Belfrypotters

Thanks for all the information, the web links, and a few laughs to start my morning . I'll bookmark the links for when we get a laptop, because that sounds like the easiest way to do it. I don't want to have to log three week's worth of caching when I get back to work after holidays (no internet at home) and we like to move a few TBs when we travel, because that's the whole point of TBs, so now we have a good excuse to get a laptop. Got some retro pay coming next month, so...

We just completed a caching/camping trip where we spent quite a bit of money in internet cafes, mostly on coffee and pastries (gained a few pounds ), but also for the computer access to keep our cache logs up-to-date and find new caches. Some motels will let you use a computer for free, even if you aren't a registered guest (Super 8), others have coin operated computers you may use. Libraries are free but have restricted hours. We found a laundromat with internet access which was a tenth the price of most internet cafes, and had fewer calories, but we wondered if there are other places out there with internet access. Any suggestions?

Some of the rules of this game are a bit obscure. We did exactly this a couple of weeks ago, thinking we were being helpful. No wonder we didn't get a 'thank you' from the cache owner. I posted an apology on the cache page and hopefully s/he'll just delete my find and not have our account banned. You learn something from the forums every day.

The "To pee or not to pee" thread was pretty funny too. But seriously, I wish I'd discovered the forums when we first started caching. We had a pretty rocky start, and had to learn a lot the hard way. I've learned so much from everyone's posts, and people have been incredibly helpful whenever I've had a dumb question that's probably been answered a dozen times before. So thanks for the help and for the entertainment!

We picked up our first ever geocoin from a cache yesterday, and as soon as I held it this feeling of possessiveness came over me! All of a sudden I understood what the big deal is about coins, and why they go missing so often. Oooh! It's so beautiful! Shiny, heavy, well-traveled. But I know I can't keep it, so I took pictures of both sides for my TB files. The urge to become a collector was strong, but I'll ignore the gold-greed urge and turn it loose at the next suitable cache. Well, I'll have to, now, 'cause you'll all be checking my profile to make sure I do .

Wow! That's a great site, easy to read and step-by-step. I can handle this. Thanks for your help.

Yesterday my husband spent $400 on fishing tackle , and felt so guilty that he bought me a Palm Tungsten E2 to distract me . 1. Is this a good model for paperless caching or should I exchange it for something better? 2. Several forum posts have recommended Cachemate and GSAK, but Geocacher University has lovely detailed instructions to download GPX Spinner and Plucker, which even I should be able to follow. What do you recommend? Please answer in plain language, since I'm a technophobe

And please, not "Geocache", either. There are two caches near here, both by that name. Not very imaginative! Naming your cache is part of the fun

We restock every few months, mostly because one of ours is a theme cache, but also because the quality of the goodies does tend to deteriorate. The problem with putting good swag in your cache is that most people don't have something of equal value to trade, so inevitably they have to trade down. Sometimes they trade two small items for one larger one, but that still leaves a cache with a bunch of McToys after a while. I don't mind restocking, and consider this part of the fun of being a cache owner. It's not a big deal when you only own five caches, and I love to shop .

The hint was "Not this time?" with a question mark. So we thought maybe it was some sort of real hint, and spent an extra half hour (on top of the half hour we'd already spent hunting for this forest cache) looking for anything that might be time-related. A tree that looked like a clock, or branches arranged like clock hands, or anything related to numbers on a clock, or a stick that could be a sundial, or... By the time we left, we were not only disappointed at not finding the cache, but we were considerably annoyed with the cache hider. I'd much rather have no hint at all than a useless hint or a sarcastic remark.

A few weeks ago I was walking in the woods on my lunch hour, when I came across a guy just standing at the side of the trail, doing nothing. I was pretty sure there was a cache in the vicinity, but I hadn't had a chance to get it yet because my husband doesn't come in to the city very often, and we cache as a team. I assumed this fellow was caching, and was waiting for me to get lost so he could continue the hunt, but I resisted the urge to say anything to him. Good thing, because when I got back to my office and checked for nearby caches, there were no caches at all within half a mile of where he was. Now I don't go walking in the woods alone at lunch, because not everyone in the forest is hunting for treasure.

After I retire (in 14 months and 4 days, not that I'm counting) we plan to drive to Ontario to see the fall leaves, but didn't have a specific destination in mind. Now I know we'll be heading to Wilberforce! One question, a bit off topic - when is the best time of year to go to see the beautiful fall leaves?

I read an article about geocaching in a magazine, thought a treasure hunt sounded like fun, bought a cheap, no-frills GPSr as an anniversary gift, and dragged my husband out on a hunt. We didn't have a clue what we were doing, and unknown to us our GPSr was set for the wrong map datum. Our coordinates put us about 30 meters west of where we should have been, but with the help of hints and spoiler photos we actually found a few caches in the forest. I complained to another cacher about how inaccurate our cheap GPSr was, and he immediately asked if we had the right map datum. I ordered a copy of Caching For Dummies the next day. Needless to say, caching has been much easier since then!

400 caches (probably half are micros) = 32 miles. TBs in 35 caches, YJTBs in two caches, and only one coin. No wonder I've never found a geocoin

Thanks!

There's a Jeep TB in a cache nearby. We've previously done the cache but we'd love to pick up a jeep. Is it OK to revisit the cache just to get the Jeep, and if so, do I post a note for the cache, or just log the TB's page?

Yes! We went on a road trip last week with nothing but the GPSr and a list of coordinates - no indication of sizes, no hints, no logs, no confidence that I'd even written the numbers down correctly. It was very exciting to find the caches. Of course it was also very disappointing to not find one of the caches, which we would have found had we had the hint.

We recently did GC4E0, which was placed in central Alberta in February 2001, at the top of a hill. It has been found quite a few times over the years by muggles, but they've always left it intact. A hunter even left a pair of binoculars in the cache so future cachers could enjoy the view! It was kind of cool finding a cache that has been there that long.

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Sometimes it takes a while for us to log a find, if we don't have access to a computer. I don't have internet at home, so on weekends, and when I'm on vacation, I usually don't log until I get back to work. I think it would confuse things if you logged for us, then we logged again.

I have to echo Dogbreathcanada's suggestion, since that was what happened to us. Check under "preferences" (I think) to see if your GPSr map datum is set for WGS84. We found our first four caches only by using the hints, because our GPSr was putting us consistently about 30 meters west of where the hide was. That's a long way in the geocaching world! Then we hid our first cache, which miraculously someone actually managed to find, and politely corrected our coordinates. He was the one who suggested we check our map datum setting, and he was right.