Penlowe

Excellent! Now to share this with the proprietors of said land a figure things out. I realized there is a third option of building a large cache that would be disguised as part of the landscaping/ buildings/ assorted urban stuff that exists in any city environment to be placed in the non-fenced area, but due to the terrain I'm not sure if that kind of engineering is in my budget. I had been perusing the Cool Cache Containers thread thinking about the wild spaces when it dawned on me that I could go the other way.... I will put on my thinking cap some more.

I was a Girl Scout through Cadettes (seventh grade) but stopped due to changing schools. at 14 I joined the Explorers (now called Venture Scouts) so I was a Girl Scour AND a Boy Scout I have two girls who are both in GS. I'm currently a leader to my older daughters' troop. The GS is very different from when I was a girl, but I suspect our troop was a bit more outdoor-oriented than the average troop back then too. I am making a concerted effort to not be 'just arts & crafts' to my troop, I want them to really learn stuff. Some of the stuff they are learning deals with the outdoors, but some of it is just plain ol' 'stuff you should learn to have a good life' like money management. I sent the following out to my kids parents at the beginning of the year as a note on my philosophy as a leader: I didn't learn how to organize groups of my peers in choir, I learned it in scouts. I didn't learn how to stay safe in an emergency in softball, I learned it in scouts. I didn't learn the wonders of the natural world in science class, I learned it in scouts. I didn't learn the value of a dollar, how to budget or how to earn money in high school economics, I learned it selling cookies in fourth grade in scouts. I intend to share as much as I can of these lessons with your daughters as well, as is our motto "Be Prepared". Oddly enough, instead of reducing the number of girls in my troop, it grew...

Thank you What about my secondary question of a limited time cache? It would be a year or so.

addenda: It's distinctly possible that I could place a notice for cachers on the gate. A "yes you are warm but if this gate is closed try another day". Would that do?

Ok here's the scenario: There is a special event coming up for a national non-profit organization. Said organization has several acres of explorable property here in my city with nice parking & so forth nearby. I've been in contact with executives discussing possibly placing a cache on their property. If I can put the cache on the wild portion of the property, it can be a LARGE. I really, really, really want to make this a large cache. If I put it in/ near/ around the parking area it can only be a micro. Here's the problem: the wild area is behind a fence. Gates to the wild area are open roughly 8AM to 9PM Monday through Saturday tenish to fourish Sundays, but locked and watched by security otherwise. Is that enough window to place a cache in said area? Yes, I intend for it to be a Premium cache. Yes, it's a area where plenty of people go and the full staff of said organization will be aware of the caches' location. Has anyone ever done a 'limited engagement' cache? Placed with a 'this will only be here for a year' type notice? It occurred to me this might be a good solution for the potential trespassing issues that could arise from placing in this location behind the fence. I know there will be tunnel-visioned folks who will go for the cache even if the gate is locked. But I'm trying to figure out, other that stating in BIG BOLD LETTERS in the cache description not to go if the gate is locked, what else I can do to help reinforce the respecting of said property?

Thanks LatonkaGal Our troop will definitely do swag & travel bugs, they are really into pen pals & crafts these days. I decided to make some 'practice caches' for our upcoming hike. None are terribly fancy, I really only need them to last one weekend, and they will be labeled "practice cache". No two are the same size or shape, and all my hiding places are natural. The first is going to be a gimme, there is a rock boulder with a natural hole that goes all the way through it, big enough for a man to put his arm in up to the shoulder and wave fingers out the other side. As I know children cannot resist such a temptation, that is where my first container will go. I'm not introducing GPS to this, just training them in the idea of looking carefully. All the points along our hike where we will look at specific features or rest will be where I put my caches. They will be numbered and have logs to sign, but no goodies. There will be s'mores at the end of the hike, that's treat enough

Thank you all very much for the input! The new GS books are published, but moving very slowly, which is why I still don't have my book yet. Chances are the GS borrowed a lot of ideas from the BSA, which is fine by me. Love the travel bug option, hope it carries over, way better than me taking ownership of a cache when their interest wanes. I've never hidden my own cache yet (formally speaking, I've done hide & seek on the family ranch with friends & family, but not published nor nearly as well hidden as proper caches). I am still curious about cache hiking, with say, more than four people, maybe in the fifteen people range. Is it viable? Do you think hiking part way there then sending groups of two or three the rest of the way is reasonable? Would you only go to where you had already found a cache & were reasonably sure it was there first? Or just let fate roll her dice? Is even that a bad idea?

