Techen

Luckily I do have a lot of friends in the area that told me they'd want to adopt my cache if I put it out. Unfortunately there don't seem to be enough people in this area (all the larger groups are hours away) interested in geocaching for me to think there'd be a successful CITO event if I attempted to put on one. I doubt any of my friends in the area would even be willing to set aside more than 30 minutes in their day to go pick up other people's trash, ahaha. Hence why I'm trying to just find some things to put in caches to help encourage CITO in the area. It might be easier to just leave a little bit of supplies in an ammo can somewhere to encourage people to CITO a bit on their way out than it is to try to put on a large event that might have little turn-out.

So I've only been caching in this particular state for a few weeks now, and I can easily just flat out say easily over half of the caches I've gone to are in or around trash-filled areas. So I was hoping to place a CITO-themed cache around here, along with CITO swag in others that badly need it. One idea I heard of I really liked, stuffing grocery bags or trash bags into film canisters. Of course, I'd like to add in things like gloves and hand sanitizer in the caches as well. I was also thinking of something like buying a couple different cito geocoins to use as prizes, but to get it you have to fill up a certain number of trash bags or something (with a picture of the person with filled bag at the cache location (along with GC#) so I know they aren't just taking out their trash, ahah) and maybe something like a before and after picture, since I have a feeling some people would just bring a trash bag from home if they really wanted it that bad. I'm not thinking full on event, because I'm only in this state for a short time (Moving back to my home state in july) So, are there any suggestions for cito caches? I'd search more on the forums, but unfortunately my search option doesn't work too well with my internet running at 12kb/s Also, any suggestions on cheap bulk things like hand sanitizing wipes, gloves, etc?

Ah man, this is an interesting one. Never entered a cointest before so hopefully I'm doing this right, ahah. So, I'm from Portland, Oregon. There's a few reasons why I love and hate this place though, ahah. 1. Great view and interesting places to visit (such as Mt. Hood, LOTS of restaurants, fairly straight forward drive to the beach, lakes, forests, bars, shops, etc.) 2. Quite a few nice decent colleges here (Pacific university, Oregon university, PCC, etc.) 3. Lots of nice jobs to get after you finish college And I know you just said 3, but I have another one I'd like to add. 4. Culture. I'm sure there are more places like this, but I haven't been to many large cities that have a decently spread out culture within it. With museums, galleries, japanese garden, a dozen restaurants with all types of food from all over the world, and a lot of interesting shops (including quite a few nice ones with lots of imports.) 5. Portland is very green friendly, ahaha. A large solar panel manufacturer over here has been creating some useful jobs.

Look for things that look slightly "newer" as well. (Example, giant pile of rotting wood...one piece looks much cleaner than it should be.) Or mismatched (Green leaves among fall, or fall colors in spring.) Some were meant to be hidden and found during certain times. I mean this in a seasonal and literal sense. Some things might glow, or specifically reflect. Others may be more obvious in natural light than a flashlight (such as color differences to tell if something looks moved recently or appears to be newer than things around it) In the seasonal sense...well, like somebdoy mentioned, pinecones. Or even any kind of nut. Nuts get collected by animals and people quickly, especially in parks. It's suspicious if one is still around, even if it's in the tree. Or static things that should move. Like a fake bird or animal that turns out to be a lawn ornament. Looking up hide-a-keys or geocaching containers on ebay and other websites can help you as well. Honestly, it does take a lot of fun and challenge out of it though.

This is actually why I'm nervous about placing a cache. I've been spending weeks thinking of ideas for caches, and I've made some cases by scratch for them (just as hides themselves, not the actual cache, which goes inside) and I've been spending a lot of time keeping my eye out for the perfect water proof container to put inside of it, even though it should be waterproof on it's own. I'm investing a lot of time and money into them, even into stocking them with interesting swag. But there's nowhere interesting at all worth placing the cache near my house. I have some places in mind, but it's 2 hours one way by car, and an area I only go to a few times a year. There's easily 6 months that I would not be in the area at all. I was thinking of seeing if somebody would want to "adopt" it in the area to help me out. However, it makes me feel like I'm just being irresponsible about it. I do however keep around a little kit of smaller cache supplies to help out a cache. Even if it's just a bunch of extra interesting swag or a small pencil. I haven't come across any really needing much help, but I know I wouldn't bother with something like a simple LPC that needed a fix. People pop those out enough as it is, there's never a shortage and unless there's something special about it, I ignore them completely.

