The Doubtful Guest

All but one of the caches that I've found so far I've hiked or biked to. And now, with gas prices (it's a $4.10 and going up a cent or two each day where I live) being as criminal as they are at right now lol, I think the ONLY caches I will be doing are ones that I can get to on my feet or by bike. There is actually this one section of trail that I discovered had a 12 or so long string of caches. I'm tempted to go for it but I'm not sure...they have to be a little challenging. If they are just thrown in the bushes along the trail I'm not sure if I find that very sporting. Just have to wait for a nice day.

I had never gotten a tick on me my whole life, (strange for a outdoorsy country guy like myself) until I visited Gettysburg a couple years ago. We were touring the battlefield, and I noticed this lone monument out in this grassy field off to the side. I wanted to go check it out, so I did. Later on sitting on a bench, I noticed FOUR ticks on me....AH! I used a rather unique way to remove them haha, I grabbed the gum out my mouth suck it on one and ripped them out, I did this to the next three as well. pahaha, probably not the recommended way of tick removal, but it worked =P. My dad and brother had a tick each as well. Though theirs did not establish themselves like mine lol. Apparently the ticks didn't like my mom or sister....

A decapitated deer. RIGHT next to the cache lol. Thank God it was a freezing day so the corpse didn't stink. I assume it was a buck that some hunters took the head off of, it was a very clean unnatural cut. Next strangest after that would have to be the time we were looking for this deep woods cache and we found this unusual pile of sticks with tattered clothes hanging all over it. We thought for sure it was the cache, well it wasn't. Then maybe another 10 feet away we found a child's pair of shoes just sitting there. They looked pretty new and were just sitting there like the kid got warped up or something, leaving their shoes behind. Quite eerie.

To me, there really is no debate. GPSr all the way. For me the deciding factor isn't how good the compass is or how close it can get you, it's the durability. smart phones just aren't as tough as a good handheld GPS. I don't care what kind of rubber case you put on in, or if you coat it in rhino-liner and cache with it in a zip lock bag, they just aren't as hardy lol. iPhones split in two falling off bed stands My Garmin fell off a 20 foot cliff, hitting dang near ever rock on the way down, and then rolled into a freezing stream. My buddy fished it out with a tree branch (as he was bending over doing this he found the cache btw lol), and it was perfectly fine. We went out and found 3 more caches that day. If I was a Smart Phone cacher, I'd be going home sad and in need of a new phone. The only major benefits of smart phone caching I see are: - Like the guy above said, getting notifications and then zipping right out to get a FTF if you're a competitive type. - Looking less suspicious when doing urban or suburban caches. However, all that being said, the best situation is to just have both lol. Have a real GPS to do the grunt work and keep your phone safe in your pocket where it belongs as a "sidearm" if you will.

One of those Sterling Silver saint pendants, still in its box. Not "WHOA!" expensive, but definitely a cut above the rest.

My rule of thumb is if it makes you think "hmm should I put this in here?" then play it safe and just don't put it in. -Matches -ammo -knives -adult items -blatant advertising items, IE a lamented business card to a tire shop or something lol. I mean COME....ON. -Food items, or anything that might attract animals. -etc. I think the most questionable item I've ever placed was a token for a free desert at a local restaurant. I don't think that was too bad. I'm a coin(I have a lot of foreign coins I carry with me for trade)and random toy kinda guy if I trade anything at all. I agree with the dilemma crappy swag can create. I once did a cache that was specifically geared towards children, the owner said "You will be looking for an ammo can stuffed with goodies that kids would love; please trade accordingly" when I got there I found a .50 cal ammo box, when I opened it someone had absolutely stuffed it with pencils and balloons (which were muddy and soaked), I had to dump it all out to find the log. It's like wow...why would you do that lol.

Just had my first rather bizarre run-in with the police while caching today. I was doing the first part of a simple multi-cache around a local community center. The first part involved reading the text off a memorial to get the coords for the next point. I chose to do it midday to avoid any muggles, and sure enough, once I got there the whole place was empty. Well, I had just hopped out of my car and was bending over reading the memorial when I saw a Sheriff pull in on the other side of the lot. I was thinking "oh boy...here we go..." I tried to act natural, just kept on reading the plaque but sure enough a few seconds later I heard the crunching of gravel behind me as the police officer drove up. He rolled down the window, we exchanged hellos, he then proceeded to tell me that there had apparently been an accident between two trucks, and that one of the drivers involved had fled the scene and witnesses had reported that he was at the community center. He asked me if I had seen or heard any thing, I replied (very confused) "oh no I haven't." I then raised my GPS and tried to explain that "I'm just here Geo-" but before I could explain he had rolled his window up and peeled out of the parking lot. I sat there awkwardly for a minute or so before I decided I'd best leave for now, and drove back home (only like 2 miles away) When I got back home I logged on to my local news website, (Whose webmaster posts EVERYTHING religiously, from a cat stuck in a tree to a fender bender on main street) but there was no mention of any accidents.... Quite strange lol. DNF for now I guess, I'll return tomorrow.