Trekkin' and birdin'

Still pokier than all get out at 2PM CDT. If it weren't a rainy cruddy day here, it would not be such a problem for us!

I use that app all the time, but it doesn't seem to allow me to cover all of North America, so I was hoping folks from other areas would share their knowledge and I can build a bookmark list for the D/T lovers among us!

We had started geocaching rather casually. About a year into the game, we'd stopped completely due to some significant family stress that dominated our lives at the time. One afternoon on a crummy rainy fall afternoon, I looked at Trekkin' and said....."let's just go out and do a couple of hiking caches to get away from this." We found it to be such a wonderful break from what was happening that we realized it would help us through all that. Although those problems were finally resolved after having to make some tough decisions and things are now going swimmingly, we both agree that our enjoyment of caching is in some respects our continuing thanks to that "help" it gave us through one of the most difficult times in our parenting lives.

This seems to be the rarest of the rare combos needed to qualify for the original Well Rounded Cacher, aka Fizzy, in California. There is one below the Mackinac Bridge near the Straits I'm hoping to find in another month or so. I know there is also one in Duluth MN, but the ratings change with the seasons. I found one more in the San Diego area about a womb. Any others out there in the US or Canadian border areas? I'll have more travel opportunities soon, and others might like to know what's still out there, too.

We continue to add photos to any EarthCaches that request them, and some that don't. It looks as if most of the ones we own also continue to have photos added, although occasionally we get an odd one or two. EarthCaches in general take us to places where you'd want to take photos anyway. I've never loved the "stare at the camera and hold up your GPSr" ones, so for most of ours, we like seeing photos of people enjoying the area, or even just nice photos of the landscape. I guess we figure if the cache owner went to the effort to do the work of setting these up, we can thank them by honoring their logging requirements.

Thanks, I'll give this a try and hopefully that will do it for me.

Is there a "fix for dummies" somewhere, you know, that looks like the Wherigo tutorial? I have been experiencing this issue trying to create my first cartridge, and now at least I understand the issue. I don't however have the tech savvy to understand some of the directions explaining just how to repair the issue. I have a Windows Vista laptop, so presumably, I need to install some kind of patch or something. Beyond that, I don't understand what all you're all saying I'd need to do. Thanks!

A couple months ago, I posted here asking for ideas for some geocaching while I would be in the area for a storytelling conference. I'm nearing the end of my time, here and all the suggestions given me were much appreciated. I hiked all over Signal Hill and the Geo Trails finding caches. I visited the Extreme East and Cape Spear lighthouse. Even grabbed one when we were in Brigus yesterday. I have really enjoyed the little taste of caching I had, and I credit those who gave me such excellent suggestions to bring me to places I'd want to see anyway. I didn't quite get all I'd hoped, but I'm very happy with the ones I did. And happier at my good fortune that brought me to Newfoundland to enjoy the sights and sounds. I got five new life birds as well, including Puffins, of course. Thanks again!

Regarding your question about the "spoilers"....you will get many differing opinions on that. With very rare exceptions, like once or twice a year, we've stopped using the phone a friend option when we get stuck. We have learned we really enjoy the "aha" when we finally find one that has us stumped. We'll take the DNF, we might ask the cache owner for a general hint, but we like the discovery aspect...which is for us, what this hobby is all about. Others would like the preview and hints, as they might find it a learning experience that helps with hunts on down the road. In the end, it's your site and you should feel free to offer up your vision of the site. As for Bart's comment about the center of the universe......it's about time someone across the rivers accepted this fact!

There used to be caches at the University of Wisconsin Green Bay campus, but the powers that be decided to institute a no caching policy. The ones that were there had to removed, much to the dismay of many in that caching community. I can't remember what the major concern that led to the decision might have been. Our alma mater in central Wisconsin has quite a few caches, due to the fact that for a few years there was a very active geocaching club on campus. Those people have graduated and moved on, and no one has been able to bring it back to the activity level it had been, so I suppose those caches will eventually disappear. Some of the campuses in Wisconsin have caches, some do not. Most listings seem to mention permissions. I think it's usually buildings and grounds folks.

I had an elective class in college. My great uncle was a geologist for the Federal government, working with the copper mining industry out west. Both my family and Trekkin's family have miners in our recent ancestors, so I'm sure those family ties helped shape this interest. And I love to read and learn about the forces that shape our world.

Letterboxers will carry their own personal stamp, usually hand carved, to stamp in the letterbox log book. The letterbox will have its own stamp that you can use to stamp in your own letterbox log book. The geocaching letterbox hybrids can be hit or miss with the stamp part of it. We have a few hybrids out, and all but one have handcarved stamps. One was taken and I had to make a new one, but otherwise they have been left in the caches. We have our own handcarved stamp, which looks like our avatar. Our dog ate our first one, so we had to make a new one. Our dog also ate my 60cs! She's a little more grown up now, no more stuff getting eaten other than dog food and grass!

