Team Maximus

I'm leaving tomorrow on a 11 state and 2 canadian province trip... I was supposed to leave today but packing/preparing for a 2+ month trip is taking a bit longer than expected. I have posted some info in the first few logs at My Webpage which details what software and hardware I am using to do this. If your interested I plan to keep that log updated each day from the road using my camera phone and my web server. The key as others have already stated is becoming a member and downloading GPX files, this is the bare minimum necessary to get started in my opinion. I also have used the technique outlined here to create the 18 separate pocket queries I am using. See a map of my route and geocaches Here. Ideally you would go paperless and use a PDA for at least storing cache pages. Or you could go all gung ho like me and add turn-by-turn voice prompting mapping with integration of caches on the mapping software using a PDA in conjunction with GPSr and Mapopolis. I also use G7toCE to upload/download waypoints to solve the 500wpt limit problem of my GPSr. I talk all about this in more depth on my website listed above. Hope that is some help. Good Luck, If you have more questiongs you will have to ask the rest of these guys because I'm heading out tomorrow for the Great White North.

Well the day grows near and I am heading off on my first geocaching roadtrip around the Western USA and Canada. I plan to spend several months and around 10,000 miles exploring and caching. For anyone who wants to follow me along the way I have setup a blog here. The plan is to send updates with photos everyday for the entire trip using my web enabled camera phone.

There are several caches around here that use this concept. Two of my favorites are Ka-Ho-Nee Falls and Wahe Ka-Ho-Nee. These aren't for the faint of heart but if your in for a real adventure these are simply awesome. Check out some of the many pics and logs on the cache pages, they are great.

Well mine is the subject of my sig item as well, and I created it all by myself This version might be a bit difficult to carve, but it is essentially line art and if I won I could supply a simplified version.

Coins look great guys! I don't live in Wa, but only a few miles on the other side of the Columbia in Portland. I'll definately be taking 5 or 10 of these babies. I may have to give some money to one of the local PDX cachers to make an order for me since I'm about ready to leave on a geocaching roadtrip for the next 2 months and may not have much computer access to keep abreast of what's going on here.

It takes a while for the map to be generated by the server. It will eventually show up however.

Thanks everyone, this is great stuff; exactly what I was looking for, keep it coming.

Bump.... hoping to get a few more repies.

Thanks everyone for the posts, keep them coming!! GeoCraig, your absolutely right. At least the Canadian NP's let dogs on the trails so I plan to do lots of hiking there. Once back in the states I am going to be forced to make mostly day trips within the parks viewing what I can from the road. That is one of the reasons for this post, I know there are lots of beautiful areas out there near the NP's that will allow my dog on the trail as long as he's on a leash. I'm hoping geocaching will take me to many of these places. I'm going to limit my NP time for this very reason. If all else fails I may choose to kennel my dog for a few days here and there but want to avoid that as much as possible. I struggled with the decision to take my dog or to kennel him for the whole trip, as I didn't have anyone willing to care for him for the entire trip. I finally decided I couldn't live with kenneling him for such a long time (2 1/2 months). As far as the heat in the southwest and especally Death Valley, I'm hoping things will cool down a bit by the time I reach there. I shouldn't reach death valley until sometime in October. DocMagoo, Those caches look promising. I have change my route slightly through that area, I'm now going to take the Sea to Sky highway through Whistler and on to Revelstoke but I may still be able to go to "Hey you hoser" as I plan to stay somewhere around the Vancouver area my first night and that's not too far off the route. Oh, and btw I the reason I have this much time off of work is I work for a very cool company that gives me a 8 week paid sabbatical every 7th year. Yes I'm lucky I'm tacking on 2 more weeks of vacation to this to give me a total of 10 weeks off.

