it is. I go back and look, and I still can't find the thing. Extremely frustrating. And they don't want any previous finders giving hints or help to those who can't find their caches.
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I think it would be easier to hide caches and save the publishers time if on the cache map page, you could pick a spot and get the exact coords and how far that point is from an allready hidden cache. This way we can plan our hides at home on the computer and know that if we go that a way our caches will get approved instead of punching in waypoints and doind it in the field. Just another tool I think would save everyone some heartache. Can't take too much effort to program that into the website.
It sure would be helpful for the numbers to be accurate! I tried to place a cache in a park one time where I had the closest caches in my GPS. I walked it to an area that looked good for a hide. GPS said the closest cache was .10 away. I walked a bit farther to be sure that it would be far enough away from any other cache. Submitted a page, was told that it was however many feet away from the cache I walked it from.
Darn bird flight path! We are not taking a bird's route. -
OK...with the merged topic...
Should Groundspeak seperate Micro's/Nano's from the cache category "Traditional"No, as has been said earlier...Micro/Nano is a size...while Traditional is a category...
If you are asking should there be a separation between micro and nano...then maybe...
I'm all for a micro/nano differentiation!
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I am very interested in this subject as my wife has Lymes Disease and trying to make sure she doesn't get bit again or myself for that matter but i got an emai today that said this "Remedy for Tick Removel" Works ...... Has anyone tried this yet?_____
Email i received:
How To Remove a Tick
> Bet it would work on dogs too.
>
> Spring is here and the ticks will soon be showing in heads. Here is a
> good way to get them off you, your children, or your pets. Give it a
> try. Please forward to anyone with children... or hunters or dogs, or
> anyone who even steps outside in summer!! A School Nurse has written
> the info below -- good enough to share -- And it really works!!I had
> a pediatrician tell me what she believes is the best way to remove a
> tick. This is great, because it works in those places where it's some
> times difficult to get to with tweezers: between toes, in the middle
> of a head full of dark hair, etc. Apply a glob of liquid soap to a
> cotton ball. Cover the tick with the soap-soaked cotton ball and swab
> it for a few seconds (15-20), the tick will come out on its own and
> be stuck to the cotton ball when you lift it away. This technique has
> worked every time I've used it (and that was frequently), and it's
> much less traumatic for the patient and easier for me. Unless someone
> is allergic to soap, I can't see that this would be damaging in any
> way. I even had my doctor's wife call me for advice because she had
> one stuck to her back and she couldn't reach it with tweezers. She
> used this method and immediately called me back to say, "It worked!"
I don't even need to check Snopes for that one. It simply REEKS of Urban Legend!!
Please forward to anyone with children
And it really works!!
I had a pediatrician tell me
Those are some of the many "warning signs" that you should probably NOT forward it to anyone.
When I once had a tick in a tough place and called the doctor's office, they said to put vaseline on it. It would back out on its own, but it would take quite a bit longer. I opted for going to an urgent care center since I couldn't get in the doc's office that day. Not only did they remove the tick, but they also gave me a booster tetanus shot! Now I know I'm still up to date on that one.
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I'm really curious what the story was on this one. Was it really inside a library?
We did a fake library book cache, too...actually, it USED to be a library book that was decatalogued. The librarian gave it to us and we hollowed it out and glued the pages to make a box. I wasn't there when she put it back on the shelf and even knowing approximately where it was, it was still hard to find without the exact Dewey number to find it. You can find it at: Gold & Iron
This is still my favorite cache we've ever found!
We first ended up looking on the wrong side of the aisle. We cracked up when we returned to exactly where we were previously and found it was directly behind us on the first try. Love it! We made this one #1,000 for us. -
It used to irritate me no end if I couldn't find a cache. And it was usually a micro in the woods.
Now I have no problem adding that type to the ignore list. Throw in the caches with the intentionally inaccurate coordinates, too..."this will put you in the general area of the cache. good luck searching the 336 places it could possibly be." -
We've been to some great virtuals in DC. There's one on my watch list still because it was so interesting. There's always posts showing up from cachers in other countries. I get a laugh out of it because they usually have found a few virtuals in different countries...on the same day.
There's even been a post by a reviewer suggesting the owner police the logs better. Hmmmmmmmmmm...if the owner doesn't want to keep up with them, I'll gladly adopt the cache and do it! -
Difficult call because it is situation-dependent... mostly on the age and location.
I have several times in this situation explained the game to groups of teens at or near the cache, showed them how to use the GPS, let them find the cache and sign it, and given them the geocaching.com address and instructions on how to log it. I think it's a great game for teens and families and love to introduce them to it. The last time this happened was on a cache run to Tennessee - got to the cache site and there were eight teenage boys and girls in a mall parking lot about 9 p.m. outside a Starbucks. They were sitting on the storm drain where my GPS said was ground zero. I sat in my car and watched them for a few minutes, they seemed to be kids having fun (I've raised 5, plus their friends, and so can usually tell when kids are up to no good), so I explained what I was doing, showed them my GPS, walked them off a ways and let them find it, then gave them 2 bison tubes to hide after I left. The cache I revealed to them is still active and 2 of the kids emailed me, then hid and published the micros I gave them.
