MamaKatS

Well, finally after a whole WEEK of waiting impatiently to have time to go hunting, they let me off work early for New Year's eve and I got home with two hours of daylight ahead of me. Yay! Perfect time to grab a couple kids and my new GPS and head out the door to find the two cemetery caches I'd tried unsuccessfully to find previously. Or...................... Not. Kids & I spent over an hour at the cemetery at the end of my street trying to find the closest elusive cache. Nope, it was nowhere to be found. I suspect, based on several other log comments over the past several months (since July?), that it may have been muggled. I know teens hang out there, so it's possible. Or, I could have just overlooked it. That's entirely possible, too, LOL. I emailed the CO to see if he could check to make sure it's still there, based on the number of comments on not finding it. So, eventually we gave up there and went to the OTHER cemetery that I know had a very recent find (12/21). And lots of comments on how amazingly EASY it was to find. It's also a larger size, a "regular" and not a small like the previous one. With only 30-40 minutes of daylight left, we searched around very quickly all over the place with no luck once again. I'm sure this one REALLY IS there, LOL, and this one I'm certain is "on me" as to why I'm not finding it. We just didn't have enough time and daylight to take our time and adequately snoop around. At first available opportunity, we'll be back to Cemetery No. 2 to search for the "super-easy and obvious" one that we completely overlooked twice now. Kinda embarrassing, but oh well. one reason I latched onto this hobby (besides the whole adventure of it) was to work on sharpening my observation skills (which are really lacking, as you can tell - LOL). *sigh* Oh yeah, and before I forget --- HAPPY NEW YEAR'S, everyone!!!!

Welcome, NutHouseinVA! Good to see you here! I haven't any advice for you, as I just got my GPS for Christmas as well, and haven't actually found anything yet, LOL. But I'm looking forward to the hunt....! These forums are chock-full of great info. So I guess my one piece of advice would be to surf thru all the forums and read up on all you can. I've learned a LOT, and there are SO many things I'd never even thought of that I can see will be really helpful.

THANKS! One thing I noticed last night, that I'd failed to notice before - many of the 1/1 level caches in my area are either "small" or even "micro." I was able to find a few normal (and one large) sizes to add to my hunt list under the 1/1 category... along with a few 1.5/1.5's I figured couldn't be THAT much harder (or not... LOL). I am determined to find the two at the two cemeteries - one at the end of my street and one a couple miles down the road - at the very first available opportunity. We spent hours looking for those pre-Magellan, and knowing they are RIGHT THERE is annoying the heck outta me, LOL! Definitely will holler if I have questions, thanx so much!

I finally got my computer back, and was able to download several caches to my Magellan. Can't wait to get out there... my kids are excited too. Hubby says the whole thing sounds really dumb, LOL, but the rest of us are chomping at the bit.

After some experimenting, I've figured that my car TomTom can also have coordinates input in it to get me to the general area (driving); then my Magellan can take it from there for the actual "searching" part. Happy hunting everyone!

THANK YOU for the welcome!!! There is one cache LITERALLY at the END OF MY STREET - much less than half a mile, probably less than a quarter mile, LOL. Never knew it was there (and still don't know WHERE yet...argh! LOL!). Such a small area, but so many hiding places. ;-) There are oodles of others within a 3-5 mile radius, so there is plenty to keep us busy right in our own neighborhood. ;-)

the more I read on the forum here, the more eager I am to get out there and hunt! Hopefully my computer will be fully resurrected today, and I can get back online tonight. My Magellan has 1,000 caches pre-loaded on it... but unfortunately, the closest pre-loaded one is 126.7 miles away, hehe. Nope, not a one even in the ATL area, LOL! Curses, foiled again! The minute my computer is up, I have about a zillion local and slightly-less-local ones I'm going to download to my GPS. In the meantime, all the tips & hints on here are great!

Exactly! Personally I would prefer a "did not find" in an interesting place than a 55 gallon drum full of stuff in some store parking lot. Somewhere around here there is a thread that discusses cache sizes and which are best. My reply to that thread was along the lines of "I don't care waht size the container is, just take me someplace interesting". My theory exactly. Heck, I haven't found a darn thing yet... but me and my teens had SO much fun trampling all over those old cemeteries trying to find them. I'm looking forward to warmer weather, when we'll now have the perfect excuse to head up to the N. Ga mountains to go geocaching, LOL... my oldest girl is a HS Senior, and I may take her to Savannah for a graduation gift (I'm hoping, I adore savannah, LOL!) - she was already asking me last night if there are any Geocaches in Savannah. ;-) It's a great way to explore, and a neat way to look at familiar surroundings with a new eye.

The fun and adventure is in the hunt, I think. The "find" is of course the goal, but the journey to the goal is an equal part of the fun of it all. :-)

hehehe - I thought it might be something like that. So the trick is to BE sneaky, without LOOKING sneaky and inadvertently setting off a Homeland Security "incident."

In snooping around the site, I've noticed sometimes the phrase "Great stealth required" when seeking a certain cache. My silly newbie question is... how come? LOL! Why do we need to move in super-sneaky-ninja-stealth-mode? Aside from the obvious fun of cloak-and-dagger mystery & intrigue, LOL!

Thank you for the warm welcomes!

Thank you!

I just got one of these for Christmas, myself. Haven't tried it out yet as my computer is being worked on and hopefully brought back to life this week, LOL, but am planning for this weekend. So, since the Magellan itself isn't good for driving, how do I get to the location of the cache? Just put the coordinates in my car GPS, and get to the general area, then go from there with the Magellan? I'm directionally challenged (LOL) so I rely heavily on my car GPS daily. ;-)

Greetings from Loganville, everyone!

Greetings from Atlanta, everyone! A couple weeks before Christmas, I was trying to find something fun to do with the kids (I have four, so anything involving $$ is pretty much out, as it adds up REAL quick, LOL!). I finally allowed my curiosity to get the best of me and signed up to go geocaching. My two oldest kids and I went out one Saturday (when it was 40-something degrees and drizzly, no less, LOL) to try to find three caches right near my home. We spent four hours tramping about two cemeteries and one closed-down carwash in search of these things, LOL. I only had a car gps, not a handheld/outdoors type, so it wasn't all that helpful. Well, we never found a thing, of course, but that drove us batty and caused us to be thoroughly HOOKED. My 15 yo son, in particular, is addicted because he loves puzzles and clues and such. ;-) So I made a comment in passing to my hubby that for christmas, I either wanted a treadmill or a hand-held GPS for geocaching. Much to my suprise and shock, Christmas morning brought me a brand-new Magellan GPS, just for geocaching!!! I was most surprised and delighted (Of course, Santa brought HIM an Atlanta Falcons playoff game ticket, so I guess that makes us even, hehe.) I absolutely cannot WAIT till me & the kids can get out there again and try to find those things. There are about a gazillion within a five-mile radius of home, so we don't even have to go far, LOL. But I'm definitely looking forward to having an excuse to wander far & wide in days to come! I haven't had a chance to hook up my magellan to the PC yet and get started, though. My home computer is dead (taking it to a puter doc tonight!), not to mention the fact that it's SUPER-COLD here in ATL...we had the first white christmas here since 1882, and it's gonna stay cold for multiple days yet. Stupid winter.... LOL! Well, better sign off here and go do the work thing... just wanted to stop in and introduce myself! :-) Rock on!