Maverix

I found my very first cache with my family so I called us the "mavericks" in the sense that we wander off the beaten path. Well from about find #2 onwards I was mostly caching by myself but I left the user name alone. At some point I realized that "cks" could be condensed to "x". So there you have it.

Niiiicccceeeee!!!! that design looks very familiar biggrin.gif how did you get the color aspect in? The way it was done is that each image was on a separate layer in Photoshop and filters were applied to give it the gold coin look.

OK, here's my artwork. I don't live in Nevada but I visit there several times a year and one time I stumbled upon Project Shoal (while caching of course), hence the explosion. Then before geocaching I used to off-road and we were always told to watch out for the wildlife (which we did!), so that's why the tortoise is there. Finally, like the CA geocoin, I put in the centroid, N 39° 19.800 W 116° 37.933. So there you have it!

Great idea! Put me down for 20 of the std coins.

Thanks, it's an interesting and different place to cache, 550 sq. miles and only 30 geocaches (I think I tried to find about 2/3 of them).

Hi All.... I just got back from a vacation in Kauai and am happy to report I got a FTF , my first ever out-of-state. This cache was a challenge, coords that were off by more than a 1/10th of a mile, and well it was hidden in a way that made it a tough find. Thanks to all of you for putting me thru 'geocaching school' here in the bay area, I don't think I could have done it without you. Alakai Views GCHZNR http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...e3-325e417e5d08

Congrats!!! Yes, congrats WOW! Hit 1000 out-of-state no less.

As a result of doing Mars' Cache GCHJYH, I already threw out my Levi's, washed 'em 3 times and still I get I a rash after wearing them. Also I get a rash now when I wear my hiking boots too. I knew I was getting into P.O. but I just couldn't resist the allure of the cache. It's funny, I was able to get rid of the rash every time in about 2 days, I just washed with Tecnu, it never turned into one of those full blown cases where you have to get a perscription for prednisone (been there, done that).

I haven't tried this (haven't needed it, only picked up about a half-dozen ticks this year so far, San Francisco bay area, Ca) but at www.ems.com, there is Buzz Off clothing that is tick repellant. The repellant is actually applied on the fabric at the factory so you don't have to do it. My experience is that ticks get on my pants and crawl up my clothing ending up on the back of my neck (yuck!). Maybe with this clothing they won't want to crawl up. At the EMS site search for 'buzz off'. Buzz Off Info: Buzz Off™ Insect Shield fabric repels mosquitoes, ticks, ants, flies, chiggers, midges, and other biting insects Active ingredient is odorless permethrin, a man-made version of an insect repellent made from chrysanthemums BUZZ OFF™ apparel provides effective protection from insects through 25 washings. The garments should be machine-washed separately using standard laundry detergent. The garments can be ironed, starched, or pressed without any adverse effects. Do not dry clean because this removes the active ingredient. Oh also I carry a set of tick pliers in case they latch on (that's only happened once so far, knock on wood). The other thing is that a park ranger told me that if you spend a lot of time outdoors you'd best be very familiar with the symptoms of Lyme disease so that you can get treated if you catch it (I copied this info from the web site http://www.ziplink.net/~jcwheel/lymediseas...ptoms_main.htm: A typical early symptom of the disease is a slowly expanding red rash at the site of the tick bite. The rash usually appears within a week to a month after the bite and can slowly expand over several days. Sometimes there are multiple, secondary skin rashes. This large rash should not be confused with the harmless red spot that usually is seen immediately after receiving the bite. Many people have a small redness at the site of the bite, which is a normal sensitivity to the bite itself (if you are uncertain contact your doctor). Although a majority of infected persons develop the classic red rash, many do not. Other common symptoms of early Lyme Disease -- with or without the rash -- are flu-like, and include fatigue, headache, neck stiffness, jaw discomfort, pain or stiffness in muscles or joints, slight fever, swollen glands, or reddening of the eyes.

Hot Springs Mountain Cache -- There is this cache and 4 others on the Hot Springs Mountain, between Minden and Carson City. These are hiking caches mostly (well that's how I did them). MEET ME AT THE GLEN FOR A FREE ICE CREAM CONE -- In Carson City, the ice cream was great.

Look for the black sap. If you see black sap on the PO leaves, somebody or something brushed up against the leaves or branches on the side of the trail.

This is a new subject, what happened to the geocaches in Alum Rock Park? I'll probably go hiking there this weekend & was doing my usual cache check and it came up completely empty.

So, Forman, its been a while, is the cache still in the PO? BTW, I always wash away PO with cold water...I'm allergic and it seems to work. Some interesting PO lore I've heard: 1) Kids under 6 won't get a rash (lucky lil' devils!) 2) Indians used it to remove warts (I think I stick with Compound W!) 3) It takes several exposures to build up the allergy (might be true, I got my first allergic rash when I was 15) 4) Given enough exposures everyone will get the allergy eventually (your friends who say they are immune will get their due someday!) 5) Untreated, the rash will last two weeks, but with treatment, it'll go away within 14 days (seems like a lot longer than that!)

I agree with Marky, lead by example... Also I might add, I think there is an expectation that the reward is proportional to the amount of effort. An example: a drive-up cache might be a film canister stuck in the end of a pipe and that is totally ok in my opinion. Not a huge reward but not much effort either. But the same canister stuck in a pipe wouldn't work at the end of a 5 mile hike, there would be the expectation of a landmark, a view, a cool campground, something like that.

