Blue Power Ranger

Aaaahhh!!! - My baby! What have you done to my beutiful baby??? Remind me to never share my home coodinates with you. Now, if you want to give my big black van that paint job, we can talk.

Okay, I started caching at this past Christmas and since have become a bit of a fanatic. You know how everyone says after their first cache, "I think I'm hooked"? Well I really am. I will reach my 200th tomorrow on my 97th day of caching. It seems I have become a bit of a evangelist for the geo-cause as well. Since I never shut up about caching, I have sparked the interest in caching in several of those around me. I can think of at least six active cachers that have gotten their start because I took them out with me in the last couple of months, showed them how to find caches and get their own accounts etc. Anyway, on to the point. I have a family reunion coming up in Leavenworth, WA at the end of June this year. I have been asked to come up with some sort of day-activity/game related to GPS or Geocaching that we can play for a day there. The idea is that we will split up into teams, each team will be assigned a GPSr and then...???? Does anyone have any ideas for me? We want something more than a "see how many caches you can get in a day" game. Ideally, I envision a game where each team gets in a car and takes off and does something that takes 5-6 hours? The ages and ability levels of participants will very from old folks to babies in strollers so it can't be overly strenuous. Has anyone ever done anything like this? Any ideas out there that you all could share would be greatly appreciated!!! -Blue Power Ranger

Here's my primary cache ride... Not going on any logging roads anytime soon but it sure helps with the FTFs!

Never attended one of these events before but I will be looking forward to this one. What I have not seen mentioned is entry fees (other than cache related items) and costs for food etc. How does all this work?

Ooh, a batting average, now that is something I can relate to. I am batting .911 - (Of course, I took a couple of walks in there and the game was called on account of rain during an at bat a couple of times too.)

Thanks all for your input. I will keep doing what I have been doing. I believe there are lots of cachers out there that do delete their DNF logs. Am I wrong about that?

When you log a DNF (Did Not Find) and then you later go back and find the cache, should you be deleting the original DNF log? I seem to see people going either way on this and I wasn't sure what the accepted standard was. I have been logging the find but leaving my original DNF log for posterity.

I'm still relatively new to caching with 118 finds myself. I recently had a first-hand unfortunate view of the destruction of a popular local TB Hotel. - See my log here. I recovered the ammo can from this cache and quickly repurposed it (since there were no owner objections) into a new nearby TB Hotel I created. The new hotel is in an area with very easy freeway access and is in a location that I consider far less likely to be muggled. The new cache is here. As I am now learning more and more about TB Hotels, I understand that they might be more controversial than I had originally realized. I think the befefit to the TBs helped outweigh the inherent risks generally speaking. I would hate for my hotel to become a "prison" so I did not request a minimum TB rule for the cache. Instead I stated "I personally don’t like minimum-bug limits but please trade bugs kindly. Don’t simply empty the cache because you can. I would prefer there were three bugs to choose from whenever possible but I recognize that the mission of a bug is to travel. Please take bugs that you think you can help along their way." in the cache description. I want to be a good hotel proprietor so my intention is to casually monitor the bugs that are in the cache. If I see some particular bug has languished for too long, I will trade it out and move it along myself since this cache is right along my daily travel-to-work route. Is there any other etiquette I should know about or are there any other suggestions on being a good hotel owner?

Actually somebody just did a grab/drop on one of my bugs. It was the first bug I sent off and it has been in the cache I started it in a few weeks now without movement. I am not very patient and have been excited to see it go somewhere. I greatly appreciated the grab/drop because at least I got to see SOMETHING to read and it let me know that the bug is still there and alive even though it hasn't moved. To me ANY activity is better than NO activity.

I am relatively new to the game having gotten a GPS for Christmas. I plan to plant a new cache this weekend to celebrate my 100th find that I expect to make this Saturday. Is it considered bad form to place TBs I have found in other caches in a cache that I place myself? I want there to be lots of neat stuff for folks to sift through when they find the cache and wanted to include some TBs along with all the usual swag and goodies. Thanks for any answers there seem to be so many unofficial TB rules out there. I don't want to do anything perceived as wrong.