Catydid

I posted this one a while back. Our first bike-caching trip. I was having difficulty holding the device and yelled out to the Mr. that I wish I had a lanyard so I could put the device around my neck. (This was before we got the bicycle clips for our Garmins.) The very next cache was a large peanut butter jar with a lanyard in it, just waiting for me. Last December, we visited our daughter in Hawaii. We are from California. At one cache spot, we found another cacher who just happened to live 20 miles from us in California. He was the only cacher we happened upon, too.

My feet would never survive barefoot caching--too much gravel on the trails, too many foxtails and burs, way too much poison oak, broken glass, and miscellaneous road debris. Me and the mister cache in our five fingers. Comfy, good for you, and hold less foxtails than shoes and socks.

No matter what your hobby or interest, there will always be someone who becomes out of control and runs amok trying to get them all or have more than anyone else. It is the nature of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Or maybe it's excessive-compulsive disorder.

Well, the consensus here seems to be that it is definitely okay to be sexist (when in the great majority of cases, it is directed toward the female sex) but it is certainly politically incorrect to be racist. After all, us girls have grinned and accepted it all our lives. If we don't, we certainly aren't being good sports. As a matter of fact, we have gotten so used to it that we don't even notice it anymore (most of us.) It is just 'funny' now. We even tell our daughters to laugh at it, too. After all, who would want an uppity daughter? She just wouldn't fit in. Yes, I saw that cache referencing something so easy, even a girl could do it. I have been sufficiently brainwashed to think it was acceptable and did not take offense. After all, I need to be a good sport.

Maybe it was a hungry tree?

A better question might be, why do you continue geocaching. We started out of curiosity, having a good paperless GPSr but not using it. Mr C was asked to come up with a suggestion of something fun to do. He offered geocaching. We liked it right off, being really entertained by the hidden film canisters that seem to fill up our small town, excited by guardrail caches and LPCs, too. After a year, I can say we have enjoyed the whole ride, from easy throw-down caches to multi-caches and even a puzzle here and there (ones for puzzle-handicapped people like us.) We have seen so many cool spots nearby home that we would never, ever have found. Not breath-takingly beautiful spots but just interesting, scenic spots all around our area. We are both retired and have lots of time now, and this is an inexpensive (gas!) fun activity. Now after a year under our belts, we are looking for the more creative, interesting caches. No shortage of them around, even though we have to venture out a bit to surrounding areas.

We have only recently started doing multi-caches, so I will give you a few ideas of what we have found. Sometimes, at the original coordinates we have found a small cache with the new co-ords in it. Sometimes, we found an object with the new co-ords on it. A few times, we found a pipe or object we had to look through to find the next location. One nifty cache had different "chores" we had to perform to find the new locations. Look at the hints, if there are any, as you may find just a number at the original spot that is put into the coordinates to give you new ones. Or you may have to answer questions and put these numbers into given coordinates with letters, such as ABC or DEF, etc. Often, there may be a plaque to read to get the new numbers. Each one is slightly different and sometimes you really have to think outside the box.

Wondering the same myself. There is a cache nearby my home in a tall tree. For about 5 months, people have been climbing the tree, finding only a wire where the cache had been hanging, and claiming a find. It is designated as needing maintenance, yet nothing has been done.

Yes, I could call it a RASH, as more often than not, I have a poison oak rash these days. It is also and obcession, an addiction, a seemingly silly activity that is difficult to describe to friends, and a game, which is what I call it, when strangers ask me what I am doing, when I am found in an odd place or near THEIR property, crawling around looking suspicious. I don't see it as a sport.

In this area, any cache in the woods will be in the vicinity of poison oak. It's just life as usual. I have just finished my first year of caching and have had poison oak 5 times. I am currently suffering the worst case of it ever--in places that never even saw the light of day that fateful trip. I am going to have to be much more careful in the future. These caches that brought me in contact with po were the most fun ever and I am not going to switch to urban only caches. I just wish there was a way to build up an immunity to it.

In the beginning, we cached only in our home town. This place is loaded with film canister caches, so we usually found them. We were excited and happy to make these finds--every type of placement was new to us. I was terribly excited at finding our first light pole cache! So, it is good advice to start with those rated as easy and those of the larger size, if there are any in your area. It builds confidence and maintains the fun level. You will know when it is time to look for more difficult caches. Also, as folks have already said, don't expect it at GZ. Expand your circle as you look. You are lucky in being a newbie as every find should be exciting to you! Also, having someone to go with is good. With Mr Caty and me, often one of us will make a difficult find that the other wouldn't have even thought of.