I end up caching alone also, sometimes its a spur of the moment thing and so I just can't get anybody to go with no advance notice. I actually did Log, Bog and Pollywog alone and it IS kind of creepy hike to do alone, specially the way I did it which was to wander around for about 1/2 an hour without getting any closer to the cache. One thing about mountain lions, I read an article where it was said that they tend to hunt when the deer are active, early morning and around dusk. Oh well, gotta go!

Green Archers and Fizzy, Thanks for posting the link to the program gpx2html. I saved the .gpx files from Geocaching.com email into a directory on my PC along with the file gpx2html.exe. After running gpx2html, I move the html to the Pocket_PC My Documents folder. When I put my Pocket PC in the cradle, the cache pages copy automatically. Then I just click on the caches.loc file and EasyGPS comes up, which loads the coordinates into my GPS. Here is the net effect, I'm can cache paperless, and the only typing I have to do is to log my finds on Geocaching.com. Thanks Fizzy!

Mr. Big -- This one is rated a 4 for terrain. I personally haven't done it but it looks interesting. Marks Canyon Ramble by Joe Mac GCF79F in Toro Park --Maverix

It was a lot of fun geocaching with bthomas, he was really good at negotiating the maze of back roads at Ford Ord. The whole time we where locked in I was thinking, "oh man am I going to be tired tommorrow" and then "well at least we can cache out this place". Everthing worked out for the best, and when I got home I saw this rule on the BLM website: PUBLIC USE IS ALLOWED FROM DAWN TO DUSK

The park I placed GCEE1E Forgotten City Gardens was in the Mercury News this morning, so I couldn't resist copying it here.... Posted on Mon, Sep. 08, 2003 Pity the poor prunes of petite Pellier Park By Leigh Weimers Mercury News It's one thing to try to honor a bit of history. It's altogether another to disrespect history in the process. That's Dee Danna's complaint after visiting San Jose's sorry little Pellier Park, and I couldn't agree with her more. The park, opened in 1977 to commemorate the valley's agricultural heritage and the introduction of the French prune here by Louis Pellier, was an undersize afterthought to begin with. It's basically a traffic island between Julian and St. James streets near a Highway 87 off-ramp, gussied up with a few prune trees, benches and plaques. It's so out of the way that the city put the statue of Capt. Thomas Fallon nearby to hide it. But that's still no excuse for neglecting the park, Danna believes. ``The poor little prune trees there!'' she exclaims. ``They're so dry and stunted they look like rose bushes. Isn't anyone taking care of them?'' Not well, obviously, although the city regularly promises to do so. But with the economy tough and cash short, prunes hardly have the priority they once did. In times past, the start of school would be delayed until farm families and their youngsters had completed the fruit harvest. These days, kids start school in August, and adults don't even start thinking of prunes until they approach senior citizenhood. That doesn't mean the wrinkled fruit don't deserve more respect as the foundation on which the ``Valley of Heart's Delight'' was built. ``My family still grows prunes,'' Danna notes, ``but in the Sacramento Valley. You'd think there'd still be some people around here, though, who could help take care of those few little trees in Pellier Park.'' You'd think.

I just wanted to post a thanks to Marwagsalot, BThomas and VDBalamo for checking on Zoofaunics. Its still there! Since I don't have much else to say I'll tell you what happened to me on July 3 (not a geocaching story but amusing none the less): I went to Paramount Great America on the 3rd and there was very few people there and no lines to speak of. It was like having our own personal amusement park! When I graduated from high school the Demon was the 'state of the art' roller coaster, I haven't been on many other roller coasters since, just Top Gun a few times. So my wife says, why don't we go on Invertigo? Invertigo is a new inverted boomerang roller coaster. I get dizzy pretty easily, but it was just a roller coaster so what could go wrong? I figured, since vertigo means dizzy, then invertigo means not dizzy, so I went for it. On this roller coaster you have the option of sitting forwards or backwards, but I wasn't sure which way it would travel so I didn't care. First thing it lifted us 200 feet in the air and we were just hanging, and it really gives you the unpleasant sensation that you might fall to the ground, should the seatbelt fail. So then we traversed the whole track in about 10 seconds, and well if you blink you'll miss it. So I was thinking, well that wasn't to bad, but then I realized we were going to traverse the whole track backwards. So that happened and I experienced the worst fealing of nausea and dizziness that I had experienced since a couple of all night drinking parties that I had attended in college many years ago. I had to hold onto the railings walk off the ride platform. Well the dizziness and nausea did go away, about a day later! Its a pretty wild ride, and one that I'll never go on again!

It looks like a neat application and something that I think would be really usefull. I already sent you an email.. quote:Originally posted by macfamily6:I'm nearly finished writing a geocaching Widget for http://www.konfabulator.com/. Konfabulator is a JavaScript engine for Mac OS X which runs little mini-applications called Widgets. There are Widgets for doing all sorts of things, like displaying stock prices, weather conditions, eBay auctions, etc. Most of these Widgets pull real-time information from various Web sites.

Kind of snowy up there this time of year? [This message was edited by Mavericks on March 05, 2003 at 01:11 AM.]

You're fortunate, its pretty rare to spot a cougar, although its a little uncomfortable I suppose to resemble dinner! There's been cougar sitings around here (nothern Ca) as well. This is a picture taken by Jessie at Alum Rock park (close to where I work). [This message was edited by Mavericks on February 05, 2003 at 11:36 PM.]

Its a wierd allergy. I've heard of immune people getting the rash after really heavy exposure (weed wacking it). Also kids under 7 aren't supposed to ever get the allergy (I'd like to hear from some parents who say otherwise).