Dreamer of Pictures

Size is important to finders because proper specification of size helps limit the types and therefore numbers of hideouts to be examined. It would help TREMENDOUSLY if geocaching.com literally displayed a summary of the size specs in the page on which people select a size. I was curious and researched the size specs through the knowledge base many years ago. Nowadays, people who do not know any better use LARGE to mean "bigger than a 30 cal ammo box", SMALL to mean "smaller than an ammo box", and REGULAR to mean "any cache that is not virtual or puzzle or meeting or Wherigo". I have seen this all up and down the East Coast and in May 2018 in Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota. There remains an ambiguity in the geocaching.com size specs. Does the size indicate internal capacity or external volume? Some caches have minimal internal volume and are much bigger on the outside. For finding purposes, the external volume is key. For planning where to drop a trackable, the internal volume is key.

Interesting locations are memorable, such as the Dolly Sods cache in West Virginia, literally embedded in a cliff on the Eastern Continental Divide adjacent acres of wild blueberries, or the cache found at sundown in an assembled ghost town in Kansas. Or interesting cache history, such as Mingo in Kansas, the oldest still active in the US. Sometimes the interest is personal, such as the cache across the street from the house where I grew up, but nonetheless memorable personally. Or the two I found based solely on description and a map, when my GPS batteries died, in Grayson Highlands State Park in Virginia. On the flip side, lightpole skirt caches and guardrail caches are not only a cliche but often accumulate hazards unplanned by the CO, such as spiders or wasps. I seldom remember the individual caches in those situations. It was fun to introduce the managers of a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Pueblo Colorado to the micro hidden behind a sign on the front porch of the restaurant. I thought they deserved to know that visitors have a reason to be nosing around, and the cache was placed by a Cracker Barrel marketing guy. There are truly rare and unusual comtainers, memorable for that reason alone, such as the antique fire truck in Arizona (possibly the largest cache container in the world) or the elaborate, artistic flying insect built around a bison tube in Denver. Some hides involving a memorable back story, such as Zombie Town in the New Mexico Rt 66 abandoned truckstop, Bobcat Crossing in Virginia, and the Fairfax Stone in West Virginia. Our own unusual solutions can be memorable. We used battery powered LED floodlamps to illuminate a Utah hillside to find a cache amid towering boulders at 9:45 PM local time. I elaborately planned a solo sojourn to the White Sandy Beach cache on the Delaware RIver. A decent view or hidden natural wonder revealed is a darn good payoff. There are two caches adjacent the highest point in Maryland, with great views across the hills to the north and to the southwest. In my home county, 100% suburban, a cache led me to a spring that I had not previously known about. My daughter and I adored a remote and hidden triple waterfall in West Virginia, and found the cache hidden on the vertical face of the downstream falls. Some are memorable but not in the pleasant sense. There was an Elkins WV town square where an overexcited muggle literally called the city cops rather loudly as we searched for a cache placed there by a state government agency. The muggle even pulled up behind our van and read our license plate to the cops. What a disincentive. We did find that cache regardless. And the cops appeared to be in no hurry to find us. Then there are the ones that got away. We meant to drive to the top of Pikes Peak for caches and the 02 bar, but we happened to arrive in Colorado Springs on Commencement Day at the USAF Academy. The President was the featured speaker, and the police shut down all roads west of I-25 as a security precaution. Once I was walking by a stream in my home county seeking a puzzle cache, and came within two feet of an adult copperhead lounging nearby, putting a rapid end to that investigation. But those are few and far between. In general geocaching has been great fun.

