mamid

my kids destroyed my pda. Now, don't freak. It was an older model and, although it worked, it had a few bugs. I think it was a first or second generation Palm. Anyway, I used to write them out longhand in a notebook and put everything I needed to find it - decoded hint, coords, etc. and included the cache size and any other hints I thought I might need. My first cache I found without a gps. My second one if I had been a bit brighter - the hider was ingenious - I could have found that same day. After I got my gps, its still just a matter of going out and looking. So I think to myself - if I was hiding a cache here, where would I put it? My kids distracting me are not a help. Nor is using the arrow once I get to within 10m. Sometimes as much as 20m. At that point, switching to satelites helps. Since then, we have gotten a printer. So keeping it fed with ink and paper is the plan.

you know... that reason is exactly why you should have one of the geocache brochures available to give out. You could then give it to the officer/security/whatever and that would answer their questions and maybe get them to cache too. Converting the masses! I like that idea!

I asked my property manager's permission before we placed the cache. Then we showed it to her yesterday and she liked it. We warned her, and our neighbours, about cachers. Its already had an FTF. And I haven't had my morning caffeine yet.

Phibian looks too much like some rich b@st@rds bored kid who has nothing better to do with his time than harrass the hard working Signal who is just trying to do his job. "Mr. Mr. There's trash over there. Yah, I left it there because I didn't have a way to bring it out. Do you know how to orient? Let me take you for a ride in my gold plated Jeep YJ..." - Phibian "Okay, I tracked the cache to XbyY and found a bunch of trash. I've CITO'ed it and will be disposing of it at home. My GPSr was bouncing off the trees so I had to spend the last ten minutes just looking for it." - Signal Phibian is nothing but a yuppy puppy poser to Signal's sleek l33tnes.

I was at Michael's today and they had a yarn brand I like for cheap. So I bought a bunch of scarf making yarn and am now in the process of making about 20 scarves for my swag bag. It takes me about an hour or two of actual sit down and knit time to make a scarf. I'm keeping the pink one for myself and DS wants a blue one. I also bought yarn needed for a sweater I'm making for myself and for a ribbon scarf. There was also some kistka (sp) supplies, so I'm thinking about dropping off some dyed eggs at specific caches. Or not. But yah, you can get very creative when it comes to caching tokens. I've found poker chips and a rubber duck. I think the scarves I'm going to be dropping (and have dropped) will go over well, no?

I have three kids and am also SAHM. Caching is great too because he likes cleaning more than I do so I take the kids out and he cleans. I caught a chill from yesterday's caching so I'm not sure if I'll be caching anytime soon. That and I'm living in hell right now - he's spring cleaning and I'm badly allergic to dust. I'm thinking about picking up a cheapo (under 100$) unit for DS so that he can help mommy "treasure hunt." I had a dnf today and I can't find the page I was caching from or I'd register it. The hunt is educational. If I could, I'd add in forest trivia, map use and more. DS was very interested in our road map in the car today. DD just enjoys the time outside. D2 is too young to care. Thankfully, the other half enjoys getting out too.

how about something left specifically for you?

yup. it also means that if you find a shiny rail when you're lost in the wilderness, you can follow it - not on the track, but beside it - and it will eventually take you to a road or other signs of civilization.

a google - a: cause we ARE the search engine. b: cause google is an undefined number. a google of cachers.

in a big park that has multiple caches including at least one multistage, my gf and I were lost. DH has DS for the day so that left me with DD, my friend and a bladder tapdancer trapsing through a mostly trailed woods with no bathroom open because it was too early in the season. We were so lost that even the GPSrs we had couldn't find north. I had to use my old girl scout trick of "which way does the moss grow?" to get us back on the trail. Finally, I could stand the tapdancer no more and found a nice tree to use. Ahh... relief. Not as easy for girls as it is for guys. Worse when you can't really squat because your balance is lost and you suffer from fetal incontinance. We had been so lost that we found 3 different hobbo camps and several caches that we didn't even really plan on, simply had the coords and looked when we were close enough. Does my gf go after the caches? Nope. The tree loving woman decided to stay at the edge of the trail with DD while prego me went in and bushwacked for them. That was last year. D2 is now 3 months and is far easier to cache with. Most of the time.

