simpler1773

My daughter is 7. Her favorite thing to do when we are out caching is take pictures. We got her a camera and she's thrilled to be snapping pics of caterpillars, flowers, leaves, me, etc. Quite entertaining for her

I think it's a great idea. Very creative! I don't know any cachers in either location but I do know someone here who recently moved from Australia. I will ask that person if they know any geocachers from there.

I sew, and I'm thinking about making bags from re-purposed fabric as swag. Also my daughter and I are going to buy those little (like 2") canvases, paint them with fun vibrant pictures and put magnets on the back...one of a kind swag

Okay and so what is "Ni"?

Man Ashnikes, what did you do to tick off so many people? I missed it somewhere along the line. Anyway, I think the cache sounds great. I'd love to find something like that. I don't see an issue with sharing stuff people put in a dumpster. If you want your privacy protected you burn stuff or shred it...put it in a dumpster and you take your chances. I love reading old diaries and post cards in antique shops. Don't think I have any old letters to contribute (see the burn and shred method above), but it's still a really interesting idea!

I don't get why everyone rips on ashnikes? Seems as valid a topic as any around here. Anyway ~ since I've never answered this particular question, I'll bite. My husband and I don't have a lot of shared activities. But geocaching is something we discovered about 6 yrs into our marriage, and it's been nice to have something we do together. Both of the kids (17 and 5) enjoy it too. So to answer the question, yes! It's brought us closer together.

I would LOVE to find those in a cache. I love the handmade items, and they are SO rare. I have both hand made, and store bought swag in my cache bag. I leave the store bought for stuff my 5 yr old trades for and the handmade for anything I might trade for. Also if a cache is pathetic in the swag dept, I might leave a handmade item Also second placing them in a baggie with a note and your ID. I hope people will write in the log that they enjoyed your handmade item. I've been watching some of the logs I've placed stuff in and no response yet.

I only have 4 left to find in this town 2 of which I'll need to rent a boat to get to. After that I'll need to drive at least 10 miles for a couple more, and 20 miles for the next town which has a plethora of micros

Cool! I like it!

Thanks for the link, that was an enlightening article!

Well, I guess I'm in the minority, but I LOVE facebook I'm excited about the new "like" feature!

I'm thinking about setting one up by my house. Mostly the reasoning is that it is a good place to safely leave travel bugs, and since we live in a tourist town that might be a plus. We have one set up outside of my Mom's store and she is not a geocacher but enjoys watching people look for it and also meeting some of them when they come to ask her for a hint

None of the above. I'm a mid-30's mother of two, have a dog and two goldfish. Happily married 10 years. Yawn. I don't think I've noticed a geocaching demographic, we really span all ages and interests.

I like to visit the thrift store for my swag. Today we picked up a bunch of mini beanie babies for 25 cents each. Not a thrill for me, but for my 5 yr old? She LOVES finding that stuff. I sew, and one thing I make is a reusable fabric cloth baggie. Like a ziplock but with velcro. So sometimes I will put one of those in a bag with a note saying it's made by me. Everything we leave as swag is placed in a clear plastic zip-lock type bag. I hate it when the swag is all dirty and nasty in a cache so that's my little effort at clean swag I've also left books, polished rocks, sand dollars, and in the earlier days party store/dollar store stuff. I know there is more but my brain is tired and I can't think of any.

I was in the thrift store with my 5 yr old today buying some swag items. The subject of swag and geocaching was brought up by my daughter at the cash register, the lady ringing us up says she just saw a news story about people destroying caches because of not wanting people to go off trails and look for them. I explained to her how sad that was. How much we love getting outdoors as a family and that we always bring bags with us to PICK UP garbage along trails and the beach. That cachers are the ones out there actually trying to help. My 5 yr old is the recycling and garbage police at our house so she had a few words too. I think just taking the time to explain it to people as the subject comes up is a reasonable way to handle it. The check-out lady was very receptive to what we said, although when we left she called out "remember to stay on the trails!"

My daughter is 5. I've been considering getting her a GS ID so that she can log her finds. My thinking is that she'll be caching with other people when she gets older (friends, or other relatives) and she'll need an ID at that point, but what about all of those caches we found together up to that point? She'll need to go back to every single one and write her name in the log so she can come back here and log it and get a smiley for her account. If we get her the account now, she'll have a wonderful record of all of our finds and memories to take with her as she grows. A couple of weeks ago, we went out to retrieve a cache that was in horrible condition, the CO hadn't responded to my e-mails and hadn't logged in since last year. The plan was to replace it with a new container and log book and save the old one for if/when the CO contacted me. Well it was so bad there was nothing to save. Anyway ~ my daughter took so much pride in picking out the container, the log book, the new swag...it was really interesting to watch. She felt tremendous responsibility for the cache and THAT is something I want to encourage and something I think we all need to encourage in children. She has a library card with her own signature on it. Yes, if she lost a book, I'd ultimately be responsible, but I don't think that means she shouldn't have a library card or be stopped from checking out books until she's 18

This elk, was quite a ways up the trail when he crossed with two females and a baby...couldn't get the camera up fast enough to capture the others. This was on our hike to GCHX47. Saw this one in the vicinity of GC19H7A, it just hung out and watched us until we left.

Two of the more impressive animals we've come across while caching

My daughter is NEVER taking play-doh from a cache again Gross!

Ya know all the jokes about Chuck Norris going geocaching? Well... That's it, I'm getting a geocaching sticker! Who/what is geoman?

I might be willing to drop a few near the Canadian border but that's as far as I go... Stupid new passport requirements!! WooHoo ~ I'm in Ocean Shores, WA...that's not too far from the border. There is hope for me yet

Yep, adequate container gets my vote.

Because no one knows if they have an active pirate in their area until AFTER they lose a cache I imagine new pirates emerge all the time, unfortunately.

I can see where a person could look at it that way, but I look at it as if you're willing to pay $30 a year ( 8 cents a day!) to support the hobby, then you're more likely to be of the mindset to enhance the game rather than degrade it. That is NOT to say that I feel someone who ISN'T paying the $30 a year is degrading the caches...I hope it doesn't sound like that. Just that those people who ARE degrading the caches are probably not paying $30 a year to do so. Did that make sense? I'm probably digging a hole...LOL