SquirrelsGoneWild

Well that's good cause I don't think I'll be going anywhere anytime soon... I'm finding the whole thing to be rather addictive! This weekend my husband needed new tennis shoes, and we decided to stop and get some fast food for dinner.. so we threw the kids in the car and off we went - 7 caches later we finally made our way home hehee Now everywhere we go the GPS comes with just to see what caches "might" be lurking around. Problem is once you know they are there, you find you just HAVE to seek them out! A trip to Wal-Mart turned into us heading to the Dunkin Donuts right out front to get a cache, a trip to Target lead to 4 finds, and a normal trip to our local Sonic even produced a cache in the parking lot! LOVE IT!

I apologize for not getting back to this post yesterday but our net service was out "all" day...ugh (we also had no TV service due to the outage). I appreciate all the feedback. Maybe it's me being overly sensitive and thinking to myself "really? how that was a nasty little comeback to a post". It's mostly me just tending to be outspoken. I even responded recently to a post myself simply because I felt one of the comments was just plain rude. As I said originally it wasn't so much to gripe and groan just to hopefully get some people to stop and think. I do believe for the most part that YES the community here is very helpful. I also agree that when you type you can't use inflections in your words and therefore sarcasm (which I employ myself on a daily basis - just ask my kids! hehe) does not always translate well in a written post. Thank you all for your participation.

I'm uneasy pointing out particular instances and therefore particular people However there are posts recently where the original poster, who was looking for help,commented that they felt the posts answers made him/her feel jumped on.

I have been reading posts for a few weeks now trying to get a handle on geocaching and trying to learn whatever I can from others who have been doing this longer, as well as reading problems newbies like myself are having, and trying to learn from them as well. What I can't understand is why some of the responses are so aggressive. To be honest, with some of the responses I've read, it almost makes you rather leery and tentative to ask questions at all. I get that us newbies are irritating to some of you, that we ask questions you might have answered months or years previous, simply because you have been caching for so long. I understand that some days you might log on before you have had your caffeine fill, or maybe you didn't get enough sleep last night because your spouse was snoring too loudly, or maybe you are just grumpy in general. If any of these are true for you, than why answer posts at all? Those postings are typically requests for help from us newbies who are trying to be good, responsible, and valued members of the geocaching community. We are trying to ask questions about swag, etiquette, and other items so that we don't offend or annoy the community with our newbiness. We also need help sometimes with tech that is completely new to us and that our small children probably understand better than we ourselves do ( I for one admit my kids know a heck of a lot more about computers than I do). Geocaching for most of you is probably second nature by now, but for myself and other newbies, it is all still new and exciting. Every time I pick up my GPS and head out, or read a message posted here, I learn something new or I find myself having new questions that I need to search out answers for. All I am asking is for a bit more tolerance and patience. Trust me, I am in NO way trying to start the next tirade or argument here. This is more meant for you to ponder. We ask our children to think before they speak so that they don't offend anyone or hurt anyone's feelings, we ourselves were taught this skill by our parents as well. So maybe we should also try to apply this knowledge to message boards and the things we type. Thank you all for your time and for lending me your ear.

Well further searching on the forum answered this one for me... you use the "field notes" section and then choose your GPS system to upload all logged caches at once http://www.geocaching.com/my/fieldnotes.aspx *link to field notes*

I would love to know the answer to this one myself. I know with my GPS I can log a cache found/not found and pull up a list of caches found thus far.. but those come up as names and then I am coming home and logging them one by one individually which is a rather annoying process. So is there a way to easily load caches that are tagged "found" into your geocaching.com account?

My kids also call it a treasure hunt..the best "treasure" my 6yr old found this weekend was this pen/bobble head that stuck to a tabletop.. he even took his treasure to school to show his friends after carrying it around since he found it on Saturday afternoon! hehee It had the logo of a local business and probably came from someone's office, but to my 6yr old who found this particular cache first, it was treasure. For hubby and I the real treasure is getting to spend time with our boys, having fun, and seeing them occasionally even work together to find a particularly well hidden cache. My 6yr old however really likes to claim small items he finds in caches, from a bobble head to an eraser shaped like an ice cream, to him they are all treasures because he found them and loves them.

Thanks for the PQ insight. I spent two hours today figuring out how to load maps.. who would have thought that could be difficult? Well for someone as non-techy as me I figured two hours was a good day! Seems using a micro SD card isn't as easy as it sounded .. so when I went to put in caches today I did them one by one by one (grumbling the whole time that there HAD to be an easier way!), so thank you SOOOO much for showing me that there is a way to put in caches

Okay so the manual looks like it was written by my 6 year old..and trying to find information has me stumped. So.. anyone have any tips/tricks for setting up the Garmin Etrex 20 for geocaching? There seem to be a MILLION settings and most make no sense however I am sure that somehow there are certain settings I should be changing to make geocaching easier. ANY help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks everyone. I'm going to hit OSM and gpsfilesdepot today and do some downloading and start there. After already forking out for a GPS and other items to get started, free sounds like a wonderful place to start.

And what about stealth with children? Children are NOT stealthy! You tell me six year old not to say something cause it's a secret and seconds later it comes tumbling out of his mouth while he giggles. We are headed out on our first geocaching mission on Saturday, and with three boys in tow this was my main concern. We are headed to a park area .. well its an historical site with people dressed in period clothing and the like (it's an old plantation home area), but within this area are 29 caches! I figure this way the kids are BOUND to find something and if we are really lucky can learn something along the way as well But kids, geocaching, and muggles.. how do you combine those three things and make it work?

Thanks so much everyone! Just getting started and getting a handle on things can seem a bit overwhelming at times. So yes..something as simple as maps and making SURE I was set up for the kids to find some caches their first time out, has been causing me slight panic attacks Thanks for easing my frazzled nerves

I'm in North Carolina. We will definitely be doing some urban caching since these are easily accessible by wheelchair (my daughter is in a wheelchair, but on days when my daughters has nursing care, the boys really want to head out in the great unknown. To begin with, we want to start with some easier treks, such as ones located in areas with trails and within park areas, and then as they get a feel for it head out into more woodsy areas. The boys also want to make a weekend of it before the weather turns bad and do some camping/geocaching.

In trying to drag my children away from the computers/gaming systems/and television we are about to start geocaching! The whole family is very excited and the kids are thrilled to go out "treasure hunting". We decided on the Garmin Etrex 20 and it will be arriving in 2 days now. What I can't figure out for the life of me is what maps I'll need to head into the great outdoors. I've found opensource and filesdepot, and of course garmin sells maps of all shapes and sizes. I was hoping some kind and caring geocachers will putt me out of my misery and point me in the direction of what some of the best maps are for geocaching (for those of us residing in the US - I've found topics through google searches but they all seem to be related to Canada.)