urban micros ideas: Camoflage electrical outlet on the outside of something that shouldn't have a 3 pronged plug, a light switch or anything else that would normall be found inside the house. Camoflage a tv cable. In plain sight. Use camo rocks. use flocking and glue to hide it. add rocks to the flocking and glue. add fake leaves to the flocking, glue and rocks. Make a stepping stone and leave a cavity in the bottom of it. Put micro in there. Get permission of landlord to place it. Make a fake rock and don't get permission cut a log up so that it has an interior chamber. glue a fake plant to the top of a film canister. Everything has some historical fact. Just do a bit of research. I know I could drop about a dozen in my old home town if I really wanted to. Or for that matter, in the town I was born in if I could get someone to adopt them from me. Stuff like "my grandparents' house was on this location, so this one is in their memory." "I had fond memories of this bridge as a child" etc etc etc. Just dropping a micro isn't good. Putting some oomph in it - either in the hide itself or in the history of why - now that's a reason to cache for. hmmm... if I could stash some in Southern Ontario I would.

so, tools are not kosher in caches? not even brand-new-still-in-the-package ones?

I figure, if you don't like urban caches (micros) then make your own ones. I'm certain there are incredible ways to hide stuff in plain sight.

my hubby's helping me with hints. he's a punster and not only did he give me a name for the cache, he punned the hint. he's evil, I tell ya!

true story: when my mother was in school, her teacher dragged everyone to the woods one day to show them an "abandonned" railway. My mother took one look at the rails and pronounced them live. Teacher didn't believe her so the kids all piled into the school bus and waited. Teacher didn't argue with her anymore when the train went by about 20 minutes later. My grandfather was a steam engine enthusiast and his favorite was steam train engines so he had passed on that information to his children and grandchildren about the rails being shiny not rusted. I've had a similar argument with one of my teachers too, but we didn't sit around to wait.

money. I am always finding money. not much, maybe just a penny or so, but whenever I'm on a cache hunt, I usually find some money.

my time limit is how long till my kids go flake and start to take off on us. The other half is the one that usually corals them, but not always. I tried finding one cache 5 times and finally have given up. Its been found again recently, so I am planning on trying for it the next time I'm in town - with kids in tow!

one of my gfs way before she started to geocache found the Stargate. yes. The Stargate. I'll ask her for a pic of it. Back over a decade ago, during some 4X4ing with an ex, we came around the corner and nearly ran over a pair of beavers. Came across a cariboo carcass and moose skull with antlers too. And the same friend who found the Stargate, she and I were in one park together and came across not one but at least two squirrels letting us know how ferocious they were, a hobo's camp, and lastly, a dinosaur viewing area. All while trying to find one cache.

I've seen four PLCs that were... interesting. one was a "small" container hidden inside a tube. two were camo'ed eletrical thangs. and the third was a camo'ed box painted to match the surrounding area. None of them were "booring" plcs. all of them were fun to find. I even got asked for a hint for one of them because the hunter saw that I had found it without a gps unit. Now, I like the bigger caches. Nothing smaller than a "small" cache cause I like trades. I don't like micros in general, but sweet hides like the ones above were good. And one of those was my very first FTF. The weather almost made me give up because it had frosted itself into the ground. LOL

my husband saw that pic and now he wants to do one just like it in our front area. I've convinced him that what we have done right now is fine. The kids, (okay, DS 4) have been bugging us to place one so I finally did. Now waiting for the review to go through.

not another camo'd electrical thang. my ex used to work for (hydro monopoly) and i heard horror stories from the linemen...

neck gator? I have two scarves knit for the cache. And its so full of stuff, I'm going to have to put it in a bigger ziplock to keep it together. LOL and the scarves are stuffable too. but the sudoku book or box of pencil crayons won't let the lid sit right. Just waiting for approval now.

so, if I were to knit stuff like scarves and place them in caches as trade swag, people would like them?

I'm planning on placing my first cache. But I got a question to ask and I know its going to develope into a "I got this really unusual thang in a cache." I'm planning on knitting up a scarf for the ftf prize for the first two caches I'm going to place. I have a location for one, but not the other. I've seen the chain mail balls from one cacher. What others have been found or placed?

with law enforcement or children, I try to be truthful. Although I love I asked one guy what he was up to, cause I swear he had a gps in his hand, and he said he was just playing with his pda. Next thing you know, he and I are talking about our kids (D2 was hanging out in her sling) and he offers to help me find the cache because its at the 6' mark and I'm only 5'4. I show him where I've zeroed out the coords and have been looking and about how antsy I was about the syringe and he offers to find it for me. He climbs into the same area I was at, turns around, looks up - the one place I hadn't looked - and grabs it. I show it to his daughter, and sign it, offer to let them sign it but they said no. The best part of it is that I think I made a convert of him and his girl.