yaquina

Well I'll be sorry to see you go, Sparrowhawk, but wish you all the best in your new locale. I would of course like to be in "the group". I cleaned the garage a bit this weekend and confirmed that I have all the materials for the cache upgrade. And yes it is still moving up in the priority list. I don't get over to the cache location as often as I used to, so I wouldn't be a good choice for day-to-day maintenance. But I would like to continue in the role of "occasional major maintenance". Also as the one who convinced Jim to give it a try, I want to make sure he can go to me if he ever has concerns or a change of heart about the cache. Take care!

Here's something to throw into the discussion. I enjoy both geocaching and genealogy. In my genealogy research I have benefitted from others who have documented old, neglected cemeteries where I've found some of my ancestors. As a way of "giving back", I decided to find and document a forlorn cemetery in my area. In the town where I grew up there is such a cemetery, that I remembered visiting as a kid. A few years ago someone placed a (now virtual) cache there, which I visited. Visiting this cemetery again as a geocacher confirmed in my mind that I must document and research this cemetery, and make the results public. About a year ago I did this - see the links below. Anyway, I think it would be great if other geocacher/genealogists did the same for undocumented, forgotten cemeteries in their area. With websites like Ancestry.com and Rootsweb.com, this is relatively easy to do. It is a lot of fun as well, especially learning the stories about the people. If you enjoy a good mystery, like local history, and have a bent for figuring things out, I guarantee that you would have fun doing this. GCD287 Old resting grounds Web page I created on Rootsweb. Be sure to visit the links on this page. My dad and I even made a detailed map of the cemetery using a tape measure and a compass, recording the position of each marker in polar coordinates (angle and distance). In Excel I was able to plot a map of each marker, which turned out to be amazingly accurate (Data and Map) Anyway, this was a little time consuming but a lot of fun, and will be something that lives on way past me.

This picture on the home page piqued my curiosity: Log

I love this thread. A nice sunset after visiting Arch Cape Cache: Country Bear #2 at Don't Slide, where he started his journey: "TAG" You're It floating on the waters of Sparks Lake after we picked it up in Western Exposure: That is the South Sister in the background.

A couple of my favorites: My daughter on the way to the Pipeline Cache: The Pipeline At the best set of pipe leaks: Permission is granted to whomever wants to use these for any purpose.

Besides the calendar, I'd like to see a web gallery of the best of the best geocaching photos. Perhaps each account could submit the URL of one of their own pictures, and one of someone else's that they liked. Categories would be nice too, but not a requirement.

The site is less than a mile from the Rogue brewery! There are 9 caches within 1.5 miles of the brewery. One of them is "Old Resting Grounds", a forlorn old cemetery that I have done some research on: South Beach Cemetery Lemuel Davis originally owned this whole area south of the bay, and donated the land for this cemetery. He and his family are buried there. I believe the cemetery used to be right above the beach, before the jetties were constructed. If you have ever been to the Oregon Coast Aquarium, you probably drove right by this cemetery. Very few people know it exists. If you visit you will see why. I believe two of the people buried there are C. Winnemark and Augustus Maguire, who drowned in 1881: Three men drowned April 7, 1881. "T.W." and "Zeno" Davis are Lemuel's sons.

Thanks K.A. for the tips. Any recommendations for non-defacing ways to mark a multi-stage cache (i.e. the phone number and possibly the next coordinates)? As I mentioned, the shipwreck site terrain is likely beach grass in sand dunes, maybe a small tree or bushes here and there. I have only done one multi-stage cache, and it used luggage tags hung in trees. I have a feeling that at least one of the sites will only have beach grass for cover. This should be OK for a small cache container, but I worry about muggling and also wind-blown sand burying the cache. This has happened to the nearby "Dune with a View" cache resulting in a string of DNF's.

