shorbird

Useful? No. Fun? Sure!

Sometimes there are bookmark lists of rest stop caches along certain highways. I stumbled across such a list for the PA Turnpike and am itching to use it! Otherwise you just need an atlas which shows rest area locations so that you can key in the zipcodes for the nearby towns and go from there...

I would not do it for the security reasons mentioned. There's someone a few miles away, though, who placed a cache in his front yard, and he invites all cachers to stop in and say hi!

I'm still fairly new at this, but although my stats are interesting in a casual way, they're not why I do it. I just love to find things, and go to different places. Seeing new places is a much higher payoff for me than the numbers. I get a kick out of the clever caches, too--if I can find them!!

I don't know what the density is around here, but there's plenty of room for more!!

I just read Hillwilly's saga in Siskiyou County, California. Wow. Better to just keep all caches 150' away from the railroad than to invite trouble. My 2 cents.

I have placed and found many cemetery caches, all of which have been in good taste and not disrespectful to the departed. Cemetery caches provide a chance to appreciate our past and this should not be denied. Some cemeteries in our area have large signs saying "No trespassing except for cemetery purposes," and I will not place caches there. Most cemeteries, though, have no such signs and it is left to the cache owner's discretion about cache placement. For my cemetery caches, I always place the cache well away from the grave markers as I think that this is more respectful. I cannot see forbidding the placement of caches in cemeteries, but there should be respect for such considerations as nearness to the gravestones and the keeping of proper caching hours. If the sign says "dawn to dusk," respect that.

I just love to hunt for caches. It gets me outdoors and into some very interesting places! The guardrails and parking lots notwithstanding, many caches offer tremendous hikes, views, or just some additional knowledge. I love the puzzles, but I don't like having to come back later because I couldn't find it the first time. I enjoy caching--it's relaxing and fun! And now I've discovered benchmarks--they are interesting as well, but in a different way. In bridges, buildings, or a farmer's field--I always look forward to finding them.

If you find a cache without a GPS, that's great! By all means, log it. For myself, I have trouble finding them WITH the GPS!!

I checked the list of new caches yesterday and noticed a new one nearby. I couldn't get there fast enough after work! Going away for the weekend I have my turnpike caches in the GPS already. It's not the destination, it's the journey....