DavidMac

I think the idea here is that you are encouraged to read the cache description, even for a traditional cache, before setting out on the search.

I wondered about this... would Groundspeak want to include some sort of tracking beacon or remote image request to track user views of emails? From what I can tell by looking at the source of several messages, they currently don't do so. This brings up another concern of mine: why is the entire message base64 encoded? I understand that there could be some benefit if including images, attachments, or other content in the email, but why use it for HTML? In my experience it actually makes messages larger. For example, a randomly selected email that is 12,468 bytes encoded is only 9,216 bytes when decoded to UTF-8.

That's exactly what most of us have been filtering on. It's not uncommon to get dozens or even hundreds of emails a day and the subjects containing [GEO] and [LOG] are not only easy to filter for, they are visually catchy. Plus, with the [GEO] text being used for notifications and contact emails, it is easy to separate the "these are a little more important" emails from the "here are some interesting logs to read when you get a chance later" ones. I see that, as of this morning, the old style subject lines are back. Please, can we keep them?

I tested this on one my my caches, and it seems that emails to the cache owner do include the log type. The emails missing this information are from the instant notifications premium member feature.

A few concerns about the new email format: One, notification emails no longer state what type of log a user posted. The email states that the cache "has a new log" but nowhere in the email can I find indication of the type of log - was it a find, a note, a DNF? Second, I notice that all emails are HTML only. Is the plaintext option permanently gone? A sample:

I am also receiving HTML emails now. I really hope that the loss of the text-only option was an oversight and not intentional?

- I hope you haven't forgotten about Mingo, the oldest active cache. - Fort Defiance is not only the southernmost point in Illinois, but is also the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. When the park is not flooded, you can access two earthcaches and a virtual. -Be sure to make the detour into Mississippi while traveling through Memphis. There are several quick caches just off of I-55, but none that I can think of as being any more noteworthy than any others. It is best to cross the river in downtown Memphis and backtrack since the next bridge to the south is US 49 near Helena... a slow, two lane road that isn't worth the detour. - For variety, there is a large cache at an I-40 rest area in Arkansas. It really breaks up the drive. - I'm not sure if you're interested, but your route takes you by several state corners. (1) (2) - There is a virtual and an earthcache at Mount Sunflower, the highest point in Kansas. It may be a bit out of the way, but worth the detour if you're interested in state highpoints. - Guard of the Plains is a good leg-stretcher at an I-70 rest area in Kansas.

All but perhaps 3 or 4 caches that I have found required a special piece of equipment in the form of a GPS. If you're talking about some form of off-road motor vehicle such as an ATV or dirt bike, you could probably consider the cache 5 stars, but I've rarely seen that done as most of those caches could still be hiked to.

That's how I see it. Same thing with countries... if I have the stamp on my passport then it counts. I've only walked a few hundred meters into New Brunswick, but since I had to go through customs twice in 20 minutes I think I earned it... even though we never left sight of the US. Thankfully I've never yet been to a country where I haven't also been able to find a cache. The first couple times I visited Washington state, we never left the airport. Worst part was that during my fist visit I had 500 caches in the GPS and 3 hours on the ground, but couldn't leave the S terminal due to the tram being down. And I could see a cache site just a few hundred feet across the tarmac (I think there was a Denny's or something there) No, I'll take that back. The worst one was when I flew through there several years later, and recognized the lake that the google map defaults to as we flew over on final approach, but knew that our layover was too short to leave the airport.

Hello from tomorrow. I posted a backdated log (find from yesterday) less than 5 minutes ago and got the souvenir. Not sure how much longer we have to slack off though.

I posted a backdated found log today and, as I expected, didn't get the souvenir. I also found a cache today for which I'll post a backdated log tomorrow, so we'll see if it shows up then.

I thought that was supposed to happen in May. (Only mtn-man and a handful of others may get the joke)

I agree... in over 5,000 caches I've only seen one that required a blacklight. Is this really common enough to deserve it's own attribute?

I had a cache that was less than 150' from an active railroad track. When submitting the listing I described to the reviewer how it was in a narrow public park with a two lane street between the park and the tracks, and that a chain link fence separated the road from railroad property. It was approved without issue. When you think your cache may appear to conflict with the guidelines, it helps to clarify with as much information as is necessary to clear up confusion in a reviewer note.

If the land on which the cache is hidden is closed to entry the other 6 days of the week, then yeah, the same would apply to that cache. We have a park in my area with a gate that is closed at night and on some holidays. And entry is only allowed when the gate is open. I also know of a virtual that is on the grounds of a museum that is only open two days a month at specific times. Finding the virtual outside of these times would be frowned upon (trespassing).