The GS has had a fun patch for caching for some time, but with the new book has replaced the old Orienteering badge with a Geocaching one (available to Juniors or 4th grade & up). As a novice cacher myself, I think this is both very cool and potentially very chaotic. I haven't had an opportunity to fully read through the badge specifics (still waiting on my book) but was hoping someone here had. Any cacher GS leaders out there? did you dare take a whole troop on a cache hike? what about planting practice caches? I'd love some feedback before I introduce the topic to my girls. Also, I guess this is just Fair Warning for those not in the Scouting loop, there may be hordes of Girl Scouts descending on your caches! If you have any near churches or schools, expect more activity.

We have an in-ground pool in our back yard. When we bought the house with said pool, it wasn't a feature we were looking for, it just happened to come with the house we fell in love with. There wasn't enough fence to keep my then-very-young children safely out so we talked to our insurance agent about what would be best. As well as fencing information he told me to learn where the kids in the neighborhood were. Ten to fourteen year old boys are the number one victims of home pool drowning accidents, and most commonly not their own pool but a friends. Why? just old enough to know how to swim, old enough to go wandering their own neighborhood solo, old enough to have a large group of friends, very curious about the world; but also young enough to have no first aid knowledge, not enough common sense, very easily swayed by peer pressure and not enough knowledge to fix what they broke by accident (so they hide the broken item- often in the trash). If you want your cache muggle proof, find a ten year old to test it for you.

My point was, when cleaned properly, a PB jar can be pretty useful again for all sorts of things. Those who don't know how to properly clean them will run into issues whether they are making a cache or storing nails in the garage.

This topic came up on my art forum in a discussion of reusing and repurposing said jars for craft storage. As they seem to be popular for caches I thought I'd list my steps as I recycle all my peanut butter jars. With two grade school aged kids, we go through a lot of peanut butter. 1. make one more sandwich, really scrape as much of the condiment out as possible. 2. enjoy sandwich. 3. place jar in the kitchen sink and fill it all the way to overflowing with HOT water. as hot as you can get it. 4. then squirt a teaspoon of dish washing liquid into the full jar. (anything not in contact with the soapy water will not be clean) 5. put the lid on tight. 6. give the jar a little shake to activate the soap. 7. let sit for 24 hours. (really, this allows the natural chemical breakdown of the oils by the soap) 8. The next day, the condiment particles will have changed colors and settled at the bottom of the jar. Place a paper towel over the drain in your sink (unless you don't care about gunking up your pipes)and pour out the jar. 9. dispose of the gunk. 10. wash as you would any ordinary plastic item.

Yes yes yes! My husband annoys our children regularly by walking through bushes and vines that promptly sproing back and hit them in the face, he has yet to learn how to pick a kid friendly path through the woods. I have very long hair. I always tie it back or braid it when we go hiking, but he manages to drag us through brush that still catches my hair at every turn. Next time we go out I'm leading the way.

Well, as newbies me & my family are still forming our traditions, so I appreciate this a lot. So far my older child has been the eagle eye to spot it first on two, I found two, my hubs kicked a rock to find one (no, not a micro, an ammo can that went "THUNK!") and my younger child found one first. Thinking about it we all tend to do gestures instead of necessarily saying anything. I happy dance, hubs fist pumps, the girls just jump up & down waving wildly. Now I know why people look at cachers like we are crazy....

Don't feel silly, it *is* hard finding those other geocachers in your area. That is, until you know them. Once you've met up with them and they've become friends, you'll have to hide from them. (I'm teasing!) Here is a link to the Groundspeak forums for your specific area: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showforum=20 Feel free to start a new thread there and ask for NYC cachers. There's also a pinned thread that lists the individual groups. I clicked on New York State Geocachers and the link only took me to a page that says "It Works" so don't bother with that one The LIGO one you have to join to see anything. Here's a link to New York Capital Region Geocachers: http://www.geocachingny.org/ Here's a link to Metro NY Geocaching Society: http://metrogc.org/ You can browse that pinned thread and try the various links and see which group might be able to work best. But I'm going to offer an entirely different idea. Find an event near you. The event calendar is about 2/3rds of the way down on the home screen at www.geocaching.com. There might not be one very close to you happening soon. You may have to travel an hour. But, you'll be surprised at how far people travel for geocaching events. (In my area, people travel 1-2 hours to attend events.) At the events, you'll meet other cachers and will probably be surprised to find that they don't live all that far from you. Even if they do live a bit of distance away, maybe you could meet somewhere in the middle and cache together. Generally, there are group caching excursions too and you'd have a better chance to find those out as you start attending events. Some of my closest friends are those who I have met by attending events. Geocaching is how we've met but we've developed friendships that now exist outside of geocaching. Good luck! Thank you! Unfortunately I'm no where near NYC (perhaps the OP is?) I found a site for a local group in my city- San Antonio, Texas- but it was last posted to nearly a year ago Texas is just too big for one board.

so, it sounds like there are a rare few Extra Large caches out there, how big would be too big? Would a cache you could climb into be cool or creepy? Would it be best advised that something on that scale would be best under lock & key/ combination lock regardless of it's location? Lets just say I have legal access to some materials not commonly found lying around your ordinary office or home. Materials that could be placed just about anywhere without looking all that out of place

/facepalm well color me silly, and it's an easy enough thing to miss in a familiar word, which I'm sure it is for the placer too. I live near the San Geronimo creek, driving past those little green signs all the time makes it an 'whole recognized word' (in teacher talk). Thank you both! Yes, I do want the better app, but gotta wait til payday...

