Kite and Hawkeye

1700 pounds of ammo cans. Hello, UPS?

According to the guidelines, that's still not allowed: "If a shovel, trowel or other “pointy” object is used to dig, whether in order to hide or to find the cache, then it is not appropriate."

There are Magellan League keychains in the caches... and the 10 runners-up at the caches get hats, but I'm not sure if it's the Magellan League logo on them or what.

Ordered two coins with PayPal last night -- didn't see us on today's list, but I got the confirmation email from PayPal so I hope/assume all is ok!

I used to be immune, or what I now call "not yet allergic," to poison oak. Used to be able to wade right through the creekside thickets like they weren't there. I'd wash off a little if I had time or thought of it, but I wasn't very careful and I never got a rash. When I became allergic to the stuff, I became very allergic to it very suddenly. We did one cache in a fairly oak-infested area, and that was the end of it. I made my usual halfhearted attempt at avoidance, and I did wash when we got home... and then, a full week later, I developed a spectacular rash on practically my entire body. Legs, arms, sides, and a really nasty throat rash that made people act a bit like I had leprosy. I didn't stop itching for a month. I slathered myself in every product marketed toward unfortunate hikers, and got little relief from anything but Aveeno oatmeal cream. I respect the poison oak now. And so I say unto you, even if you haven't had a poison oak/ivy rash before, it's a pretty good idea not to get too cocky about it!

Generally each little twiglet will only have three leaves on it. If there are more below the trio on the end, it isn't likely to be poison ivy (or oak).

I enjoy difficult caches, but not extremely difficult terrain -- just not in shape to do some of those safely. I very much enjoyed this cache, a 4/2.5 -- honestly I think it deserved a 5 on that first rating. It took three visits and as many weeks to complete. I don't care for extremely hard puzzle caches where you have to do the puzzling before you leave home, but puzzles in the field are great. this one nearby has waypoints with mind-blowing camouflage, and made a great companion piece.

This story has it all -- dramatic tension, helicoper rescue, and a cache placed to commemorate the experience! (The PDF link in that log entry doesn't work for me, but if you look at the commemorative cache there's a link that does work.)

I've seen them at art-supply stores, for what it's worth.

My favorite cache was Glow in the Dark in Wisconsin. I love glowy things and reflectors and nighttime caching, and this one was done very well -- challenging, not just a walk down a well-defined path. It was nighttime in October, mildly spooky, and the cache container had a little light inside. The whole thing just spoke of a lot of time and care, and it was appreciated. There's a sequel, Glow in the Dark 2, which was also fun but was more of a straight-line walk down a path, so there was less suspense about where the next reflector would be. These were the only times where I was actually dismayed to realize I'd reached the cache site... because it meant the hunt was over!

Hmmmmm. This would be the first time Magellan put a cache near here, wouldn't it?

The Magellan clues are using javascript to open/display... it works in IE and Firefox on Windows XP for me, but isn't working for Hawkeye with Mozilla. Read the source, or try another browser?

We found a cache once that consisted of a plaque placed (by a geocacher) in the middle of an empty, nondescript field of weeds to commemorate an interesting set of coordinates. (That wouldn't likely be approved now, but back then I think it was listed as a virtual.) It was a nice slate stone plaque inscribed with the coordinates and a saying. It was a pity that it vanished after only ten finds, and a bit mind-boggling to wonder what non-cacher would have happened to walk there!

I've seen quite a few logs where people were afraid to re-hide a cache well if they found it out in the open, because they figured it was supposed to be that way. I figure if there's a bunch of leaves and twigs lying next to the glaring white Tupperware container, they probably ought to be on top of it, but I'm starting to understand why a lot of people write "hide it better than you found it" in their instructions, rather than "put it back the way you found it"!

After a long journey, there is a significant delay while the GPS tries to locate satellites... but 45 minutes is absurd. I've traveled from San Diego to Milwaukee with a yellow eTrex several times, and it took perhaps five minutes, MAYBE ten tops, to figure out where I was at the end of the journey. And I've never had any problems with weak satellite locks once it figured out where the satellites were. If yours worked fine before, I'm not sure why it would be having such trouble now. The obvious questions are if you had a totally open sky/good batteries, and you've pretty well covered those. I'd also suggest maybe it was just a really crappy constellation of satellites for a while, but it sounds like you spent more time using it than that could explain. I guess I'm down to, "I dunno, but it shouldn't be doing that."

If it has an interior, you can fit a log in it. Just roll up or fold a very small strip of paper.

Believe it or not, it's illegal to possess a bird's nest. You can destroy it, provided there are no eggs or hatchlings in it -- but you can't keep it.

Last year's contest is still available on the Magellan site (click the 'cache her if you can' icon on that page). Basically they hide a bunch of caches containing prize certificates, and then post puzzles/clues (and eventually the coordinates) on the website.

I wouldn't feel comfortable going in there just because part of the fence is damaged. That cache also has a LOT of logs with people saying they went right by the "No Trespassing" sign, since it is at the recommended parking spot. I'm surprised it hasn't been archived.

No contest: the data cable is a must-have. Even if you're happy entering waypoints by hand now, the more you get into geocaching the more annoying it will be not to be able to upload a bunch at once. For the same price (actually the Legend is $6 less on amazon.com right now), the lack of computer connectivity is absolutely a deal-breaker.

Entering waypoints is the biggest question ALL new eTrex users have (maybe other GPS users, too, but I've only had eTrexes). The manual isn't very clear about how to put in coordinates for a place you haven't been. It's not your fault! By the way, the instructions you were given by others will work, but I'll just add that you don't need to be outside or have a satellite lock to "mark" a waypoint and edit it to reflect any coordinates you want. Since you're going to change the coordinates anyway, it doesn't matter what crazy guess the GPS makes about where you are (usually it just picks your last location).

I love finding little rubber animals and bugs in caches. Nobody likes broken or dirty stuff, but little critters in good condition make fine trade items (and usually fit in micros, as well). I always trade for them when I see them. And yeah, I often leave rubber frogs in trade. They're nice little poison dart frogs! I even knew someone who was trying to collect them all (and I was trying to collect all of his lizards).

If he'd been a geocacher, I don't see why he wouldn't have identified himself as such, since I assume you had your GPSr in hand. There isn't usually a lot of hedging around the topic, or secret handsigns or anything. I mean, you could say, "Are you a friend of Jeremy?" and wink, but you might get the wrong reaction...

I like polished rocks, foreign or unusual coins, small rubber frogs/bugs/etc, tiny lightsticks, little wire puzzles. I've got more micro trade items than big ones.

Sometimes people just log finds quite some time after the fact. Perhaps a person who used to cache with a team just got their own account, and wants to go back and log all the caches they found as part of the team, or maybe they're just really behind on their logging (I just logged some finds from February, though luckily none had been archived in the meantime). I wouldn't worry about it, unless you truly believe there's some weird fraud going on (like, that person logged 500 caches in a bunch of different states as being found on that same day). As far as the question of whether it is possible to log an archived cache, yes, as long as you can still find the cache page, you can still log it. Since he knew the name of this cache and managed to locate its page, I would think he really found it; someone claiming finds on caches they never visited would probably only use active cache pages, since they're easier to bring up.