Now that's kinda spooky... look at the zoomed out satellite view, and it looks like a military installation on a sandy island. Zoom in and you notice that the runways are closed and the buildings are all gone except for what looks like one still standing at the eastern end of the runway.

If people had already found the caches, why were they retracted... not just archived?

Indeed. I spent nearly four hours yesterday on this site. I'm not sure how I came across it, but I was sucked in with childlike fascination and time just got away from me . Their Smokies maps are especially interesting. We have several manmade lakes around here that cover over old towns, farms, railroads, lumber camps, and even a state highway or two. It's fascinating to me to find out what used to be under those lakes. A series of antique maps (reproductions) currently decorate my office wall. Lately I've been using old maps to find old abandoned trails and railroad grades in the Smoky Mountains. It's amazing how much evidence still remains of what used to be. Just last week I used a 1934 topo map to discover a hiking trail that had not been maintained since the 20's. To my surprise, much of it was still evident despite being overgrown. Too bad it's in a national park, or it would have made a great cache spot.

Creepy... that was the very first thing I noticed when I first looked at the picture. It was a bit startling. As for the topic at hand, my absolute least favorite cache location has already been mentioned: along the shoulder of a busy highway with little to no room to pull over safely. When logging them, I'll usually include a subtle criticism such as, "quick find, but I'd recommend leaving the kids in the car while you seek this one".

That trick didn't work for me. Firefox hung up for about a minute then I got he "parsing geocaches" message. Ten minutes later the map was still parsing, or so it said. Then again, I do have quite a few finds...

I have several friends who use this application and it shows up on their profile without problems. As for posting your recent finds on your wall, I believe that would involve some form of cooperation on Groundspeak's part. I'm not aware of any application that does that. Because, ahem, <smug>neither my Mac nor my Linux box get viruses</smug> *DavidMac does a backflip onto his motorcycle, pops a wheelie, and speeds off leaving a cloud of dust in his wake*

Yes but there are a few areas of Arizona that Hell aspires to be as hot. There are also quite a few areas of Arizona which are reservation land on which caching is for the most part prohibited. I'm not sure if these areas encompass entire counties but the northeastern portion of the state is mostly Navajo land and cache density in that region is extremely sparse.

For ages, I've used several map products on my Colorado 400t in conjunction with one another: - US Topo 2008 (preinstalled) - National Parks Topo East v.2 (older version without terrain shading) - City Navigator 2009 - US States & Counties What's nice about the Colorado is that these maps can be overlaid with each other in various combinations... for example, if you enable Topo 2008 and City Navigator while terrain shading is enabled, you get the nice 3D shading effect without the contour lines. I also like to leave the county boundaries enabled for reference (they are transparent and can be overlaid with any other map). However, since installing the 3.40 software update and a few Birds Eye images, I have found that the terrain shading is exceptionally dark if I have more than just Topo 2008 enabled. Watching as the map renders it appears as if the shading is initially drawn correctly, then a dark layer is drawn over the image one second later, than another dark layer upon another once a second or so - sometimes up to 5 or 6 times until the terrain is nearly black: I initially suspected that my installed Birds Eye imagery had something to do with this (terrain shading is disabled when BI images are displayed on the screen) so I uninstalled them from the unit. However, I still have the same problem so long as more than one map product is enabled at a time. If I disable all but Topo 2008, the terrain renders just fine. My second problem has to do with Birds Eye images themselves. If I have a vector based map enabled on top of the satellite imagery I occasionally see holes such as below: In this case, the imagery displays just fine in Base Camp for Mac, so I suspect that it is not a download issue. Has anybody else been having similar display issues since the 3.40 update? I'm wondering if these issues are ones that only I'm experiencing or if they are more widespread bugs that Garmin may attempt to fix in a future software update.

Great idea! If you're looking for more resources to cover codes, ciphers, and encryption, some folks at MSGA have compiled a list of helpful websites. As someone whose eyes usually glaze over after one look at a puzzle cache, I was amazed at the number of variations out there. Several years ago I attended an excellent puzzle event in a neighboring state. What happened was that cachers in one part of the state went crazy hiding many creative and complex puzzles, but after the initial rush from FTF hounds and completionists died down, many of them went unfound for months. Their solution was to host a puzzle event where several prolific hiders got together and agreed to assist attendees with hints (or sometimes full solutions) to many of their own caches. I know you've already stated in your ppt that you won't give out answers to specific puzzles, but it definitely stirred up interest in the event and it was a great way for folks like me to experience a few caches that I would have never even bothered with on my own (I almost never solve puzzles before traveling somewhere as I rarely know exactly where I'll end up caching until I get there).

We live just a few miles from Townsend (I moved here from Starkville a few months ago) and we spent a night at a cabin there on our honeymoon back in April. I'll send you a PM.