Dave, We can sure appreciate and applaud you for keeping your priorities straight. We've enjoyed the use of the INATN site since discovering it, and will really miss that cool feature allowing one to click on a D/T cell to see which caches qualified. Thanks for sharing your talents with the rest of us all this time. Now go enjoy your growing family!

As someone with 94 hybrid finds in our profile, and also pure letterbox finds on the LBNA site, I will say that artistic ability or not, your efforts WILL be appreciated by those of us who like the letterboxing aspect. All of the hybrids we've placed, which I think is about 8 so far, have carved stamps. I'm in complete agreement with the other poster who suggested that a carved stamp related to the hide is what sets these apart. The sad part is, even with labeling them right on the stamp (not a trade item, do not remove) the danger is there for them to be taken as trade items. I have had to carve a new stamp once for this reason.

I know of a couple of bookcrossing geocaches, one in Minnesota and one in eastern Wisconsin. One was a letterbox hybrid in a big ice fishing bucket placed in an area that could support that size of cache, the other a big ammo can. I had books with me and ready to go, as I have done bookcrossing longer than geocaching (but not nearly as avidly as caching!) I think I did make an actual trade at one, but just left my book at the other.

I did get to INATN and it acted like it was loading everything up, but when everything was done, it was the same as before. So maybe the site is experiencing some difficulties.

Just ran a my finds PQ, but tried twice uploading it to INATN, and it's posting the one from my last PQ. So is it the INATN site or the My finds that's goofed up?

The Wisconsin Geocaching Association has sponsored a Lonely Cache Game, now in its third year. Usually these are the greatest caches to visit and I know when I was actively pursuing it, we were finding some out in the middle of nowhere that hadn't been found in over a year. There are still some of these we want to find some day. We just pick interesting places or caches we want to visit now and work our day around that, but it isn't unusual that some of what we find is lonely. It's really been great for improving the caching experience in the state. If one is hunted and appears missing, the reviewers get notice right away. Sometimes an owner will allow a replacement to be put out, but in many cases, they are MIA owners and it's better to archive them. New ones generally appear soon, because whoever was looking discovered a place worth visiting.

5/4.5 is the combination that is rarest for me to find within 300 miles with the date restrictions for the original Fizzy. Like you, we were very close to the one we'll probably try to find next summer near the Mackinac Straits. We do have three qualifying ones, although one is really a liar's cache so I sort of ignore that. But none are quite old enough for the original. 4.5 is the toughest around here as well, especially terrain. Difficulty of that rating is only slightly more common. 5 difficulty is the rarest, I suppose because most placers figure no one will go for those. I have a few solves of that ilk that we just have to get around to finding.

Yeah, we were hoping we could qualify in time to get out to CA and get a coin, too, but that's life! Congratulations. Washington requires all of them to be located in WA, correct? Some do, some don't. Each is a little different. We own the Wisconsin one and require at least 'some' WI finds, which shouldn't be too tough. There are about a half dozen in the same county forest where it's located.

We have really enjoyed what we've needed to do to complete our grid. We first filled it in September 2008. We've now filled it at least twice. Next goal....just two more to have it meet the requirements for the original Fizzy in northern California. We love the challenging caches and adventures anyway, so completing this has helped us find some of those we might never have noticed otherwise. We did one in the upper peninsula of Michigan that had us crossing waves on Lake Superior to an island...on foot. 4/4.5 GCPDYN We did another called Eagle Source on snowshoes, pushing through tamarack swamp out in the middle of nowhere. It today is still our favorite cache, a 1/4.5. GC10XXQ Challenging puzzles have been the other mind expander for us to fill out some of the difficulty cells. Really, the true fun for us comes in being pushed to discover new places and challenges we might miss. Getting a smiley on the challenge cache itself is just a nice bonus. I discovered a macro from the GSAK forum that runs the numbers for all the different challenges. For us, it's worked pretty slick. Whenever we get a chance to travel, if we can meet the requirements for some of these, we'll stop. Hopefully we can make the trip to the Des Moines area sometime soon, as we've met muster with the owner of that one.

Happening to me as well. Darn! Guess we'll have to go without those nice details.

As a storyteller and geocacher, I find this idea really, really appealing. If you'd like one to start its journey along the upper Mississippi River valley, we'd be glad to help a story along. I've got a little experience in both moving stories along and moving TBs. Really a cool concept, thanks for letting us all know what you're doing. I've already added the blog to my bookmarks!

Same thing here. Would have run them sooner, but was told to wait, because more stuff will be published in the area. Greed got me, I guess. Hope it's fixed soon.

I look forward to visiting Extreme East. I still don't know the entire schedule for the conference, but it looks like we'll be moving about beyond St. Johns. Cupids is on the itinerary, I believe. I also hope at some point I can actually see moose, as it sounds like they are around on the TCH. The family joke has long been.....if I'm in the area, the moose will vanish. Northern Minnesota, Sleeping Giant Provincial Park......saw hoofprints and nothing more. I'm really looking forward to the Signal Hill trail as well. A couple of you have shared links to photo galleries and it looks wonderful. I've been reading a book called "The Iambics of Newfoundland" to get a feel...albeit 20 years back....for the province.