swaninwa

A few months ago, we took a friend to a cache near our home -- and discovered it was missing. We posted a maintenance log, and sent the owners a note. We explained that we'd visited the cache before and wanted them to know it had definitely disappeared. They never answered. It appears (by their profile) to be one of those cases where the owners joined geocaching.com -- found a handful of caches, placed ONE, and then lost interest. Several weeks and no responses later, I posted an archive request. This was back in August. I had pretty much forgotten about it until just recently, when I got a watch notification saying that a reviewer has disabled the cache and was giving the owners 30 days to deal with it. Since then, my husband and I have been kicking around taking over this spot IF the missing cache gets archived. It's just a few miles from our home. We have a really cute idea for a hide and this place would be perfect for it. Sooo, what do you think? Can we just place our own cache in that area as soon as the old one is officially archived? I do realize that the owners still have a few weeks in which they could suddenly repair and enable it, and if that happens, GREAT, it's no big deal. But if it does get archived, how soon could we plant a new cache in that area? Can we do it right away? If more than a month (say, five or six weeks) goes by and it hasn't been archived, can we send a little reminder to the reviewer? How would you handle a situation like this? I sure as heck don't want to cause hard feelings or step on any toes. This is only the second archive request I've ever posted, so I don't know exactly how that whole process works. Any advice? THANKS!!

For $15 or $20 you could buy a small marble headstone at LillianVernon.com. They're meant for pets, but you can put anything you want on them up to two lines. It would be perfect. I bought one when our cocker spaniel died. I got the $20 one and was pleased with it. It's been out in our yard for about 5 years and has held up really well. As others have said, just be EXTREMELY careful in choosing your hiding spot. Happy Caching!

The newest caches in my area are ALL showing up with the name "Unapproved Cache" -- is that new or is something wrong with the website? I hope it's a glitch because I don't care for it! Anyone know what's what? There are at least a dozen on there right now, and once you click on the cache itself you do get the real name...but otherwise, there are just all these "Unapproved Cache" listings from all sorts of people. What gives?

Ebay!!

Thanks to those of you who had a NICE response. I know my son asked before placing any cards into caches, because he wanted to make sure he didn't step on any toes. As I said in the original thread, his father and I pretty much ignore things like that -- and I figured everyone else probably did too. But I didn't actually know the answer and thought it wouldn't hurt to ask. I was glad he was respectful enough to check before actually doing it. I'll pass on the information to him.

My son works at a glass (windows) company -- and he's also new to geocaching. He just emailed me and asked me if it would be acceptable for him to leave a business card in caches that says "5% discount if you bring this card with you to (business name.)" My first thought was that it fell under solicitation, but I looked on the guidelines and it doesn't really say much about this sort of thing. I tried a search on the forum, but didn't have much luck -- so I figured I'd just ask... What do YOU guys think of this? Do you think people might appreciate it? Or be offended by the advertising? I do see business cards in caches pretty regularly, and to be honest, I mostly ignore them. But I wonder how other people feel, and I want to make sure I'm giving my son the correct answer... Let me know your thoughts!

That would ROCK! I have a half dozen family members and we all cache together and separately. We all keep an eye on each others progress. I also have a few local cachers I watch because I've become friendly with them or I'm just a fan of their progress. It would be WONDERFUL to have them all on a watch list so I didn't have to seek each name out one by one. Great idea!

I imagine he checks his account a lot and figures he doesn't need the email too. Makes sense to me. However, I'm in to instant gratification! I personally get a little shiver of delight every single time I get an email saying someone has found one of our caches. I never get tired of reading the comments -- it's a huge part of the fun for us!! To each his own though, he DID say he wants to make sure it stays on his list. I think he'd just prefer to check the account and read all the logs from there rather than dealing with the individual emails. I've had a cache or two on my watchlist that got so many logs I got tired of it and stopped watching, so I can kind of understand where he's coming from...

