Brad, I am also new to this caching thing, and when I say new, I am not kidding. I have so far found 1, yes 1 cache, and it was just a log. My wife and I found it yesterday and I felt like a 9 year old boy again finding a $10 bill on the ground. Ok, cool enough, but I am a little wound up about the whole thing. The big draw for me is not really the hunt, although I can fully understand that about all the rest of the world's cachers are in it for that hunt and find. For me, I wanted to get some practical, real world use out of my GPS, BEFORE being on a hunt here in Alaska. I look up and it's too dark to get back to camp, GPS is back in my tent because I never could figure out how to use the darn thing. That's me 100%. I have had a GPS for several years...maybe 6 or 7 years without learning to use it. Yes, it's pathetic I know, but it's my story. Anyway, I am with you on the value of the cache. I am presently gathering up a few items to put in the caches I will place, and choosing containers and such. Just today I was at our Base Exchange and looking in the fishing and hunting department. I had chosen a couple small, ceramic knife sharpeners, a pair of fishing line snips, and also a couple of those little LED keychain lights from Inova and Photon. Yeah, I just about broke myt budget for the whole month, but I wanted to put a couple caches out there with some really neat stuff. I am a gadget and knife freak and do a lot of knife trading back and forth. Sometimes ya get beat up on a trade, sometimes, you do ok. On the caching, you'll likely end up with some cheap erasers and whatever someone had in a drawer at the house not being used. Either way, I agree with most of the folks on here that it's more what you put in than take out anyway. I just would hope if someone got a $6 knife sharpener out of my cache, they would really appreciate it and find good use for it.
