gifthorse

My mom bought each of my children a Tread Lightly Jeep coin (green and yellow). They were very cool. Unfortunately, I naively thought I could circulate them around by sending them each out to a cache. Quite quickly they disappeared. I guess now I know why. Its a good thing my kids aren't very young or it would have been quite upsetting to them. I think I am more saddened than they are. Now I know better than to send out something so desirable, although even my run-of-the-mill travel bugs are all missing.

This spring while looking once again for a former DNF, I found a prom dress just laying on top of the grass nearby GZ. Never did officially find the cache, although I figured out where it was when the owner archived it.

Regarding quoting the emails, I have no idea what I did wrong, other than maybe "add reply" rather than just post on the "fast reply" at the bottom of the page. I'm trying that for this one. Sorry about the confusion. Thanks for the information on the ipod touch and Z22. I'll try seeing what I can do.

I have an ipod touch 2nd generation and a Palm Pilot Z22. I don't believe either are up-to-date enough to be much use in geocaching. I haven't used my palm for a long time and my touch is used in rare spurts. One more reason I'm afraid in investing in a better gps. Calculating the cost vs. the use. I also don't have wireless at home (still living in a cave), so it makes downloading to the touch more difficult.

Sounds more organized than my haphazard method. Thanks!

Bear and Ragged, Thanks for the suggestion. I'll check it out. Jcfdelaware, I guess misery loves company because it is helpful to know there are others. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who isn't paperless...

Shortly after starting geocaching, just over 5 months ago, I bought a gps (Garmin eTrex). I am cheap and since this works, I can't justify buying a more expensive gps at this time (maybe someday). Because my gps is not paperless, I write all the details out on papers that are in a bag now. They are mostly handwritten lists of the geocaches on the way to a specific destination. When I first started, this was no big deal - there were just a few pages. Now, with 250+ finds, I probably have a hundred pages and it is an unorganized mess. I need to go through my bag and throw out any papers that I've completed, only most of the time, there are one or two caches that I couldn't find or didn't have time to look for. I even have repeated entries, since one time I might write down a cache because it is on a certain road. A month later, that same cache might be on a page leading to a store in another community. It fits into both parameters. Other than buying a smartphone or a fancier gps, are there any suggestions of a way to organize this stuff? It now takes me so long to look through my bag to try to find out if I've already taken the time previously to write down all the information regarding a cache. I know that less and less people are doing this without paperless devices, but there must be a few others out there who have some good ideas. Any help would be appreciated.

Hello! I've been reading over various forum replies and am still confused about something. Who's job is it to log that a trackable is missing from a cache? Is it the cache owner's job or the owner of the missing trackable (assuming they have been notified)? Today I found a cache that was supposed to have five (I think) travel bugs in it. It had been some months since anyone new had logged in. The last log was a month ago when the cache owner said he was doing a maintenance check and placing two travel bugs in the cache. I found his, but was surprised to find the others missing, since he was the last one to check it. In my log, I suggested that the CO mark them as missing. He emailed me to say that he had notified the missing TB owners and they hadn't responded, but he didn't think it was his job to mark them missing. I guess I don't see the problem after maybe a month has gone by since they've been reported missing to mark them missing, figuring it will change if they are grabbed from elsewhere. I am anxious to hear your input because, as a new cache owner myself, I want to use the proper CO etiquette, if this situation ever arises with my caches. Up until now, I would have just marked it missing, but maybe I would have stepped on the toes of the TB owner if I had?

Hi, my name is Heidi. My caching name is Gifthorse. I started geocaching on New Year's Eve of last year, so I have only been doing this for a couple of months. I am a dental hygienist and live and work about an hour from Detroit, Michigan. My husband is a dentist and we have 2 children. I will be 46 this coming Monday. How did I get started into geocaching? I laugh when someone asks that because I don't really know. My 16 year old son has no interests except for video/internet games and watching sports on tv. In an attempt to give him something to do that would exercise more than just his thumbs, I bought him a book on geocaching for Christmas. I don't even know how I thought it up. Must have heard about it somewhere once, but it never really registered. While in line to buy it, I talked to a guy who fascinated me with the detail that caches are found everywhere in the world. My son has never really gotten into it, but I drag him or my husband with me occasionally. My husband is very instrumental in solving puzzles too. Yesterday I had no geocoins. Today I have nine, I think. My parents came back from Florida this week. Knowing my love for geocaching, they instructed me not to buy anything until they returned because they had some gifts for me. Today my mother brought over an ammo box, a couple of bison tubes, a couple of nanos, a couple of shirts, a magnetic retrieval tool, and some other things, including some trackables. So, my question will regard to telling the difference between travel bugs and geocoins. One coin is an obvious large round coin. This is what I've seen in caches previously. A couple are small Oakcoins. They resemble a pathtag someone gave me in size. Four are in shape of objects (not round) and have chains coming from them. They are the ones that have me confused. Are these geocoins or travel bugs? All other travel bugs I've seen previously have been of the dogtag variety. I plan to place some caches of my own as soon as more of the snow melts. I already have the places in mind and the names picked out. I am also hoping to explore some virtuals (will be my firsts) when our family visits Yosimite and Alcatraz this summer. Thanks for being patient in answering our newbie questions!