I apologize in advance if this is covered elsewhere, I tried the search function but kept putting in three letter words or confusing it in some way. I'm using the Groundspeak freebie app basically just to let me know if I'm near any caches. I then look up the listed caches on the site via my way-too-expensive-unlimited-internet-stuff on my phone. I'm a noob and I really need to read logs before I even think of looking and that isn't an option on the freebie app version. This afternoon the app said I was near: San Geronimo #2, San Geronimo #3 and San Geronimo #4. Okay, cool, go to the site. I put in "San Geronimo" for quick searching and got a list: San Geronimo, San Geronimo #1, San Geronimo #1.5, San Geronimo #5 and San Geronimo ZEE-ROW..... huh? What the app said was #4 on the site read the same and listed the same cords as #5. We did find #4(5?) which was totally cool, but couldn't even begin looking for the others as I couldn't match them up. Soooo, anyone else run into this? has it/ does it happen elsewhere or is this a unique occurrence? Even if the caches were edited by the owner recently, I update my apps once a week just because some of them :cough Facebook cough: seem to change almost daily and do annoying things to my phone if I don't update frequently. Is it weirdness or did I do something bad to my phone/ the website?

My mom vehicle is a Chevy Traverse, which I adore. A couple months after we bought it we hosted a birthday party for my older daughter. One of the party favors was stick on mustaches (which is hilarious on little girls). Hubs wore one through most of the party, a big black bandito type. When we left he stuck it on the dashboard. Travis was born. It's my first 'male' vehicle. Just before Christmas we acquired a Jeep Wrangler, second hand of course. We found it on Craig's List, good pictures, very poor spelling and grammar in the write up. It was listed with "a wench, soft top, KC lights". We joked about finding a trashy girl passed out in the back but were pleased to instead find a high quality winch on the front. Needless to say the YJ is The Wench.

JBnW: Thanks! I get it now, and yes, that alone does seem very worthwhile! not in my budget at the immediate moment (ahh first of the month blues...) OT: fond my first micro today :happy dance:

Obviously I don't have a Premium account, but I don't understand what a Pocket Query is, please explain. (i.e. what is it if it's worth the premium price to so many?)

I don't even know what 'scraping' a site is. I am using an all purpose GPS app and the official Groundspeak freebie version app. between the two we seem to be doing okay :)Just need more time to look.

Call me an idiot, but I can't figure out how to post there. Like I said those are all listed like caches, not discussion forums.

How do I find local forums? Yes I've scrolled down the forum headings to the area listings but those are events listed like caches, not actual discussion forums like this one. I keep thinking I'll find it or a link somewhere and have yet to do so.

Oh I will take my kids once I've got a bit more experience. that was part of what soured the letterboxing so badly was I had them in tow for every failed attempt, they were so heartbroken after never finding anything, (and I mean never). I'll go back to ones I've found so I can in turn teach them to look, then they will have succeeded a few times so if we fail to find the next one it won't be so hard. Yes, it's a set up. My kids have had enough disappointment in trying new things, I want this to be something they fall in love with. It's a secret plot to get them to enjoy the out of doors and exercise. If it's not fun right off the bat the plot fails.

Oh gosh yes (really should have thought of that sorry). E6000 can sometimes be got at Walmart, nearly always at Home Depot, Lowe's and any True Value Hardware. Hobby Lobby, Michael's & other craft stores carry it too, usually in the jewelry section, but it's often a bit pricier there. Usually in the $5-$10 range depending on the size tube you get. A little goes a very long way. I actually buy smaller tubes because it does gunk up a bit and I find it easier to squish out the last bits from a smaller tube. Things I have Learned The Hard Way: when altering a container, use painters tape inside and outside of the hinge if it has a hinge or around the overlapping lips for tins. Do this before gluing or painting anything and leave in place until everything is done. Hinged boxes should be painted open with the inside facing down. Spray painting a box in the closed position can result in paint bleed that seals in shut. Spray painting a wet container gives a really interesting bubble effect. Cool if you want nifty textures, not so much when you need full coverage.