We have a woman in our area who planted a series of Kayak Caches using the local lakes around the county. Hubby and I can't wait for better weather so we can take our canoe out and work on this cache series. While that's not exactly the same kind of trip as you are describing, I thought the idea was very cool! We're avid campers/hikers, and if we're camping near a body of water we always bring the canoe. I think caching goes with any of those wonderful nature activities. I say GO FOR IT! Sounds like a blast!

As you can see, a bit more careful wording in your DNF post would have been a good idea. HOWEVER, don't be too hard on yourself. The cache owner is being way too sensitive and shouldn't have freaked out over your comments. They weren't bad enough to warrent his little hissy fit. It's too bad you deleted your original post because it DID contain valuable information that future seekers could have used. Don't let this "incident" keep you from posting that kind of detail in the future. Cachers rely on the info you provide. Hang in there and don't let Mr. Super-Sensitive bother you!

I totally agree. We started out with a free account, but after we really fell in love with Geocaching and relized just how much we used the site and it's content, we decided to become premium members. It's our way of supporting our newly found favorite hobby, and we feel it's a bargain.

GOODNESS, it's amazing how the most innocent question can turn into a thread that comes back and bites you in the butt!! In any case, I just wanted to say: I'd never seen an Airborne container until I noticed one on my Mom's kitchen counter last week. When I picked it up to examine it, the first thing I thought was "Micro?" I'll tell you what -- ANYTHING is better than an Altoid tin. We've never ONCE found an Altoid tin that was dry and in decent shape. We do live in Washington state, but still...

Yes, it does help! I got a Palm from Santa and the instant hint decoding is quite nice!! Still, even with one click, I expect a hint to be a decent clue.

Same thing happened to us. There's an area of field and trees right at the intersection near our house. On occasion, I'd be sitting there at the stop sign waiting to pull into traffic and I'd look over and think "What the h*ll are those people doing over there walking around in the empty field?" I must've done this half a dozen times. Several months later, I was introduced to Geocaching through some friends on a Camper's forum. Well, you know the rest -- now when I see people randomly wandering around in the field I know why they're there! Too funny!

LOL! This is US too!! Hubby can't work the PDA without me. We're a team so we don't have separate accounts. So far we've found every one of our caches together. I wouldn't object if he found a couple without me, and I doubt he'd mind if I did the same. It just hasn't happened yet. I don't think we would cache separately enough to warrant individual accounts though, it's something we both love pretty much equally. If we really crunched the numbers, we'd discover that hubby is the one who actually finds the majority of our caches. He's got a great geosense. Sometimes I have to tell him "Hey, could you at least hang back and pretend to let me look first?" LOL!! On the other hand, I do ALL the grunt work. I download all the queries, set up the PDA, and I'm the one who logs every single find. He has no desire to do any of that -- he just wants to hunt! I enjoy all the tech stuff. And I don't mind TOO much when he finds five caches and I only find two! LOL! It's ALLLLLLL GOOD!

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I've accidentally "removed" them too, so I know what you're talking about. I'm glad to know I'm not crazy (at least, no more than normal!) I hope they figure out how to fix that. I love the Google map and bookmarking them from there seems like it would be the easiest and most efficient way (IF it works anyway!) In the mean time, I'll try your suggestion. Thanks again!!

I completely agree. We try to never use the hint except as a last resort, so I find it VERY annoying when I'm out on a trail or what not -- and decipher a hint -- only to find it's no help at all. I've learned the hard way to decipher the hint at home when: #1) The hint is a couple of hundred words long!! I wish there was a word limit built into the software which would stop people from getting overly wordy in the hint section. I've seen them on other websites, so I know they exist. and #2) We have some local cachers who enjoy adding hints like "Stop looking for clues and go find the cache!" as their hints. Now if I see a cache is theirs I decode the hint right away so I'm not annoyed with them later. I'm at the point where I'm sort of leaning towards ignoring their caches all together. A hint should be a useful clue, or should be left blank.

