Christineincali

Hi! I've been caching for the last year and would love to find out who is in the North Bay area... Sonoma/Napa counties. I really need to get out more (with grownups anyhow, although my kids love to cache too!!) and would love to meet some fellow cachers! I've only corresponded with a few folks and haven't met ANY other cachers in person yet, not even while I was out caching! (Although I once yelled out a clue to some folks who were clearly seeking the Jolly Green Giant cache in Monte Rio! Maybe that could be construed as a drive-by meeting! ) I'm out in Western Sonoma County (Guerneville) but travel in to Santa Rosa, Napa, Petaluma and points in between all the time! Drop me a line if anyone would like to meet up for some caches and/or coffee! -Christine

I've placed scratcher tickets in caches as swag, and got a nice email that one was a small winner! That was fun. I geocache either alone or with my kids and haven't really met any other geocachers, so anything that prompts a little interaction between cachers is okay by me! (Boy do I sound needy or what?! ) I've also left several scratchers at one time in my own cache and had them swiped with nothing left in exchange. At that point you shrug and hope that bad karma ensures they were all LOSERS! I'd love to find one in a cache and I think that the scratcher themed caches are a great idea!

Hi All! Newbie cacher here! I lurk a LOT on the forums and I'd love some input/feedback on my swag! These are some of the items I put together last night. I cache with my kids so most of my items are kid-centric, as are the caches we have been looking for. Most of the caches I've found so far have a lot of mctoy type things in them and a few personalized items. I've been trying to come up with something fun and inexpensive that still has a little bit of cache-appeal. I printed up some labels with my GC username and my children's team name on them. The packaging is fairly waterproof unless it was completely submerged or something. (corsage bags, I'm a florist so it's what I had a LOT of!) The kid goodie bags have sheets of stickers and a bouncy ball in them. I thought that individual grab bags would be good rather than having things rolling around in the bottom of a cache container. I like crafty handmade stuff, so I made up some marble magnets with clip art images of a satellite, a compass rose and a lucky clover. Those are in three packs in their own bags. I have a few little bags of wildflower seed mix as well. I've only dropped those in caches that look like they will stay nice and dry. We don't get much rain here at all until late fall, but I'd hate for the seeds to start sprouting in a cache! I also carry a supply of "squashed" pennies from various touristy places, and a handful of nice foreign coins for small caches. I've also thought of putting lottery scratch-off tickets in a cache, but I didn't know if that would be kosher. A little something for the caching adults... Thanks in advance for any feedback! -Christine

Hi there, another newbie cacher here! I'm more of a "fly by the seat of my pants" sort. I had my first find within an hour of getting my secondhand gps. (adopted the gps from my ex-husband when he told me it had been sitting at his house for a year unused!) I think that learning by doing is much more my style. I agree with the poster above who said just enter a waypoint and go. It's also nice to mark your car as a waypoint when you get there if you don't know how to use the trackback feature on your garmin. For me, part of the "adventure" is just loading the kids in the car and heading out. We take minimal equipment, but so far all of our caches found have been within a mile of our car so we're not up to big distance hikes yet. And yep, I'm another mom caching with kids. my 10 and 7 year olds have been my companions so far, and my 16 year old stepson who doesn't seem to show interest in ANYTHING has asked to go on hunts with us, yippee! I also had a Handspring Visor sitting around not getting much use and I downloaded Cachemate for it at the suggestion of many on this board. So far it's been a pretty intuitive program. Good luck! -Christine

Hi again! The tag is a dog tag style, with the bug logo, a number and the Groundspeak.com address. I've run the number multiple times and it still comes up as unregistered. There is also nothing in the logs about a bug being left there recently. I emailed the owner of the cache who was there a few days ago, maybe he'll know... Still, any suggestions would be welcomed!

Found a travel bug in the Have You Hugged A Tree Today cache this evening. Took the bug and came home to track it online and the site says it is not activated? what do I do now? This is only my third find and I don't want to mess with anyone's bug! Thanks for any advice!