I have just finished reading a geocaching novel by Richard Hale, entitled Cache 72. A month or so ago I read Cached Out by Russell Atkinson. I read both using the Kindle app on my Nexus 7 tablet. This is what my English teachers would have called a Contrast & Compare. Both novels involve geocaching, of course. Serial Cacher is set in the region around San Jose CA, Cache 72 is a tour of many interesting parts of Florida. The primary cacher and investigator in both are former law enforcement officers. Cached out was my first venture into geocaching fiction. It set a standard that I think may be difficult to beat. One of the interesting and very strong aspects of the book was the way in which different law enforcement agencies and their field officers have not only different and sometimes overlapping jurisdictions but varying strengths and weaknesses. That's one reason why they sometimes need to work together, but also to some extent is a source of friction, conflict. Atkinson does a very good job of portraying all the characters and their motivations and opinions of each other. This was a treat. On top of that, he provided a very convincing reason for some of the field agents to do a credible fast learning curve on geocaching: they had to establish cover and mingle with real cachers at meets, and in particular draw out an elusive cache owner by becoming the FTF on one of his caches. And the protagonist is for quite a while considered a suspect himself, even as he acts as the subject matter expert for geocaching to support the agencies investigating a series of murders. While Atkinson has acknowledged that many geocaching fiction stories revolve around murder, Cache 72 is interesting because the first crime coming to the attention of our protagonist is a kidnapping. Ultimately a number of other related crimes, including some murders, come to light. The bad guy is quite prolific in Cache 72,, and the book is definitely a thriller, with the good guys fighting not only the twisted sequence of caches set by the bad guy across Florida but also massive fatigue, injuries and a variety of other challenges. Cache 72 has a somewhat different take on the relationships and frictions among agencies. Basically, few officers take the protagonist seriously, at least until secure recordings of surveillance camera streams start vanishing and bombs start going off. One reason for this lack of cooperation becomes obvious during the final plot twists, and I am not going to tell you why here because it would spoil the read, but the protagonist gets help from almost nobody except his wife, who is a former FBI agent and no slouch on the investigation side, a Florida wildlife officer, who is also no slouch, and a cacher who is a legendary find-everything guy in his part of Florida, along with the cacher's girlfriend. All of these players are portrayed in some detail. Still, for characterization and also for the agency procedural points, including management strengths as well as weaknesses, I think Atkinson stands out. He deftly brings to life a very impressive range of characters. Hall realistically paints his protagonist, an ex-cop investigator, as understanding certain shortcomings of the law enforcement agencies he must deal with, and he is no diplomat, so he wastes no time antagonizing the officers who might otherwise be willing to help. But the recipients of that treatment are little more than cardboard reactors, we learn almost nothing about their thinking. Prior work experience may play a role here. Atkinson has FBI experience, and I would bet he worked cases in cooperation with state and local agencies. Hall has experience in many career paths but not law enforcement. I would definitely pay money to read a sequel from Atkinson. I am not quite so eager for a sequel from Hall. Cache 72 was a good read and, in my distant past, I have visited many of the Florida communities depicted, so part of the charm for me was wondering if the story would visit Florida neighborhoods I can recall. His other novel involving the same protagonist is set much earlier in the character's life, long before he began caching. It may well be set in my home community, but that alone would not cause me to part with money for the Kindle edition.

Discovering new and interesting places has been a major draw for me: 2013: A rock formation with a unique view down to the small town where my dad was born (found an easy jeep trail leading to the rocks, but I could not quite find the geocache) 2012: A very isolated triple waterfall near a seldom-used fire road on a mountain. 2012: On that same road trip, the Cadillac Ranch, car bodies nose down in a real working cattle ranch in Amarillo. A photo I took of that amazing art won a first prize in Color Abstract/Pattern at the county fair back home. 2012: Picking up one caches or more in each of 14 different states on our family road trip to New Mexico, including one hidden in a long-dead truck stop on Route 66 at the end of four miles of long-dead businesses on Route 66 (a reasonable setting for Walking Dead and the like). 2011: A summer kitchen shack, older than I am; at that one, I had a nice chat with my son and his friend about the reason why a summer kitchen existed. 2003: (my find #16) A cliffside cache on the Eastern Continental Divide - rain falling on my left would run into the Mississippi, and on my right into the Chesapeake.

