angelsfan33

From Mission Viejo (92691) in Orange County, California- 10 Miles= Total Records: 1903 How about this jump: 15 Miles= Total Records: 2798 20 Miles= Total Records: 4190

UPDATE: Somebody stole his scooter where he left it! UPDATE AUSTIN (KXAN) - Austin hiker Zachary Underwood may owe his life to his smartphone GPS system. Now he is relying on doctors at University Medical Center Brackenridge to rebuild his body. Underwood, 37, was hiking in the Barton Creek Greenbelt on Tuesday , treasure hunting in an activity called geocaching, when he was crushed by a 30-pound boulder that came loose and fell on him. He called 911 and paramedics were able to track him based on the phone's GPS directional signal. He was air-lifted by a STARFlight crew to Brackenridge where he has been listed in critical condition ever since. To make matters worse, apparently someone took Underwood's $2,200 Honda Ruckus scooter, which he had parked near the scene of his accident. His friends and fellow geocachers have searched for it without success. Tamara Frederick, Underwood's girlfriend, said Thursday Underwood broken 13 ribs, ruptured his spleen -- which was removed -- and lacerated his liver. He went tino surgery Thursday for chest reconstruction. "He is lucky to be alive. Without his GPS they might not have gotten to him in time," Frederick said. "The fact that he knew where he was, yes, it was very helpful," said Mike Kittok, Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services responder.

Saw this article on the front page of Yahoo! and it made me think it was hidden in a cache as the best swag item ever! LOL!!!! World Series Ring Found Article: Police find Kyle Kendrick’s World Series ring in swamp near Seattle If you're looking for a profitable way to spend your time this weekend, you may want to head down to your local swamp and check it out for valuable and missing sports paraphernalia. Police in an area near Seattle did just that this week and came away with Kyle Kendrick's(notes) missing World Series ring, which they found inside a Mentos container in a nearby swamp. Among other mementoes from his career, the Philadelphia Phillies pitcher had the valuable ring stolen from him at the beginning of April during a burglary at his Mount Vernon, Wash., home. From PhillyNews.com: The Snohomish County sheriff's office, located on the east side of Puget Sound, said that deputies found the ring and returned it to police in Kendrick's hometown, Mount Vernon, Wash. Rebecca Hover, a sheriff's spokeswoman, said in an e-mail Wednesday night: "Our deputies developed information that the ring might be in Snohomish County. On Tuesday night, they contacted a man known to law enforcement. He led them to a swampy area in Bothell [in Snohomish County] where the ring was hidden." Snohomish police aren't saying who stowed the ring in the swamp for safekeeping just yet, but there are reports that they also recovered a broken-down X-Wing, a young and discouraged student learning to become a Jedi, and a little green man speaking in jumbled sentence structure for some unknown reason. (C'mon, like I was going to let this post pass without making a Dagobah reference ... )

Sorry to give you something to rip on. I didn't see that this was talked about last year. You can lock this thread, and I will go back to lurking.

I was looking at a home for sale on Google Maps and it had a photo from the street view on the description. As I was looking at the home and zooming in and out, I thought "I wonder if there are caches that can be seen on Google Maps Street View"? Has anyone tried looking at their or another cachers caches near a street that can be seen on Google Maps Street View? It's like getting a free photo of your cache in action! Just curious!

Now the preview map on all of the cache pages has been changed to a static map with no option to make it a satellite view or zoom in close to see the icon anymore??? Obviously TBTB are still tweaking the heck out of the maps.

That is what I was describing. The Google preview map on the cache page puts the cache icon in the wrong spot, but when I open the map and zoom in close on the original map, not the beta map, the icon is dead on in the right spot. The preview box map must use the beta map, and that is the map all of the icons seem to be off of the actual spot. Oh well, I was just trying to see if anyone noticed this? I know that the maps and icons are not always dead on, but they were never as off as the beta map is putting them.

I know that. I am just saying that the little preview Google map window that is on all cache pages used to show the icon pretty dead on to it's actual location, and now it is showing them all slightly off. I was wondering if anyone else had noticed this on their caches like I did on mine, and if it was a Google map thing or a GC.com thing?

