Brad Reardon

I started geo-caching with my 4 year old son - so we could spend a little time together out in the woods. Hiking/camping/canoeing are our main interests. That being said, I am only interested in caches that meet the following criteria... 1) In the woods, on a trail or unmarked 2) 1-2 mile hike, moderate to semi-difficult terrain 3) Traditional Caches (no micro's). I understand there is a place for urban micro caches, they just don't interest me in the slightest. Is there a way I can narrow the results search engine to block them out? I have to read each one to see if it qualifies, seems like a lot of work. One thing I've learned, if it does seem to be a lot of work, there is usually a way around it...which is why I'm asking. Thanks!!!

I received mine, but there is a production error on it. The tracking numbers are "double stamped" at one place and are illegible. I will not be placing the travel bug, because it would be pointless if you can't log it, track it, move it, etc. Who should I contact???

Has anybody noticed that when you ask a typical cacher what they enjoy most about caching (myself included), they will say something like "enjoying mother nature". But then you ask them about the coolest things they've found while caching, most of them post pictures man-made objects (myself included)? I enjoy caching with my 4 y/o son to go out and enjoy nature. But we typically find the most iteresting things are typically man-made ruins. If you look at the pictures above, it looks like 75% of them are man-made at one time or another. Oh the irony.

Alrighty, I can handle just buying the buttons and not the 1-buck each thing. Thanks for the opinions, I was looking to see what the more experienced geo-cachers thought, and it looks like I got it.

I'm new to caching, so take all of this as coming from a newbie. My 3 year old son and I have started this up recently and have three finds. All of them are in Woodstock, GA - so maybe the issue is local. When we get to the cache, they are usually full of what I would call "Happy Meal" toys. We basically trade one Happy Meal toy for another, he plays with it for 5 minutes (how much fun is a Happy Meal toy anyway...LOL), then it ends up in the toy box. We can put it on a shelf and label it as a cache find - but it seems pretty silly to label a hot wheels car, a robot, and a plastic wrench. What suprises me is that there is no typical souvenier that is a keeper. Like a button or a hat pin that you can keep as a collection. My son and I are going to start a few caches, and we would like to have some simple, small (1") buttons made that just has a design that relates to the cache, kind of a momento of the trip for who-ever finds it. I'll throw some toys in for the kiddies, but the button is intended for the Dads or other adult cachers. It's more about the find than the "treasure" type of mentaility for most of us I'm assuming. The geo-coins seems a little expensive and silly to me. It's about where WE go, not where the coin goes (again, this just my perspective). The idea is to put 30 buttons as described in the cache, as well as 30 self-labelled envelopes. So, the adults would take a button and an envelope, and mail a buck to back to us to pay for the button. It looks like the buttons cost about .50 cents, so as long as every other person follows through, we break even. Furthermore, even if I don't break even, well...I don't really care all that much. Good idea? Bad idea? Already being done in most cache's and I'm just not finding the right ones?