Hi there. I live in Arlington VA, sister city of Aachen, Germany. My family has traveled to Aachen three times for student exchange programs in the past 12 years. We found two caches in the area of Aachen. August 18 is International Geocaching Day. Several of the local geocaching organizations will hold public events on that day. You can see a list of upcoming geocaching organization events on this web site. For instance, the Virginia list can be seen using this URL: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?state_id=47 For Maryland, here is the URL: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?state_id=21 Good luck! Dreamer of Pictures

Rest stop search: use the state government web sites. I did a similar search in May, while planning a road trip to New Mexico. Ultimately, I found I preferred to use the large maps on geocaching.com and spot caches physically located near interstate exits. Also there was a short-lived effort by Cracker Barrel to place micro caches at their stores. We found two in Colorado, placed by their employee. We know of one in VA but have not yet found it. Must-find caches: I can make some suggestions. I live in Arlington VA and have located caches near the I-66/I-81 interchange, as well as around the DC metro region. Wild Cat Crossing: northwest of I-81 on VA RT 55, now co-designated US 48. Take I-81 exit 296 in VA (two exits south of I-66), head west. The history recited in the cache description is fascinating. Windy Run: a diabolical location in an Arlington VA park. we had a team of 9 working to find this and it still took half an hour in the immediate vicinity of the GZ. Upton Hills Regional Park: a clever multicache in a regional park in Arlington VA. For reasons that will become obvious, must be done while the minigolf course within the park is open for business. Good luck! Dreamer of Pictures

Hello. I am a geocacher with 9 years of experience, a former college broadcaster (TV and radio), and a former volunteer producer of concert and stage play DVDs and audio CDs for H-B Woodlawn in Arlington VA. I ran a DJ service here in DC from 1979 to 1992 as a hobby. I was publicity Director of the Arlington County Fair for two years in the late 90s and appeared on camera on behalf of that organization. My family is involved in geocaching; we just returned from a 9-day vacation during which we found 29 geocaches in West Virginia and Maryland. We also took a vacaton in May to see the solar eclipse in New Mexico; during that road trip, we found 24 geocaches in AR, OK, NM, AZ, UT, CO, KS, MO, IL, KY, and TN. Among other things, geocaching is a great way to break up a long road trip. We have logged over 200 geocache finds in 9 years. I used to develop computer systems for federal agencies, and one of those was for VOA in the early 90s. I worked onsite at VOA HQ for 2 years. Interesting place. Online handle: Dreamer of Pictures email: dreamerofpix@gmail.com Real name, phone number etc available on request