Unfortunately I made a huge mistake on one a couple days ago. Slightly long story. Basically, during a wet day around noon I went geocaching in a forest behind some houses...while wearing a bright red hoodie and my backpack. So, not stealthy at all. While trying to put the stubborn lid on the cache, I heard two guys approaching on a trail on the other side of the foliage. Unfortunately, being...bright red, I was spotted. One guy simply said, "Hey there! What's up?" At first without thinking I said, "Nothing much, you?" There was a bit of awkward silence in between and I realized how suspicious it would be to find somebody with a bright red hoodie and a backpack in a forest behind a bunch of houses...So I added, "Just...geocaching..." I didn't want to lie to them in case they decided to investigate the spot later and would discover the little container. They just responded with, "Oh, okay." and left.

I also don't use a GPS. As it's been pointed out, a GPS is extremely useful (if not just completely necessary) if you plan on going into the woods or any other area that you otherwise can't see the features of and therefore can't make a proper estimate as to where to look. I've managed to go into wooded areas multiple times but they were fairly small, so I was able to estimate where I was depending on gaps in the trees and the bends in the creek. And you don't exactly need a GPS if you do hide a cache, just a very, very good sense of direction and memory. You'd have to find the place you put the cache in with google maps, then see if you can do a drag-and-drop pin to get the coordinates. Otherwise you'll need to get nearby coordinates and keep messing with it until it's as close to where you hid it as possible.

I'm moving soon, so I've been cleaning out a lot of my stuff. Lately I've been putting them into large zip-lock depending on size or cost from my own opinion. For example, I found a small stack of pogs. To some younger cachers they are just a bunch of colorful images on cardboard. So I stuffed them into a tiny zip-lock bag in hopes they don't get wet, and put them in a tiny otherwise empty cache that was just able to fit them. Sure, somebody may find it and think it's trash, or somebody might find it and say, "Hey, I remember these!" I do plan on making some. I have been coming up with designs and hope to get quite a few pathtags made. I do feel really awkward when you find something like...a macaroni art project (yes really) in a cache. Hey, that's cool that your kid made it and all...but that's kind of something that should be special to you. Nobody else knows your kid, and your macaroni art project is making the cache get all gunky, along with the noodles getting wet and moldy. It won't be special to anybody else that finds it, and they're more likely to toss it. I also hope people keep in mind that paper + moisture = possibility for mold. I've found a lot of "what are these?" wet things in caches so far...which is saying something, since I've only found a couple, ahaha.

I am personally into geocaching for the excitement of finding unique and interesting finds in fun places, however I do also use it as an excuse to get out of the house. I'm trying to get out and walk at least 2 miles a day, and a 3 mile there-and-back walk to a LPC cache in hopes that it's something more interesting (or at least has some interesting treasure like a small geocoin or TB in it) is enough to drive me to do so. It might be a slight disappointed when you find it's an old LPC cache with some old pennies and a broken rubber band stuffed in it along with a moist log, but whatever. I already walked that way, so at least it got me out of the house.

Oh man, I found 5 old smelly pennies that had some weird questionable substance on them, and a really worn down old rubber band. In another, I found an old expired ticket for a free bible, some piece of old soggy folded paper (not even origami, was just randomly folded up and then scribbled on with crayon) along with a wadded wet napkin. Oh, another also had an old, used expired bus pass from a year ago in it. Along with a lot of old, broken, smelly (seriously) mcjunk in it. Fun times there.

Actually, I learned of geocaching from cops. It seems it's extremely popular here with the police officers, people working at the fire department and even ambulance drivers. Well, I guess if you think about it, how many times would somebody have the cops called on them for looking suspicious for snooping around? Or accidentally going on private property due to a bad coordinate/typo? Once you explain it to a cop, chances are they'll mention it to another officer. The word can spread from there. So far, most of the cops I've known on patrol have heard of or actually do geocaching. So luckily if you come across a cop that DOESN'T know about geocaching and doesn't understand or believe what you're saying, you can likely ask them to get on the radio and ask if any other officers know what geocaching is and can back you up. Chances are, there will be one that at least knows what it is. Another excuse I use is "bird watching," "bug collecting," or "I thought I saw my cat run up this tree." if I don't want to get into a lengthy conversation about geocaching, ahah. Tends to work best for muggles, I wouldn't push it by telling an officer that in case he wants to still stick you with a trespassing fine for a typo/coordinate failure.