Well, I'm in ONE category for about 8 more weeks, and then I'll be in another... Thanks for the post! I did it once for hubby and once for me.

Please correct me if I'm wrong -- When on the Google map page, I'm supposed to be able to select a bookmark list AND then select any number of caches listed on the page by clicking on the little bookmark icon next to each cahce -- RIGHT? When I click on the little icon it turns blue to-- which is to let me know I've bookmarked it -- right? Sooooo, my problem is this: I click on about a dozen of those little icons and they turn blue. When I'm finished I go to "View" the bookmark and only 3 or 4 out of the dozen caches I selected actually made it to the bookmark. I go back and select them all again, and this time maybe there's six out of the dozen that made it. This happens again and again much to my frustration!! Am I missing something here? Is anyone else experiencing this problem or is it just Meeeeee??? Help!

Our experience has been the opposite of this. The newbie caches we've found have been poorly hidden, wet or damaged, or already muggled and missing. One person who comes to mind became a member in September 2006, hid a cache and was basically never heard from again. The cache had several DNFs and then it was disabled. Just a waste of eveyone's time. I agree that a number of finds might be a better way to regulate than a 3 or 6 month waiting period. For one thing people join on a whim and then go 3-4 months without actually doing anything. Then they could hide even if they never found a single cache. If there was a minimum number of finds, it would give the new cacher SOME experience, whether they achieved their 25 finds in 3 months or 3 weeks. When hubby and I started caching in May of 2006, we decided on our own that we would find at least two dozen caches before attempting a hide. In the end we were up around 50 finds when we finally hid one. Each find brought new ideas and gave us a better idea of what worked and what didn't work. When we finally tried a hide it was very well thought out and we took many of our past experiences into consideration. I can't help but wonder why anyone would want to hide before getting some finding experience. Seems like you're putting the cart before the horse, but that's just my 2 cents.

Us too Chris! We've been AVID campers/hikers for 15+ years now, mostly boondocking and dry camping in USNF, DNR or BLM campgrounds. We added geocaching to our camping trips in May of 2006 and it's put a whole new spin on our fave past time. We love caches that are along a hiking trail or down a forest service road, and take a little time to get to. We have NOT hiked out and spent the night to get a cache yet, but that is a definite possibility -- there are some caches hidden in the Olympic National Forest that would provide that opportunity. There are also several "Kayak Caches" around our area which we plan to find in our canoe when the weather gets a little better. We're not that in to the uban caches, but we DO think camping and caching are a perfect pair. (Edited to correct a typo and a run-on sentence!)

My MySpace Page GOODY! Good idea!

I agree! We never take something unless we can leave something. Once my husband really wanted a detachable keychain and we hadn't brought a trade item, so we left two one dollar bills. We don't cache with kids, but we DO consider that the treasure is primarily for the little ones. I love to go to the $1 store and stock up on cars, dinosaurs, lip gloss, barrettes, train whistles, bouncy balls, yo-yos, etc. We occasionally leave nice used items but we usually prefer to leave new stuff.

We feel the same way, and it isn't unusual for us to take one thing and leave three. Generally, if we do a TNLN it's because the cache contents are soaking wet or otherwised heavily damaged. No point in leaving something cool in a crappy cache container that isn't weatherproof. I DO try and carry a few extra plastic bags and log books -- and I'm happy to do a repair job for someone else's cache -- but we've seen a few that were so bad it just wasn't worth it. We found a cache the other day that was made out of a handy wipe container with the pull-tab type lid. Naturally, every item inside was soaked and ruined. Did the owner really think this cache would survive even ONE wet Washington State winter? Some just leave you shaking your head!

Same with me. "Swan" has been my nickname in chat rooms and on forums for about 14 years. (She's the heroine in one of my favorite novels). I later added the "inwa" because I'm "In WA" and the add-on prevented me from getting mixed up with other people using forms of Swan as a handle. Now I just use SwanInWA pretty much everywhere. It never seems to be taken and it's easy for me to remember...