Once when I didn't get a good vibe from a group of teens skateboarding near the cache I just walked away.
Once DrFred and I went after a cache where the dirt road entrance was in a residential neighborhood. We drove down it to ground zero and got out to look. When we got out of the car we noticed that the road ended about 150' further in... at the back fence of a school playground. It was around 5 p.m., well after school hours, so we went on with the hunt, probing in the thick high bushes. It wasn't long before we heard "What ya doing, mister?", looked up and saw that four elementary-age boys had walked up the road to where we were from the school. Otay, two adults with an SUV in the woods behind a school talking to four young boys. Not good. So DrFred figures he'll run them off by saying "We're looking for some big snakes we heard were here". DrFred had no kids at that time, so he was unprepared for the completely predictable kids' response... "COOL! Can we help?!"
Um, no, it's time to go. Quickly. We turn to head back to the car and there are three Moms standing in the road between us and the Jeep. Unhappy Moms. Not a smile among them. Arms crossed. Bummer. So we explain the game and what we're looking for, all the while frantically looking for the cache. We really want to show these Moms the cache! Really. Otherwise our story sounds a bit lame, because... DNF. No kidding. Could not find it. Ooops. We walk to the car, still trying to explain while appearing harmless, and get the hell out of there.
Whoo! That could have gotten ugly! So we go down the road to find another cache. Another dirt road. Sharp rock. PSSssss... flat tire. It's when I hear the hiss of escaping air that I comment to the good doctor that I have been meaning to put a jack in this Jeep ever since I bought it. Huh.
DrFred's on call in a few hours, no time to wait on AAA to come out in these woods, so I drive on the flat and head for the nearest town that will have a tire shop. Limping along, flop-roll-flop, and we drive past that darn school. The parking lot is full of every kind of cop the area has to offer... local cops, county cops, state cops, and three upset Moms waving their arms and pointing at my Jeep as we limp past. Ut Oh.
Five police cars zoom out of the lot and surround us, guns drawn. DrFred has his hands in the air and imagines his medical career going down the tubes. "Surgeon busted with young boys in the woods"... he can see the headlines in his mind and I can see it in his eyes. So I stick both hands out the window and start explaining. They don't want to hear it. "Are there any weapons in the vehicle?" No Sir. "Give me your ID, both of you." The 'and don't make any sudden moves' goes unsaid but is crystal clear.
They get on the radio and give us a thorough checking out. That part doesn't worry us, we know we're clean.
Now they want to hear our story. I tell it and the Doc nods emphatically. They want to see this container we say is hidden back there. Um. "We could not find it." I show them the cache listing printout. I show them my laptop screen with all of the nearby caches on my map. Guns are holstered. Tensions ease. They've obviously decided that we are harmless idiots, and let us go. No, they won't loan us a jack. Tell us to stay on the shoulder and run our flashers. Have a good day.
At the time I was Volunteer Reviewer 'NatureFish', so that cache was archived, with extreme prejudice, as soon as I got home!
So, like I said, what you should do all depends on the situation!
LOL! That is my worst worry. That a police officer is going to come up behind me, ask me what I'm doing, and I can't find the cache!
I worry about this one way too often. LOL! And it's the main reason for a number of my DNFs. -
I always tell them I'm on a scavenger hunt. Depending on their response, I go into a brief explanation of Geocaching or not. But whenever I come across a police officer, I always tell them what I'm doing. The best one was when we were coming out of the woods and were crossing a ditch. We were on one side, two police officers were on the other headed in our direction. They were smiling (I think due to child being with me) and asked if we were hiking. Me with print outs in one hand, a hiking stick in the other, and a GPS hanging around my neck told them what we were doing.
Turned out we were actually able to help them and showed them what they were looking for. -
I really dislike them. We're lucky though...they haven't been a big thing in our area. When we go other places, we've come across quite a few in caches. They ALWAYS end up falling on the ground. I pick them up and stick them in the bag with the log book. And what if someone likes your card and they take it...and you haven't signed the log book. Hmmmmmmmmmmm...no signature for the log book. I think everyone with the cards should have a Tot stapler and staple them to a page in the log book!
At least I was able to mark it missing at that point.
We didn't have any problem with signals. But in Arlington, reception was less than spot on. All the tall buildings around us really made the GPS less than accurate. There was one right near our hotel that we tried a few times while there. We just couldn't come up with it. 
We first ended up looking on the wrong side of the aisle. We cracked up when we returned to exactly where we were previously and found it was directly behind us on the first try. Love it! 
Now I have no problem adding that type to the ignore list. Throw in the caches with the intentionally inaccurate coordinates, too..."this will put you in the general area of the cache. good luck searching the 336 places it could possibly be." 
I worry about this one way too often. LOL! And it's the main reason for a number of my DNFs.
Geocaching in Greensboro, NC...Any areas to avoid?
in South and Southeast
Posted
We would like to do some caching in Greensboro while we're in the area. I pulled up a cache, the first one, and read a log that one cacher wouldn't cache in that particular area at night.
Any areas of Greensboro to avoid? Especially with the kids!
Thanks!