Here's how I have been creating CITO drop-ins for geocaches. CONTAINERS. I've been shooting 35mm film for 28 years, and for ages I kept the film cans on hand as containers, for my kids' craft projects, etc. A year or so back, a science teacher wanted to build rockets with them, and took my entire inventory of plastic film cans, maybe 40 film cans. I still have a few of the metal cans from the 60s. Now I shoot digital, and so does my family, so we do not buy film anymore. I went to my favorite photo store, which includes a 1-hour minilab for developing film (this is critical; labs get film cans from customers), and they remembered my face. I asked for empty film cans. They said, "one trash bag or two?". They were DELIGHTED to find some way to get rid of these things. I took one trash bag. It contained about 200 film cans. Of those, maybe 75 were translucent, and the remainder were gray or black. I use the translucent ones as CITO drop-ins, with exterior labels to explain their purpose. I may end up using a few of the black or gray ones for microcaches. Otherwise we have inventory for crafts, rockets, or for sale. Wanna buy some? LABELS. Labeling is simple if you use MS Word and shop at Staples or CompUSA or the like. Buy any Avery Dennison brand inkjet or laser mailing labels. I buy the 4" wide by 1" deep variety, arranged 2 across (known generically as "2 up")by 10 deep on an 8.5x11 sheet. It turns out that a 4" label will wrap around a 35mm film can very nicely. To print your favorite label text and graphics, keep the box of labels with you; it has an Avery Dennsion 4-digit product number that you will need to know. Here's how to print the labels using MS Word 97. The Tools menu has an envelops and labels option. Choose that option, which causes a window to open. In that new window, click on the Labels tab. Click on the label portrayed in the lower right corner of the window. This click causes a Label Options window to open, including a menu of product numbers. Scroll to the Avery Dennison 4-digit product number that matches what you bought, and select that item from the menu. Click on the OK button in the upper right corner of the Label Options window, which closes the window, and returns you to the Labels tab. Click on the New Document button in the upper right corner of the Labels tab. This causes Word to create a new document containing a table laid out to fit the 8.5x11 sheet of labels. You can fit your label into one 1"x4" cell, and then copy it to all the other 1"x4" cells in the table. Save your document, and you are ready to print. I like the travel bug idea, but I have distributed over 20 of these CITO bottles into caches so far, and I have another 20 ready to be used. I cannot afford to spend the $6.50 per bottle to make each a travel bug. BAGS. Most small thin-guage plastic shopping bags will compress very nicely into a film can. Additionally we receive our daily newspaper inside a plastic bag each day, and that bag type also compresses nicely into a film can. No magic or jujitsu involved in compression. Put a few vertical folds in the bag, so that it is long and thin, with the open end of the bag at one end. Squeeze the air out by rolling from the bottom to the open end. At that point the rolled-up bag is barely larger than the film can, and can be crammed in using fingers without difficulty. If it is difficult, then the bag is too big or its plastic is too thick. Dreamer of Pictures

Recently on vacation I saw three fiberglass witness posts, apparently identical. The first was very close to a ground-level disk that I was specifically seeking. The second was in a minigolf course which is part of the ferry terminal at Lewes Delaware. The ground surface is covered in small pebbles; we scooped away the pebbles nearby (but not comprehensively), and could not find any benchmark. The third was in the wildlife refuge adjacent the Cape May (NJ) Lighthouse, on the blue trail along the beach dune, on the way to the Cape May Point Lighthouse Trek geocache. There were other metal posts nearby, and perhaps one of those was the actual benchmark. However, these second and third posts were not near (within 100 feet of) any benchmarks shown by the geocaching.com list. I wonder: is it possible that the witness posts were officially placed far from the corresponding benchmarks? The first one I saw was very near its corresponding benchmark. Dreamer of Pictures

I have tried Photosuite Platinum 4, Photoshop Elements 1, Olympus Camedia 2.5, and maybe an Arcsoft package. The most versatile of these is Elements. Can stitch regardless of the order in which the photos were shot, and can stitch horizontally, vertically, an array, on a diagonal, etc. Very nice. Caution it is very memory hungry. Dreamer of Pictures

I wonder if geocaching has ever used or considered using cache-hunter ratings of site difficulty and terrain, instead of or in addition to cache-placer ratings. Generally speaking, in our home area, we have found a considerable difference in actual degree of difficulty in caches rated at difficulty 1, and a considerable difference in terrain between caches rated at terrain 1. My guess is that the experience and preferences of the cache-placers vary a lot. Some may think easy means say 10 minutes of off-path semi-bushwhacking, and others may think easy means on the edge of a paved path in a fully described and easily recognizable hiding place. I am sure the same is true for cache-finders. However, as time goes, and more folks find a given cache, and the finders post ratings for their own sense of difficulty and terrain for each found cache, then the average of those ratings might produce more uniformity in the ratings than what I have experienced thus far. Dreamer of Pictures

Jamie, perhaps you forgot conservation of angular momentum. A couple of decades back, a girl who was a grad student in Astronomy advised me that it was possible with then current tech to measure the slow-down in Earth's rotation due to sap rising in trees during northern hemisphere spring and speed-up in the fall. Might not the proposed action have a similar effect? Dreamer of Pictures

