Cindyj2

For me within 25 miles is local. And the nearest group is like around 50 or so miles away. There's one local event but my car doesn't have the brightest headlights so I would only be able to go for 15 min and then have a 45 min drive to get home before dark. UGH! Hate my car! But I was shocked to finally see something close and it's just a meet & greet but that would be great to meet people! But CIGA usually has meetings but they are just to far for me to go to all the way in peoria. The Big MOGA event thing will be way to far to go to though. I just see lots of people logging finds on caches around here but would love to meet them.

Testing!

What do you do if there are no local events or groups?

Actually now that I look at the scoutstuff.org website I could probably just buy the Boy scout merit badge book for geocaching and have the pack pay for the $4 something for that. I do like to be able to print stuff on here though for at least my den's parents and kids. Thanks guys so much

Was very surprised a minute ago to when ging through my direct tv channel guide to see what was on and thought Lock & Lock on QVC? But sure enough they've got several sets of Lock & Lock containers they are selling and selling out of too! I'm surprised to not hear them talking about them as geocache containers though. I kind of thought that was wierd that they had food and craft stuff in them! I had first heard of them on here over and over again. lol Not sure if they are great prices but you might want to check if your in need of some. lol Cindy

I'll have to check around here but our only local big park is New Salem in petersburg Il and we camp there and their are just tours for the Lincoln cabins and such. I'll check their site. Thanks guys! I'll just have to do my best! lol

Thanks everyone with all the advice and keep posting your advice and ideas for me! Think my first hide might be in a brick wall outside a store. The owner of the stores son who also works at the store said there were some bricks around the back of the building are loose and there's a little hole back there and he thought that might be a good place but it's been so cold I haven't made it in town to look yet. Hoping I won't have to camo that at all.

Found the book "The complete idiots guide to geocaching" and was wondering if it was worth buying as I found it on a site and it was only $4 something. Come spring I was hoping it might help me better explain this to my Cub scout parents and was wondering if that was a good book that I should have on hand and my son and I are still very new to geocaching so would this also be a big help for us as well? Also I do have some scout parents who aren't on the internet. It's a second edition so was just published in 2009 so still fairly new. And I'm a divorced mom so prices is also a consideration in this purchase as well. Or do you have a better book you can recommend? Or do you the that geocaching.com is more than enough? I have printed off several pages off the site to hand out to parents already as well. Thanks for the advice!

Thanks for posting this i'm deffinatly gonna get some of those!

Too funny! Knowing my town the whole pole would have fell down. Deffinately time for the handymans secret weapon as a previous poster suggested! lol

Yes i'm still new at this and yes i'm a girl and my son and I have found 5 of six that we've been too and have logged 2 DNF's. We will log a DNF for any find we can't find. One was just obviously not there and just the lid. We didn't find it and hopefully the cache owner will get back out there yet again to replace it. Not ashamed of that DNF at all! The 2nd DNF is embarassing and I feel like an idiot! We went to a very new cache and looked for a good while and logged a DNF and days later a more experienced cacher found it and it was right where we looked. Feel like such a newbie! Don't really want to be reminded of that one. lol But it's human nature! And not really anybody's business but mine and the cache owner. I see no reason for this info to be made public really. Think it's relavant only to the cache page it's self and for us being new if a cache has a bunch of DNF's on it we'll probably wait till we see a recent find on it before we go looking for those till we get better at this.

I will probably be using rubbermaid lock its. lol

I've been on here reading alot and also watching videos online and just trying to learn all I can about geocaching and I thought I read somewhere that if possible the contents should be viewable so that nobody thinks it's a bomb ya know and that the container should have sticker stating that it's a geocache? Everybody seems to be either camo spray painting their containgers or duct taping them so they'll blend in and be better hid. So was wondering what you all do? Or does that depend on where your hiding it? Do you have any do's and dont's you could share? And How to's if you do decide to camo? Thanks for the info! Cindy

My wife is a two-troop Girl Scout leader and has taken both troops on cache outings that I scoped out first to make sure the caches exist and are not too difficult for a group of young girls to find. We had parents with us as well and it was very fun explaining the game to them and watching the excitement on all their faces when they found the caches. When it came to explaining muggles the parents got really excited. The whole "cloak and daggers" thing really appealed to the inner-child in them. Of course we explained that if anyone asks what you're doing that you explain to them what geocaching is and how you're not doing anything illicit or suspicious. We actually made a couple families become caching families with these outings. A lot of that had to do with the Geocaching Intro app for the iPhones (its ridiculous how many people own these things). A free, easy way to introduce them to the world of geocaching. Anyway, my point is, while it might seem counter to the moral code of scouting to be secretive, you have to look at geocaching as a game. It's pretty much an electronic hide-and-seek. So long as you're not drawing attention to yourself in a negative manner, most muggles will ignore you. Be stealthy, but don't be so obvious that you look like you're up to no good. Glad someone knows what I mean. lol I just can't wait for the weather to warm up and get them in on this too! Thanks a bunch!

