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Mr_Toads

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Everything posted by Mr_Toads

  1. This has been a great discussion. Thanks for all the posts. I started wearing a safety vest because we have a few thousand road caches in Central Texas. And folks just drive like bats outta hell here. While I don't park in the road or anything (Texas DOT has 15 right of way on most roads outside of cities and towns), you can pull off pretty well. One great/funny things is if you pull off the road in the Texas countryside here, folks stop and ask if you are ok just as much. Heck, if you are going fast down roads here, folks here will move to the side and let you pass in lots of places still (if native texans).
  2. We are waiting for the "and here is why I work in Lederhosen" more than anything!
  3. If you have ever tried to stop on the side of a Texas road, folks are both suspicious and they pass you at about 70 mph on a country road. Vest started so that I wouldn't get hit. (wife works for our DOT) There are strings of caches along two lane roads here with little or no shoulder. Plus, folks do not take kindly to strangers, but they have no problem with road workers or utility workers. If I was to be poking in someone's fenceline, there would be questions real quick if was just a regular joe.
  4. So I am wearing a safety vest and have a blinking yellow light on the top of the car when I am doing these road runs where I have to stop every quarter mile. If I was asked, I would say I am auditing the telephone poles or checking the culvert or something... I look like I have some reason to be stopping off the road and so far have had a little old lady complain about a bridge that yells when it rains, but seem to be ignored by all. Does anyone else use ways to look like you belong when searching? Could you get away with a vest and a hard hat in the city? thoughts?
  5. I seem to have collected some stealth supplies in the back of the car over the last few years. Found a hardhat on the side of the road (they seem to fall off trucks all the time) while caching, cleaned it up and have used that to give me a bit of cover with an old orange vest. Find an old one, and go up to light poles or other utility like devices and pretend to record numbers off it. I keep an plain denim shirt to cover over whatever I wore to work so I look like a worker too. I have used a broken tape measure, a broken camera, a broken two way radio, really beaten up clipboard and my favorite, a meter (old ampmeter) in the urban areas. All these items were found on the side of the road or other places looking for caches (except ampmeter). Latest is binos in the woods. Actually, it was pretty cool using binos to look for tree caches! Put that all aside, if you act like you are suppose to be there, it works everytime, unless the person staring at you knows you have no business there... lol oh, told wife I wanted a yellow roof light for when I am doing ones on country roads, as you can't alway park far off the road.
  6. Just got back from a business trip in Paris. I have never been really worried about LEOs coming up on me caching in the US... but just had the "pleasure" of having 4 armed French soldiers stare at me for about 5 minutes as I was digging around the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. I had seen them walking around airport with automatic weapons, but never thought they patrolled the streets of Paris at 10pm. Luckly, I pretended to find my pen and then started writing something on a scrap of paper as I held my GPS to my ear like a phone. For that brief second, I was thinking of how to try to explain Geocaching to french speaking soldiers when all I know how to say is "merci" lol
  7. While I like to think of them as the "unenlighted masses" I am glad we have Muggles. Makes the entire game fun. Also, have found that when trying to explain geocaching to most people, both adults and kids, the term actually makes sense thanks to that Potter kid. Most people have seen it, read it, or know about it, so to explain that you are trying to do it without someone seeing you, they can grasp it. So, while term has been around for decades, it has great use now... so anyone know where the Potter lady got the term to use in her books.. maybe she is a closet English GeoCacher?
  8. Being one that dabble in Geocaching back in 04-06, I have come back to find a lot more caches available. Take that with having kids of differant ages (me being one of those kids <grin>), let me make a newbie type of observation: 1. I love the challenge of the urban /city micros, it lets me play "spy" and is a challenge. (and give me an excuse to actually leave the office for a bit) 2. I leave the caches in the parks and woods alone until I have my 6 & 9 yr old with me. They can actually look and find them. large caches have those treasures that the lil ones love. And with numerous caches in one park or area, then it is actually an event vs. a drive and stop. 3. The scattered ones are good with my teenagers, as they "play the game" and still have time to txt message thier friends between caches. So while there are about 3000 caches in the general Austin Tx Area, there is something for everyone. What has been amazing is that even in urban areas, I find places that I never saw before. When I got a new GPS for xmas, I was mostly interested in using it for my motorbike, but then started geocaching again, and it has made me a happy old fart. Where else can I wander in the woods, space truck around the city (esp. during lunch), combine history with a game, and do it all in a network of some darn nice folks. Things change, but finding happiness in finding a treasure, whether a micro or ammo can, will hopefully never fade away. TFTCs all over the place.
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