I was helping a local new cacher fix the coords that were off on his new (first) cache GC2VR9Q that had many DNF's before I found it today. I found the cache about 90ft from his wrong original coords. I got the correct new coords and double checked them on a website I use to double check my own cache coords. I sent them to him. He updated his coords and we both thought all was great. After doing that he looked at the preview Google map that is on the cache home page, zoomed in, and the icon was pretty far off. He wrote me and said he didn't think the coords were right still. I checked the cache page and saw how far off it was as well. I then pulled up the original map and double checked it again on another website and the coords and icon were dead on to the coords I gave him. I then checked a bunch of my caches that I have placed and noticed the icon was off on all of them as well when zoomed in to see the icon location. Has anyone else seen this? Is this a known problem? Thanks!

There was a few of these in sourthern California a couple of years ago called "RITV: Rally In The Valley- Puzzle Event". It was single cachers or teams that would race head to head in an "Amazing Race" style day. There are still many of the caches around this area. Here is a link to the first one of them: RITV And to the second one 2 years later: RITV 2

I wear my work clothes during the day when I cache. I do sales and estimating for a local contractor. My clothes look like a city or water works employee/inspector, and I wear a ballcap. I also walk with a folder and my phone just in case anyone calls while caching. I look very official, I guess because nobody ever bothers me. I was caching alone on an out of the way trail near an urban area one day when I came upon a muggle right at the cache GZ all by herself with her dog. I was afraid that she would be scared by me walking back here while she was alone. She came walking right up to me and asked if I worked for the city. I quickly said "yes" as not to scare her. She said "Good, are you finally here to get that S.O.B. homeless guy that is living in a tent over here and yelling at the hills all day and night out of here? We have been waiting for you guys to get out here forever! Get his a** out now! Come on he is over here!" I then said I was not here for that, I was just inspecting the trail after the rains" She then proceeded to read me the riot act about how the city and county are worthless and I need to get the guy out of there, with some four letter words sprinkled in! I said I would look into it and proceeded on my way as she walked off grumbling under her breath. That was the first and last time I made up a story of what I was doing! I will now always tell the truth!

My guess is that any negative emotions the child has toward law enforcement officers came from the way dad acted around said law enforcement officers. In so many occasions, we inherit the brainless phobias of our parents. One only has to watch a child skin their knee at a playground to see this in action. The kid gets a minor injury, is a little freaked out, but maintaining his cool, till Mom screams, runs over, scoops him up and starts fussing over him. It's at that moment that the kid will invariably start balling his eyes out. His cries are less a reaction to the scrape, and more a reaction to mom. Heck, I've got a daughter who is scared of spiders. Why? She's never been hurt, or even threatened with a spider. But she grew up watching her mom scream to high heaven every time a spider crossed the room. I just wanted to say one last thing about this incident and the comments you have made towards me in this thread. I have never said I overreacted in the entire situation, I actually thought I played it really cool the entire time. I also have stated the cops were not in anyway over the line with us at all. It was a call from some overly paranoid citizens that set the entire event in motion and I felt the police were doing their job fine. I never stated I was angry with the police and was overly emotional with them. They asked me a few questions and my daughter a few questions. We never felt threatened the entire time, and I have already been caching with my daughter again. I have told her what happened was some people just wanted to make sure we were safe and the police were making sure of it. You have taken every opportunity to write that "daddy" was probably overreacting, adding hyperbole, embellishing the incident, etc. I was writing about this incident to show what people in this day and age do when they see a guy walking with a young girl in a park. I see that you make assumptions based on what you see written and don't stand in the shoes of the people that it happened to. I am happy with the officers that showed up "for a chat". I see that I am glad it was not you. Based on your observations of me and the incident, you might have been on me like you have in this thread. I am going to go back and be a happy "daddy" caching with my kids, and not sit and watch an officer make assumptions about me and an unfortunate incident on an internet forum.