The kids are always with me when we go caching. They need the exercise and time away from TV/computer/AIM. They like jewelry, CDROMs, small toys. One took a mini compass, maybe because I was using a compass that day. We leave whatever we have in excess. Son leaves Yugioh cards, hope they will still be attracting interest a year from now. I leave Patent Office tokens (from a prior lifetime, or so it seems to me), and Intel CPU chips (from a massive mess abandoned by someone who decommissioned a bunch of old computers). I have put small stocks of those items in our cars, so we have them along during spur of the moment hunts. Also left a 4-leaf clover that I found while searching for a cache. I taped it into the log. I may have to laminate a few 4-leaf clovers so I can add them to the car stocks. Today on another topic I saw the idea of including a rubber stamp inside the cache, for passport-type stamping. I like that idea. I will have to carry an ink pad. I think my kids will like it. Dreamer of Pictures

I'm relative new to the sport and to this discussion topic. It's obvious that the issue is complicated by funding issues and related control issues between the feds and the states. Some thoughts: If the USFWS does this, then other agencies of US Dept of Interior, such as Natl Park Service, will start thinking about it. Maybe other agnecies that own land and offer recreational uses will think about it too, such as US Forest Service (agency of US Dept of Agriculture). Fortunately Forest Service and Park Service are a lot more recreation oriented than USFWS. Geocachers need to be represented in the decision making process. I suggest some goals: Goal 1: Find a funded group that represents the interests of outdoor recreation users. The critical feature is that the group monitors decision processes for policy, regulations and legislation. In other words, they do some lobbying, some grass-roots campaigning, or both. Join the group. Make your interests clear. Show them this thread. Goal 2: Often the decision making process involves either public meetings or an appointed group of public advisors. Attend the hearings, or volunteer to join the group of public advisors. Find an elected representative who enjoys outdoor activities, and educate that person about the wonders of geocaching. In particular, emphasize the CITO and the positive effects on kids. My 14-year-old cannot be pried away from AIM except for geocache hunts. One of my good friends is the chair of the advisory group for my county's Parks & Rec Dept. I am going to contact him and ask if Parks & Rec has a policy, or is even aware of geocaching. I hope I can become the info source for our Parks & Rec people, and I will definitely emphasize the CITO, benefits to kids, etc. It also happens that a Regional Park Authority operates parks in our county, and hosts an approved multicache. Their experience will at least be considered relevant by Parks & Rec. Dreamer of Pictures

I wonder: is there any country where GPSr is illegal for the general population, or for visitors, to use? If so, it would be darn difficult to register or find a geocache. It occurred to me that antarctica is not a country. No resident authority to confer or determine citizenship, to issue passports, to make laws, etc. So I decided to find out what the US State Dept makes available on the Web about these sorts of issues. Here's the US State Department URL for recognized countries. As of May 14, it contains 172 countries and separately lists Taiwain. http://www.state.gov/s/inr/rls/4250.htm The US State Dept also has a list of Dependencies and Special Sovereignties: http://www.state.gov/s/inr/rls/10543.htm Antarctica is in that list, one of a very few with no sovereignty or unknown sovereignty. The list also includes a considerable number of sovereignty claims that the US notes but does not recognize; in some cases there are multiple unresolved conflicting claims. Its a complex rats nest. Dreamer of Pictures

Just scanned this topic. I am impressed by the creativity at work! Great stuff! I clicked on the URL provided by Puzzler and found not only spray-can safes but Stone Safes. To obtain a rocky disguise, you are not forced to build a pseudo-rock; you can elect to buy one. Admittedly the ones I saw are designed for house keys, and therefore would qualify as micro-caches. Dreamer of Pictures

Hi there. I've been introducing my family to geocache hunting over the past month, and now we are interested in creating some caches. Its been a rather soggy month here on the East Coast. Both of our geocache finds this weekend were water-damaged. We suspect a third cache that we sought unsuccessfully got Swept Away. We want to avoid all that if possible for any cache we create. Obviously the locale is important but, being outdoors, a cache cannot entirely avoid exposure to water. Based on your experience, what kinds of containers do the job well? Thanks! Dreamer of Pictures