I'm hoping to harness some of your creative energies here. I recently came to own several 100-110 year old maps of Yaquina Bay, at Newport, Oregon. On the maps are marked the locations of 3 or 4 shipwrecks that occurred there before 1900. These wrecks were in the breakers or on the beach at the time the maps were made. However due to jetty construction, sand has collected south of the jetty and the beach has "moved" about 1/3 mile westward. The area that used to be breakers is now sand dunes. Thus the shipwrecks on the map are now deep under sand dunes that have formed in this area. I am wondering if it would be interesting to use the maps and some research to locate the exact location of each wreck, then place a multi or virtual cache in the dunes at each of the wrecks. The entire area is criss-crossed with social trails, so getting from place to place is not difficult. All the shipwrecks are within 1/2 mile of each other. Here's a recent aerial photo of this area: 1994 Aerial Photo Here's an aerial photo taken in 1939: 1939 Aerial Photo You can clearly see the original (before 1900) beach line in the 1939 photo. It is along the line of vegetation. Since 1939, the sand area has become covered with beach grass and small trees. To make it worth visiting, I was thinking of researching each ship and the details of it's demise, who were the people on it at the time, was there any loss of life, etc. From that I would write a script, and make an audio "story" for each ship. I would place each story recording at a special phone number. Geocachers would bring their cell phone with them, and when they reach the location of the shipwreck, there would be a hefty piece of driftwood or a rock (which are already scattered here and there in this area) with the last four digits of the phone number for that ship's recording marked on it in some discreet spot. The cacher would call the number, and listen to the story while standing over the wreck that lies below them. Or instead of marked driftwood, there could be a printed copy of the story, perhaps even a picture of the ship in a cache box (other ideas?). I think there is enough cover for a small cache box at each shipwreck. I could instead, or also, post the story on the web so you could listen to/read the story before you went. However that would remove the main "reward", in my thinking. So I'm leaning against that. There is also a modern wreck on the beach which can be seen when the sand level is low and the tide is out. This could perhaps be the final (virtual) cache in the multi, or an optional one. There is also a traditional cache in this area (A Dune With a View) which may prevent this idea due to proximity reasons(?). Some questions for you: 1. Does this interest you? 2. Would the "reward" be good enough to make it worthwhile? 3. Do you think it would be best implemented as: 3.1 A multi-virtual 3.2 A set of virtuals 3.3 A multi-regular 3.4 A set of regulars 4. How could we make this idea better? I haven't done any actual work on this yet, I'm trying to gauge whether or not I should. Thanks!

Personally I like the following inexpensive items: Things from nature or made from natural materials. I always leave several polished agates, that I found and polished myself. Other things from nature:Interesting seeds (e.g. trees or unique plants), with sprouting instructions Film canister of sand or dirt from some interesting place, labeled with its story Interesting rocks and minerals Interesting shells, with information about where they came from Simple woodcarvings Pressed flowers - either alone, or on a blank card: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=...+greeting+cards Dried, brightly colored leaves in a zip lock bag, with information about where they came from. Go to your favorite quiet outdoor place(s) with a camcorder and tripod, and record the sound for at least 20 minutes. Transfer this to your PC and copy it to audio CDs. Label the CDs with your story of that place. [*]Anything you made yourself [*]If you are a photographer, put your best photos on a CD. [*]Used music CD's [*]Interesting old books [*]Lottery ticket/scratcher [*]Interesting coins or currency [*]Mystery objects found with a metal detector [*]Technology items that were once expensive but are now worthless, e.g. super strong magnet from stepper motor

In Olympic National Park they have a saying "a fed bear is a dead bear", which seems to often be the case. They have strict rules for food storage, backed up with a $50 fine if you don't comply (Backcountry Food Storage).

Anyone planning a geocaching trip in the southern Gifford Pinchot National Forest north of Carson, Washington? If so I'd like to encourage you to visit the "Big Lava Bed" to dry out a travel bug I just started there (Big Lava Bed). As I was taking a photo of this TB it started to pour, and he got kind of wet. We didn't have a way to dry him off before placing him in the cache (we were soaked ourselves). The Big Lava Bed is a fascinating area, which is just melting out of the snow. Road 60 is currently blocked by snow just north of the Big Lava Bed cache. You will need to drive from the south/west side of the Lava Bed and just stop when you get to the large area of snow on the road (see May 4 log for coords). There is another small patch of snow on the way, which is passable for any vehicle with normal ground clearance. If you're adventurous and have time, you should also be able to also reach "Lava Bed II" (1.4 miles from Big Lava Bed). Note however that the terrain on the Lava Bed itself is 4.5 stars - adding a layer of intermittent mounds of snow pushes it up to about 7.0. So it would be smartest to hike on the snow-covered road as much as possible. On the way up/down you will also go by "Spectacular", which I believe is close to the road, so you could make it a 3-cache trip, and pick up two travel bugs (Gifford in Big Lava Bed, and Froggy in Lava Bed II). Also gain the honor of the being the first visitor to Lava Bed II as it emerges from the winter snow (last log Sept. 28, 2003).

The "old tire cache" reminds me of playing Pictionary and the item on the card is "stick figure".