I'll have to disagree with you on this one. The cops went to a house and had a conversation. Nothing more. I would have done the same. No threats of arrest. No chest puffing. Just talk. If I come to your house and explain my concerns regarding a call I received, then ask if you'll speak with me about these concerns, I don't consider that to be an abuse of power. If you think otherwise, that's OK. I still respect your opinion. I just happen to disagree with it. Of the half dozen or so folks I do this with every day, (insert imaginary statistic) 95% are perfectly willing to speak with me. The other (again, with the imaginary statistics) 5% tell me to pound sand. At that point, if I have no probable cause to take the situation further, I bid them "Good Day" and leave. We already know, from reading the OP, that the writer likes to add a bit of hype to his tales. Where the hype ends and the reality starts is what I'm curious about. I am curious about what you mean by "where the hype ends and the reality starts"? This series of events is completely true, and yes I did insert a little hyperbole into it because it was a situation that happened and I was upset about. I added some of my own feelings (not hype) about the situation and series of events, because I was telling the story from my point of view. I have no ill will towards the police officers. They were great. Even in my original post I did not say the LEO's were bad to me or made me feel like a molester. I think the idea of any police make an 8 year old think something is wrong. The questions they asked me were the same they asked my daughter. It was like you said, no threats of arrest, no chest puffing, just talk. They only asked what we were up to down there that would make the couple think we seemed suspicious. I told them we were hiking the trail and looking for geocaches. They knew what geocaches were and said they understood we may have looked suspicious to some in the park or trail. The only things they asked my daughter was if we were hiking together and what we saw and she told them all about the geocaches we found. I actually have no problems with how the LEO's handled it. It came off like they were just talking to us making sure all was well and did not come off in a bad way at all. I did not intend for this to becoe a post about bashing LEO's or amendment rights. I was upset with the couple who did this all in the first place. I agree with all that said they could have come close to us and said hello or even asked "What are you up to"? I would have said geocaching and asked if they would like to join us. My daughter and I will continue to geocache without a doubt. We will just be more aware that paraniod people are out there that can't handle a father walking with his daughter without becoming suspicious.

Thanks snapshot, it is nice to have a local from around here to back me up! snapshot is a great guy and a great asset to keeping geocaching alive and fresh around here! We both have been doing our part to place new caches and maintain some of the older forgotten caches! He knows the paranoia in some of these local residents and the overreaction from the police around here! The thing that gets me the most about this incident is that the woman watched us walk on an open trail, followed us and saw us enjoying the nature for at least 5 minutes and THEN called the cops. She then called AGAIN when I was leaving over an hour later!! She gave my license plate and everything. She didn't see me harming my child, and then saw us walking back to my truck still talking with smiles from the other direction an hour later and called AGAIN! This is not being helpful or protective, that is borderline paranoia! I do not blame the cops much, they have to respond. I blame this couple who are making up bad scenarios in their heads and reporting them! Then I am left to explain myself to police and my kids all over an afternoon walk on a local trail! I guess we should keep a watchful eye on all trails and woods for men walking with young girls taking in the nature! It could turn nasty at any second! Still a total bummer!