Think I paid at least $5 for the 3 cup size and then even more for two bigger ones that I bought too. I figured if people said they were bad i'd just use them for food. The other day I saw the smaller one which is probably a cup or so size and it was like $4. I just want to make sure that when we do decide to hide a chache that we do have good containers and we really only plan to hide a few. I just haven't seen any lock n locks sold around here. And I found one as a cache and it wasn't shut all the way, one of the tabs was open so I didn't think much of the container and the last person who found it geocaches alot and doesn't seem to be the type to not make sure it's closed. But I am still very new to this.

Am wondering about the rubbermaid brand called lock it's? I've bought a few but haven't tested them yet. Thinking I should stick one outside upside down and let it have a nasty central Illinois winter and see how it holds up? Or has anyone tried these yet? They're not cheap at at least $4 for a small one. And they do have a rubber gasket and i've sat here for hours several nights opening and cosing the tabs to see how long before the tabs bust off and the tabs seem ok still. Thanks a bunch for the input!

Am wondering about the rubbermade brand called lock it's? I've bought a few but haven't tested them yet. Thinking I should stick one outside upside down and let it have a nasty central Illinois winter and see how it holds up? Or has anyone tried these yet? They're not cheap at at least $4 for a small one. And they do have a rubber gasket and i've sat here for hours several nights opening and cosing the tabs to see how long before the tabs bust off and the tabs seem ok still. Thanks

I'm new to this too and we just got back from find #5 that said something like "beware the muggles at rush hour" And I was and might still do a post about muggle tips for new people. But my son and I felt so weird pretending to look up at this tree every time a car would pass by hoping people would not know what we were doing. I would love it if everyone knew what we were doing. Gonna find it hard to explain to my scout parents when we get them to go geocaching too about muggles and having to hide what we are doing. Not really the scout way to do that. We love Harry Potter and think that's a neat thing to call people who do not know but we don't like to have to hide what we are doing. We do carry the brochures but so far haven't had to explain And from what I can tell about that other discussion is about changing the word muggles to something else which is different than this discussion

I think this is really important too! I tell my hubby where I'll be and I post the coordinates that I'm headed to on Facebook in case something happens. I think that's a good idea about facebook ony if you truly know the people you have as friends on there. Otherwise your telling people that you won't be home leaving your home open to be robbed which has really happened and also telling someone that you'll be out somewhere alone and leading a possible attacker right to you. It's amazing what you can fit into a small backpack. I pretty much just take my cub scout pack that I made up after taking the baloo and owl courses they offer as it has the compass, gloves, water, paper, batteries, pen, garbage bag, ziplock bags,small first aide kit, and many other things and my hiking staff which has an emergeny blanket on it, matches in it, and rope and it's own compass and some other stuff as well. lol, yes, I know everyone on my Facebook. I'm not a teen! I have 40 people on it and 30 are family. I got feedback on my FB from them that said it was a good idea posting the coordinates so I'll keep doing that when I'm doing longer hikes! I think letting people know where you are is one of the best survival techniques ever. I only wish I'd stop losing pens... Ever since I saw on the today show when they interviewed this lady whose house had gotten broken into and she saw on the her security camera and she recognized they guy from her friends list on facebook. And I play farmville so I do have some friends that I don't know real well so I just wanted you all to be safe! Try putting a string on your pen and putting it around your neck. lol I'm always losing pens too! That bug net is a great idea! Never thought of that!

In Cub Scouts it's "Outdoor Webelos Leader" training. lol

I think this is really important too! I tell my hubby where I'll be and I post the coordinates that I'm headed to on Facebook in case something happens. I think that's a good idea about facebook ony if you truly know the people you have as friends on there. Otherwise your telling people that you won't be home leaving your home open to be robbed which has really happened and also telling someone that you'll be out somewhere alone and leading a possible attacker right to you. It's amazing what you can fit into a small backpack. I pretty much just take my cub scout pack that I made up after taking the baloo and owl courses they offer as it has the compass, gloves, water, paper, batteries, pen, garbage bag, ziplock bags,small first aide kit, and many other things and my hiking staff which has an emergeny blanket on it, matches in it, and rope and it's own compass and some other stuff as well.

OMG this place is amazing and full of wonderful people! A very kind person here has upgraded us to premium status! My son and I are so excited to try these new features out! Thank you thank you!!!!!! Cindy and Matthew

My son and I are new to this and we have the garmin etrex venture hc so we can't to the paperless so we print out the cache pages and were going to hole punch them and keep them in a binder. Cool idea!!!! We'll keep notes on the cache papers we print out and it'll be fun to be able to look back and see the dates of when we found them and also to be able to show our muggle friends that were trying to get to go with us. This way with having the print copy they'll be able to see what it looks like on the site if were not around a computer.

Very Cool NicknPapa! I will deffinately look into that one of these days and that way when it's a bit warmer that would be very fun and a good way to introduce the boys to this! We've got about 5 inches of snow here in centra IL right now and i'm sure more to come before this winter is over. lol So nice to meet another fellow scouter here! Our pack is a big mess right now so this may just be an activity with the troop and my den. We just got a new CC willing to actually do the job so hopefully things will be changing soon for the better. Thanks again for the info!!!! Take care!

Try using reverse psychology on the hubby. Like I bet you wouldn't be able to find one anyway. lol I'm new too and have learned from this this thread! Thank you Good luck to you!