DNF Hound

In case anyone comes across this thread in the future, here is an update. The San Gabriel Valley Geocachers may now be found at: http://www.facebook.com/groups/SGVGeocachers and http://www.twitter.com/SGVGeocachers

Just a note to say there is now a San Gabriel Valley Geocachers group in Southern California, filling the geo groups gap between the Inland Empire and the San Fernando Valley. Info is here: http://www.facebook.com/groups/SGVGeocachers http://www.twitter.com/SGVGeocachers

What woman could resist this kind of romance? I only hope he placed it in a lamp post cache, so she truly knew the kind of thing she was in for.

I am often amazed when I see someone's profile listing that they have placed hundreds of caches across a 30 mile region. My three are within a 15 minute dog-walk from my house, and require no gasoline to reach. To me, it's peace of mind knowing I can fix any problem almost instantly.

This is fantastic, nira. Thanks. I have been mulling over a puzzle cache that's a block and a half from me, and have had no clue how to bust it. These resources are great. It opens up a new list of caches, if I can get a sense of how to go about them.

On this FTF subject I had a psychic moment today and have found a cache yet to be published. I have dutifully signed the FTF log and dated it. Can I count it as a FTF if the cache is eventually published? It would be my first. Definitely contact the CO. If I were the CO, I would appreciate your attempt to avoid hard feelings from a later "FTFer."

One of them was a "small" and the other was a "regular". I'm going to back next week and check again. I might have overlooked them. I was pretty excited from still finding my first one. We found 2 more today. One was rated really hard, but it wasn't bad. I remember firing up my GPSr the first time and discovering there was a cache at the park just 200 yards from my house. Exciting! I had not heard that the GPS device was not exactly pin-point accurate, especially under trees, so I was confused when the cache was not right where my Garmin said it was. It was maybe 20-30 feet east (under trees.) I found it eventually. Very fun to find something hidden just 100 feet from the swing sets, unknown to muggle eyes. Wishing you many more caches!

I was surprised nobody was hosting near L.A., so I set up this one in Pasadena. Hope people can come. Shouldn't have to drive to Ventura Co., O.C. or S.D...

I'm fairly new to geocaching, and I see there is an Inland Empire group, and a San Fernando Valley group, and a "SoCal 4x4" group, which seems to require an off-road vehicle, but is there a Pasadena/San Gabriel Valley geocaching group? Or even a loose band of aficionados? Thanks!

And they move OK that way, Penguin? I ask because the cache I want to put a TB in is a prescription bottle whose mouth is maybe big enough for the TB but not really an attachment. Even a rabbit's foot would be too fat. But a laminated, bendable card might work. I do have quite a few coins of all nations I could drill a hole in. Thanks for the Snoogans link, BlueDeuce. It seems that the consensus is I should make my TB ugly so no one keeps it as a souvenir. Does that mean I should scrape up the bug itself so it is disfigured except for the number? Or does only the object it is chained to need to be ugly?

Probably a dumb question, but I'm new to TB's. Just ordered a few. My cache is very small, though, and will probably only fit the TB, not the chain. Is it customary to send the chain along with it, normally? Assuming the cache is big enough. What is typically done with the chain? Thx, geo

Thanks, folks! George

Hi, I have been out of the geocaching loop for three years, and was wondering if anyone here has been successful in using a Mac-compatible program for downloading cache coordinates. I have only entered them manually in the past. Thanks, G

Mac users? What's the best (ideally, free) way to download waypoints to my Mac so I can transfer them to my Garmin Venture? Thanks!

Hi all. I've been geocaching for only a month or so, and only done a few caches by manually entering waypoints on my Garmin Venture. I have a Mac running system 10.3.9, and I downloaded Mac GPSBabel to automate the process of acquiring waypoints, but its Read Me does not provide step by step downloading instructions except command-line stuff that bears no resemblance to the actual interface. I check-marked some waypoints on geocaching.com, downloaded a geocaching loc file, and I have tried GPSBabel various ways, but I get an Applescript error or some such. Anyone proficient with this? Or is there a better Mac program to do this? I click on "Select a file," and I select the loc file. But without instructions I don't understand how to set the "Select Input File Type" or "Output File Type" options. I have tried various combos, but I always get an error. I just don't know how to set it. I read on http://www.gpsbabel.org/osnotes.html that there is sometimes a USB issue. I can't find a menu on the Garmin which tells me which version of firmware it's running. It does say it's copyrighted from 1999-2002, and the manual was printed in 2002. I notice there was a firmware update for the Legend in 2004. That might be the issue. But before wiping its memory to try that (yikes), I thought I'd ask if someone knows the proper way to do the settings, so I can be sure, if I then get an error message, that at least I did everything "right." If the short answer is "Use Windows, there are easier programs," I can do that. I have a Wintel laptop. But I don't use it much. So if you know the best way to do this with a Mac, that would be my first preference. ALL help is very appreciated, though. Thanks!!