Hi everyone, I am still pretty new to geocaching and have fully embraced it and I am having a great time. So are my 2 daughters, ages 8 and 12. Especially my 8 year old, she is addicted. She asked every minute of everyday if we can go!! We love to hide 'em and find 'em. Then an incident happened this past Saturday that is a real bummer to our geocaching experience. It makes me wonder if I can even go geocaching with my kids in areas that are not a muggle packed parking lot! My 8 year old and I decided to hit up some local caches for an afternoon since her older sister was at a birthday party and sleep over. We mapped out our route at home before leaving and even solved 2 puzzle caches together to grab. We were also going to get our first multi-cache. Who would have thought I would become a wanted man for going on a great nature trail hike with my own daughter next to en empty public park. We grabbed a few caches then headed out to the multi-cache "Pinecrest Wilderness Walk Multi". We arrived and parked about 5:45pm, still about 1.5 hours of light left. We proceeded to walk through the park to the first waypoint and noticed nobody playing on the nearby playground and the only people in the park were a man and a woman playing with a tennis ball with their Golden Retriever. My daughter and I talked about the dog and how fast he was as we crossed the park grass about 50 feet from this couple. We went to the side of the park and found the location of the first waypoint immediately. We stood there and talked about a rabbit skeleton that was there nearby. We then sat down on the bench nearby to punch in the next coords. We next headed over to the trailhead at the park and proceeded to walk along it having fun talking about the nature around us and laughing. Totally normal for a father and daughter! We even stopped at a few locations along this trail and were looking at some of the neat oak tree stumps and talking about how old they might be. The trail at the end opens up into a nice clearing area that has a large drainage tunnel and a stream flowing from it. It is surrounded by hills with homes on top on both sides and a road above. We proceeded to walk along the stream and look at crawdads and the birds bathing there. Completely innocent, and we had not even started looking for the cache! I then look over and see the couple standing behind some trees on the trail with their dog watching us? I didn't really give it any thought at that time. I then started to think they were acting very suspicious after about 2 minutes, and I started to think they must think WE are up to something. They then come out into the open in the clearing and walk around slowly at a distance with the dog about 100 feet from us. They then go back and go down the trail out of sight. I didn't give it another thought. We then grabbed the multi-cache and signed the log. My daughter traded some swag and we re-hid it. We then proceeded to hike up a trail nearby that goes up a hill to grab a few more caches on the ridgeline above. This ridge brings you all of the way back to the entrance of the park where my truck was at. We were approaching my truck when I spotted a police car behind it with no one inside. Hmmm? We had just grabbed the cache behind my truck called "Speed Trap" that is named that because there are always police on that corner busting speeders. I then am walking my daughter to the truck to head home and another police car drives by very slow looking at us. My daughter asks why all of the police are there, and I tell her it is probably because something happened nearby. Now I am getting really suspicious the cops were called because of us! We drive home and meet my wife and some family friends at our house to get ready to all go out to dinner. That is when the cops arrive at my home. They ask to speak to me and my daughter separately! They ask what I was doing with a little girl in the park, and I explain that the little girl is my daughter and we were walking the nature trail for fun and finding local geocaches. They then say they were called because I looked suspicious with a little girl walking on the trail and ask me to wait while they talk to my daughter! She tells them the exact same things as me. They then ask some of the standard procedure questions and say they will be in touch with any further questions if needed!? This whole experience has been a total bummer on myself and my daughter. I was embarrased and upset in front of my wife and friends. I swear I look like my daughters father, and I am a normal looking 34 year old man (at least I think so). I was wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and hiking shoes. Now my daughter has said she is scared the cops are going to arrest us for geocaching together! I told her it is OK, and they were just making sure we were safe on the trail. She is smarter than that though, and she has already said "Yeah right Dad!" I looked up on our local police dispatch website and found the notes of the actual call about us (starts at the bottom)- 3/26/2011 19:23:41 : pos4 : KLOWE] [Cleared with unit 350] [03/26/2011 19:20:10 : 350 ] P/C`d the area and UTL any 925 [3/26/2011 19:12:53 : pos10 : CEValdivia] [3/26/2011 19:12:17 : pos10 : CEValdivia] JUST CALLED UP...SHE ADVISED THAT A GRY TOYOTA TUNDRA PLT# JUST LEFT THE PARKING LOT WHERE THE PATROL UNIT WAS PARKED AT...VEH IS OCCUPIED BY A MALE AND BELIEVES SHE SAW A CHILD IN THERE [3/26/2011 18:57:53 : pos4 : KLOWE] Unit : 350 C4 PC`D TO THE END OF THE TRAIL [3/26/2011 18:34:12 : pos4 : KLOWE] Unit : 350 OUT ON FOOT PINE CREST PARK [3/26/2011 18:14:38 : pos10 : CEValdivia] Cross streets: //PINECREST Landmark: PINECREST PARK NBH: 892E1 92692 33.65108,-117.639325 INF SAW A MALE SUBJ WALKING WITH A CHILD INTO THE REMOTE ARE THAT IS OFF THE TRAIL BEHIND THE SOCCER FIELD...INF NOT SURE IF THE CHILD BELONGS TO THE SUBJ...LS 10 AGO SUBJ IS MW, 30`s, DK BASEBALL HAT, DK SHIRT, DK PANTS CHILD IS FW WEARING ALL PINK I still haven't even logged our 8 finds that day. I have been bummed out on the whole thing. I understand being suspicious of people, but come on!? Oh well, thanks for letting me write my story and feelings about it out. Anybody else ever have anything like this happen to them and their kids?

Site is lagging today. I never post to the forums, but had to come here today to see what was up. Thought it was just me, but now I see others having the same problems. Hopefully they add the octane booster to the site soon. I am falling asleep waiting for pages to load!