At the end of August I will begin a roadtrip around the western United States and Canada. I plan to be gone as long as about 8 weeks, however I have 10 weeks off of work just incase. My goal with this trip is to visit the natural wonders of the western U.S and Canada, take lots of pictures, and Geocache my heart out! I plan to visit OR,WA,CA,ID,MT,WY,CO,NV,AZ,UT,NM, British Columbia and Alberta. You can view my tentative route here. If your on dialup, beware it's a very large graphic (488kB). I want to see many of the National Parks, however I will be bringing my faithful geocaching companion Max so that will limit what I can do on National Park lands. I plan to spend about 80% of the time camping and sleeping in the back of my truck and the rest staying in dog friendly hotels/motels. I will have all the gear needed for camping/hiking/backpacking...etc and my geocaching gear will include a PDA (Pocket PC), my Garmin Etrex Summit, and 20 pocket queries which will get created the week prior to my departure. I'm unsure how much access to the internet I will have while I am gone, so I'm hoping not to run into too many archived/unavailable caches. Well that's fine and dandy you might be saying to yourself but what the heck am I posting here for??? Well I am hoping to get ideas from you, my fellow geocachers of some of the best of the best caches out there. What are the caches I simply can't miss in each state/province/area. I would prefer them to be within a reasonable distance to my route, but if the cache is special enough I am not against changing my route to include it. The only thing I can't do really is extend the length of my trip by much, if I add in one place I will probably need to take away from somewhere else. I don't care what type of cache it is... micro, traditional, puzzle, multi, long hike, short hike......etc It just needs to be one of the best of the best in your area. I will say my personal preference due to the nature of the trip would be for non-urban caches, but that's just in general. If you give me an urban cache that just can't be missed well, I will definatly give it a thought. I don't plan to spend much time in major cities however, so keep that in mind when giving me ideas. Also if anyone out there is experienced with such a trip, feel free to post advice on how you kept up to date on caches while on the trip. I will have pocket queries covering most of the area I will travel in, but they will only be current as of my departure date and my web access may be slim to none during the trip because I don't have a laptop and will be using my PDA exclusivly on the trip. Thanks in advance to any and all who post with their suggestions.

Here is Max the Geo-retriever on one of his many finds. He loves the long hikes, in the last several weeks we have done over 20 miles on the trail, and he never wants to stop. -Team Maximus It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters in the end. --Ursula K. LeGuin

Shotski the TB has taken a few victims does that count Shotski Travel Bug -Team Maximus

This would be a great feature. I find myself browsing caches lots of times when I'm not really planning to go caching right away. If I find a particularly interesting cache it would be great to be able to have a watch list such as places like (amazon.com or ebay.com...etc.) to save a link to individual cache pages, that way when I'm ready to go caching I can make my first stop my watch list. --Team Maximus

I'm thinking that A12, 14, and 25 might have to be counted under acceptable civilian casualities after the war!

The yearly champoeg event cache (or actually a series of event caches) would definately qualify as weird, crazy, cool, amazing....and pretty much any other adjectives you can come up with. Just read a little of the discussion here to see a glimpse of the mayhem to come in June.

who me, Sassquatch? I wouldn't hurt a fly. Of course I might hit one with a high velocity water balloon but that's besides the point.

I just purchased "the beast" water balloon launcher which is supposed to launch 1/8 of a mile... I couldn't have Yurtville go unprotected.

I was playing around on Terraserver tonight and was able to get a screenshot of yurtville, heck at this resolution you could almost see someone holding a beer.

I'll be making this my first event cache. I havn't frequented the forums so most of you don't know me but I guess I will see you all there. I talked to Quantum Mechanic and Sassquatch the other day and I'll be drinking...er staying with them since they have room for one more.

My original name was an uninventive form of my real name. My screenname now comes from the fact that I almost always geocache with my yellow labrador retriever Max. His full name is actually Aurelius Maximus which from latin loosely translates to "the great golden one". When he was only 8 weeks old I found out about the sport of geocaching and thought it was a great way to get out and give him a walk and to find some interesting places to explore. Note: looks like my sign-in name is still being used here in the forums, when I log a cache however it shows up as Team Maximus.

The pictures at the link above show pretty much everything. There is no email address or anything to keep track of his travels...That is what struck me as strange...I just don't see why anyone would want to release a hitchhiker that they would have no way of keeping track of. The hitchhiker simply has a message on him asking the finder to help Finian get to his destination of Gogarty's pub at the corner of Fleet and Anglesea in Dublin, Ireland. ==Team Maximus==

I recently found what I believe was intended to be a sort of travel bug however maybe unofficially....there where no tags attached. I am wondering if anyone else has found something like this or if they have heard about this guy "Finian the Flying Leprechaun". Please see my log here. There you will find pictures and a description of the find. ==Team Maximus==