I am pretty methodical about finding the day's caches. First I pick the area I want to go to and request all the caches in a 3 mile radius. Then I sort them by 'favorites'. Then, I look at traditional caches from the top of the list down. I read each one, especially the logs, to see if there is anything that warns me away--such as a bunch of recent dnf's, etc. I am not deterred by difficulty rating but I eliminate caches that require canoes or such. Recently, we have found the joy of multicaches. They are really fun and challenging. If you have a limited amount of time, do a sort by favorites. Just know that caches with lots of favorites can be difficult finds, often but not always. Have fun!

Our list keeps on growing during this, our first year. I have a waist pack with a good pen, small flashlight, a telescoping mirror, a telescoping magnet (has never worked well), several types of tweezers for retrieval, a small mp3 player for driving, extra batteries, ibuprofen, nitrile gloves, and plastic bags with small and medium swag, tissues, and a small notebook. We also have a magnet attached to a string. In the car box, we have sunscreen, a couple of hemostats, a telescoping pole with a wire hook on it, extra good pens, change of shoes for me, and a bottle of water for caches. We usually take lunch and a filled drinking water bottle. Having everything in a cardboard box ready to go really helps. Often in the heat, we take a cooler with ice teas.

We are running at around 10%. It seems like much higher lately as we cache in neighboring areas, picking caches by the #'s of favorites they are rated for. Caches that become popular favorites are often (not always) more difficult. We have become more selective, I would guess, as we are decidedly not into it for numbers. We are approaching our first year anniversary next month.

We found a young, small rattlesnake nearby a cache we dnf'd. Lots of hiding holes and crevices, too much heat, and then the rattler. Maybe another day and with much more care!

Sorry, but geocaching is the only opportunity I have had in my long lifetime in which I have had a chance or a reason to practice stealth. It is hard to lose the word. Also, we have noticed that people don't pay attention to old people behaving oddly--I think it embarrasses them. Guess I am off topic. Sorry.

I think there should be an on-line course, Puzzle Caching 101. I am eliminated from doing puzzle caches because I have no clue how to even begin solving many of them. Talk about elitist--it doesn't get any more elite than this. My town is filled with puzzle caches and they are beyond my capability--and I am not a dummie by any means. So, where is the primer for puzzle caching? I wouldn't have to travel so far if I could do puzzle caches. There, stepping down from soapbox . . . who knows, maybe I wouldn't like them anyway.

The ones I have seen are in a secluded area. There is a length of rope tied on a twig coming off the trunk. You unwind it and slowly let the cache down, which is suspended from a branch. Of course, there is plenty of rope to do this and not have to worry about running out. I love this type of hide.

Don't like them. Not worth the gas it takes to find these. Big waste. I HAVE stopped visiting alot of these. You figure out quickly who hides them--if you can call it hiding.

We like to bike cache but are in no way interested in big numbers.

. . . when the backseat of your car is filled with odd looking tools. . . . when you have nothing else to talk about to other people besides geocaching. Whatever did you find to talk about before this hobby? (Saddest to all, you know they really are not interested in the least.)

No chiggers in our area luckily. Lots of ticks but they seem to prefer the Mister, for the most part. I DID have one attach a few weeks ago. I had been very complacent about ticks until I saw a documentary on Lyme disease recently. Pretty horrifying stuff if not treated right away. I got a wasp sting a week ago while caching and poison oak 4 times in the last year thanks to this new hobby. I guess I am more worried about black widows than ticks at this point. Or maybe rattlers, too.

Creative caches that took time and effort on the CO's part--knowing that they wanted to make it a fun and memorable cache for us. Finding those difficult ones that take so much time and effort and then it seems like they should have been much easier. It is a real feeling of accomplishment.

I am really sorry this happened to you. I discussed this with Mr. Caty. We both wondered if perhaps the second to find was angry at not being first, or maybe he has a grudge against FTF cacher, who always beats him/her to FTF and took all the swag and returned the brochure, to make it look like FTF did this. I just don't see how an experienced cacher would do this AND sign the log in such a pleasant manner. It is very tricky territory to blame someone (with circumstantial evidence) who maybe just did not do it. As we all know from reading these forums: there are alot of not so honest folks out there, lots of finders don't sign logs, there are spoilers who think very highly of themselves, and being FTF can be extremely competitive. Hope you hear something from the FTF about what he took. Please don't let this ruin the fun of hiding caches for you--we need folks who like to put out the nice big swaggy caches.

Maybe one? I give out favorite points liberally. People who make an effort to provide me with a fun caching experience deserve recognition.