rowanf

I'm heading over soon myself and Christchurch looks low on caches compared to Auckland, Napier & Wellington, the other places we are visiting. At least when judged by our hotel areas. *grin*

Hmm. I guess I don't get what the fuss is about. I have about two dozen real coins out in the wild. And about the same number of bugs. They travel or disappear... that's the life of a traveler in this hobby. I have moved along real coins and stand-in coins. I get the icon either way. I'm happy with finding trackables of whatever sort.... I love travelers that is one of my main joys in the hobby. Whether a coin, a cute plush critter, a tonka truck, a jeep, a rusty nail, a chain of patches... there are all sorts of bugs and coins on the road and I love watching their journeys. I do it for the fun and I'm not going to spend any energy in griping about how things ought to be. I enjoy them as they are.

I'm visiting the east coast from California and someone asked if there are waymarks for Toynbee tiles TT at Wikipedia as there are evidently several here in Baltimore. Looking at the Waymarking categories for public art - should it be under graffiti? I wouldn't find trying to find one whilst I'm here. :-) RowanF

Thanks! I tried to join the MDGPS site but haven't gotten a confirmation email yet. If it comes through in time I will certainly post. Rowan

My annual professional meeting is taking me to Baltimore from June 10-17. I am free during the day on both June 10-11 and plan to cache around the inner harbor as I won't have a rental car. After my meetings are over I pick up a rental car in the afternoon of the 14th and plan to head off to Rockville and the Ape cache.... and who knows what else! Can locals recommend clusters of interesting caches? Anyone interested in a visiting caching partner? PM me!

It is weird when you get an abandoned bug. I once picked up Petite Ballerina and I admit my motivation to help its mission dropped a bit when I noticed that owner had been on the site for less than a month about a year ago and never returned. I put it back in a cache but with no-one receiving its updates and cheering it along it almost seems pointless.

Ah, no, that's only the id number for the TB and not the one needed for logging the Hitchhiker. Exactly. It is an ID, which allows people who might to interested to see the bug I mentioned. Tracking numbers is the numerical code found on the tag itself.

That is a totally cool race page! Best of luck to all the racers. Hmm. I wonder if I could convince the other three cachers in my office to do a race with me. *plots*

Well, for example, today I took a Vicarious Flyer TB (TBMWZ3) to visit a nearby general aviation airport which is its mission. In the normal course of things, I might have just left it in that cache for someone else to take to further airports. But as it happens when I originally picked the bug up in Texas someone PM'd me and asked me to drop it close to Modesto since I was bringing it to California. Modesto is about 100 miles away in a direction I don't often go. I'm game to plan a road trip but it will take me a month or so to have a free weekend (assumng the $*#^&$ rain stops soon). It isn' fair to the owner for it to sit for so long without furthering its mission, so I'll carry it around to caches near airports and dip it in the meantime. The other reason I'll often dip TBs is if I've taken a lot of pictures of the bug on the hike out to the cache... and then for some reason (eg. there isn't room) I can't leave it. I dip it so I can show the owner it is active and I have a place to put all those pictures.

I haven't seen exactly that but there are bugs with trade items. Off hand I can think of Everchanging Bug and Bracelete Bug (though so far at least that one is collecting rather than trading bracelets) and I similar one whose name I can't remember that had cloth patches from police depts and such. I think it is a great idea.

There are a lot of TB Graveyards around the world. My bug that went missing in New Zealand is going to the Austrailian TB Graveyard rather than halfway around the world to the Atlantic Ocean. There is a UK one, a Scandinavian one and many others I'm sure. I'd be tempted either to put it in th nearest or the one that most closely fits the TB's goals.

Well, I've seen some fairly high mileage bugs go by. My bug with the highest is Salty Sailor who has logged 19, 069.8 miles since October 2005. I sent him out the day after I found my first cache. Now he's been muggled, but he had a really good run.

Hmm. I think they're about the same expense-wise. Both cost about $5-10 for each trackable sent out. Getting your own signature coins is a big outlay and a lot of work! For some of us its worth it. :-) I have a dozen Gypsy coins out wandering the world (plus a handful of other trackable coins) and about nine travel bugs. They all move well and are having fun adventures. But I think Travel Bugs can have cooler adventures because they have more personality and can have really fun and interesting missions. People like to take their pictures more often. But if you have you own coins you can trade for other coins. So really... I'll take both!

No telling how this bug got from London, UK to CT, USA but it is back in circulation! Yay!

This's be by 63 forum post since July 2005 - and I've found 262 caches since October 2005. But I read the forums a lot more than I post.

When you say posting do you mean to the forums or to the cache log? This is a very timely thread for me because I have been wondering what to do about a cache I visited yesterday. I don't consider myself police but sometimes you just have to post something in the logs! I visited GC6E0E which is supposed to be 1* terrain... but you either have to bushwhack in or jump over a 5 foot tall wall (from the side that the cache directions suggest). This cache has been around since 2002 and a lot of cachers I respect have visited it without saying anything. But many folks have said something and there is a recent DNF - a short person who could see it but sensibly declined to jump the wall. Plus probably being on NPS land. And the 'owner' hasn't been on the site since 2004. IMHO it either needs archiving or adoption/maintenance (full log) with a much higher terrain rating. But if I say something does that make me "police" or a "whiner"?

I notice that there is a TB picture with a visible number on p. 39. It might be nice to photoshop that out. I'd've done it and posted it here but I'm not a PPT geek and couldn't extract it.

This is push pins rather than cache symbols because the Mac version of Google Earth doesn't work (I had to go back to the beta). The cache icons appear but seem to have server problems and disappear leaving nothing as soon as you move. *sigh* At least with the pins I can see where the caches are even if there isn't any other info. This is the Stanford Campus in Menlo Park, CA

Wow, this is a collection of great stories! I've only been caching since October, and having a 3-month lag with a bug MIA was hard. How TBKFTP jumped from the UK to CT is a mystery but at least its moving again. Yay!

You can place it in any cache in which it fits! If you really want it to move, a cache that gets visited often is a good idea. Be sure to have its mission with it so people know what its goals are (you can print a "bug sheet" from the travel bug page and enclose both in a baggie... some people make laminated tags with the mission but for your first one just do what's easy to get it out and traveling). Have fun! I love watching my many bugs on their journeys.

I agree with you. And in general I am very happy with the paths my Bugs are taking through the caches of the world. I have the Salty Sailor TB (TBKM50) happily traveling the ports of the world (19,000+ miles in five months). But then there is Froggie would a travelin' go (TBKY91) who has a very specific set of mission goals and no one seems to read them at all. He left here properly tagged but I can only assume that he has lost his mission info somewhere along the line. And of course there was Shuttle Me Freely (TBKFTP) who disappeared out of his second cache and is now in a TB graveyard. It is always a craps shoot when you send out a bug. That won't stop me from sending them out on their missions though!

*happy dance* My seeder coins TBT62Y, TBMYBC and TBNK3Q have made it to sTeamTrean for placement in France, Germany, Switzerland or wherever they're currently caching. That is just sooo cool. I wish there was a way to follow the spawner coins too but they weren't activated, of course. Would it be a good custom to institute that folks who receive spawner coins let folks know when they are activated so their travels (if any) can also be watched? Mine went to three different states and I'd love to know where they go. :-) If anyone has spawners or seeders they want to send to California I'd happily receive them for placement in local caches.

I visited Prague before I became a geocacher. Perhaps I will have to come back someday. The coin does bring back lovely memories. Thanks

Wow! That is beautiful. I'd love to trade (trackable Gypsy coin) or buy.

I'd take three. Let Bikedog's name be remembered What is remembered lives.