I have now been geocaching for a couple of months. Each time I find a trackable, and geocoins in particular, it is such a thrill. I always am in awe of the designs. I have started to think about searching out some to put out for myself. My concern is, if I buy them from a site like ebay or the like, how can I know that the seller didn't just steal them from a cache and is now trying to make a profit on them? Is there any way to verify ahead of time that it wasn't stolen? I always feel for the cachers who have lost their trackables. I definitely don't want to contribute to their loss or allow a thief to succeed in their crimes.

Thanks for the information. I guess I didn't realize there were so few service centres. I also haven't come up with any caches within them. Maybe there is a restriction on placing ones there? I just assumed each would have one, like all the rest stops do in our state. My trip is planned for near Easter, so hopefully the weather will be nice. Thinking I should have planned to be far south this weekend though!

Is there a way to check bookmarks to see if anyone has done this listing? I could search my route along the 402, but I'm not all that familiar with Ontario and would have a difficult time knowing where all the service plazas are. My hope is to not have to get off the freeway to do a find, but just hit the service plazas from Sarnia to Toronto.

While exploring a challenge geocache, I found a listing of caches found at rest areas in my state. I wanted to look for a list of caches placed at service plazas along the 402 in Ontario. Not sure how to find such a list. Gifthorse

Thanks Dai, for the information on deleting all. A new area on my gps that I didn't know existed. Have the owners manual, but get lost in the directions. Gifthorse

Thanks. I will keep that in mind. I don't want my trip to end with problems for either me or my travel bug!

Thanks. I'll look again. Last night I manually deleted all the waypoints. I didn't think it would be that hard until I realized it was going on and on. I definitely can't do that again. Again, I appreciate your help.

I know this should be basic, but is there a way to delete the whole group of waypoints from my gps instead of just one at a time? Maybe a "delete all" choice? If so, is it on the Easy GPS site that I would find this because I haven't found a way to delete all from my gps itself. Doing one at a time is rather tedious. Also, each time I get an email with a waypoint link I should delete the previous ones? Should I change my set up to get new waypoints weekly, rather than daily? I love the geocaching itself, but hate this technical stuff. If it wasn't for the advantage of the compass pointing the way to the saved coordinates, I'd probably just stay with paper and pencil. Also, if I figure this out for the waypoints near my house, I'd like to also have a different set for other places not near my house that I frequent regularly. Is there a way to differentiate?

Hey, thanks everybody! I guess it would have been best if I checked with the geocaching community before I bought my gps. I had no idea at the time about downloading any information. My main objective was to find something better than my husband's auto gps, which was lousy. Two more questions from these posts have come up. First, I got the free app for my iTouch, but it seems to be worthless because I don't have built-in Wi-Fi. I tried downloading the data while under a Wi-Fi signal (it worked great), but as soon as I went out on the field, a box saying it couldn't connect covered the data I needed to look at. Neither my son (the typical techno teen) or I (the techno idiot) could figure out how to get rid of the box so that I could view what was behind it. Any ideas or do I, once again, have the wrong system? Second, IBCrashen, I took your suggestion and changed the comment field. I'm so glad you gave me step by step on this. Amazingly, I put in the changes with no problems. I would have never known these options existed. I was even delighted to find that I could change the waypoint to show the name, rather than just the number. Prior to this, I was constantly scrolling through gc numbers which really didn't mean anything to me without clicking on each to see the name. My question is, if I, with these new changes in place, rerun the query, will I get duplicates of everything I put in or will it just make the changes and leave a single of each cache in my gps? I will quickly get confused if I have two of everything (one with the cache name and hints and the other with the gc number and no hints. I appreciate all of your timely replies. It is better to know that my gps is not capable of a function than to spend the time I could be out having fun geocaching, racking my brain to try to figure out an impossibility! Gifthorse

Hi! I'm new to geocaching, but have found a few caches already. Yesterday I signed up for a premium membership to help download the caches in my GPS. After much stress (I'm also computer illiterate), I think I finally got my pocket queries loaded into my GPS. As when I manually downloaded them previously, I can get the basic info (name, GC number, coordinates, etc), but I can't find any of the descriptons or hints that I really wanted to avoid writing it all out. I am using a Garmin eTrex Vista H. I have seen the discussion of the steps for the Garmin Nuvi. Would they work for my Garmin? It took me a lot longer to find a cache today than it should have because, although I had the coordinates, the hint (which I didn't have until later got on my computer) would have made the find much quicker.

Thanks so much for your advice jkettu. I'll now be able to look for a "companion" to travel with me. Since I won't be checking any luggage (who can afford to these days?), I'll unload them with my other metal items, as you suggested. Thanks for the reply!

Hi! I am very new to geocaching, but am anticipating finding my first trackable item. I am both excited and nervous, wondering if I'll understand how to log everytbing in so that all involved are happy. I noticed a cache that is nearby that has a request to go to Florida. I have a trip planned in less than 2 weeks. My one concern is, is a trackable just by data entered into the website, or is there some sort of beacon that would be a problem on a plane. Probably a stupid question, but I just want to make sure before I have it confiscated from my carry-on and it just ends up sitting at airport security and never gets to Florida.