sheppardnik

1/3 of Team OCD here... that's Obsessive Caching Dames. We were going to go with Divas but the way we look at the end of a cache run we are FAR from diva-like.

I'm approaching my 1,000th and since I started I wanted to go for the 1,000 steps cache - I think it's in PA. Since a trip just isn't possible right now, I looked for something, ANYTHING with 1,000 in the name that was within a day's drive. Nothing. Sooo... I got my team together and we decided it was time to put out a milestone challenge series. So far we've got 500 Smileys and 1,000 Smileys - with plans to place more soon. And yes, I do plan to "find" that 1,000 Smileys cache, even though I'm on the team that placed it. Y'all be nice - it's not the way I wanted to do it but darn it, I want that "1,000" name on my stats!

Wedding gift can't open until taken to secret coordinates I just saw this article and thought it was a great idea! I wonder if this gentleman is taking orders??

Sorry to hear of your "muggling"... that's the most frustrating part of this hobby/sport for me. I have around 40 hides, several of them having been replaced due to muggles. When I hide a new cache, I always keep it in my head that it won't be around forever. If you think of your hides as temporary gifts to the caching community it makes it easier to deal when one goes missing. Usually I give a cache two replacements, then archive it. So far I've archived three. Be sure to prominently display a stash note in each of your hides. At least that way you have a chance at a non-cacher leaving it where they found it. As for hiding it where a non-cacher would NEVER find it... I don't think that place exists!

Wow! What a great adventure for you all!! Great job on the blog and thanks for the inspiration - my geopal and I are going to go for the 100 finds day soon. How much you wanna bet the Podcacher crew will be contacting you? This would make a great episode!

Now THAT'S a good bonus-use of a geocache! Whenever we travel, I go to the GC site to find the best parks and out-of-the-way places to take the kids. Every time we visit friends and family we end up introducing them to interesting spots they'd never seen before - often within a few miles of their homes!

My caching team has hidden two "challenge" caches in our area (one an alpha-numerical, the other a 13-day "daily dozen"). Even though the three of us hide as a team we always log separately. I'll log a find on both of those hides because it was more about the challenges than the actual "final" cache.

I had that happen to one of my puzzle caches - it was in a gazebo in a neighborhood park. Evidently every cache that had been placed in the park previously had disappeared quickly. However, I tried again with a nano in a very evil spot and it's lasted so far (6 months and counting). Let the little mutant muggle kids try and find that one!

Hey, Bruno - I found Big Joe after you did... good job on posting the maintenance note. You've got the makings of a great cacher! Hope you stick with it, and I look forward to bumping into you "in the field" someday!

We just got back from a long driving trip (12 states!). Every place we stopped I went to google maps through the GC site and looked for "green" spaces on the map. Those areas are usually parks. I then looked at the caches in the parks and made those our destination caches. We ended up seeing some amazing places that our host families didn't even know existed - oftentimes within a few miles of their homes! Good luck on your trip!

As for your issue, I've got nothin. Just wanted to say this is the most entertaining thread I've read in a long time... It's true, cachers are NUTS - and a couple of them in this thread were at the front of the line when they handed out the crazy! Good luck with your bite thingie - and if you die from it can I have your gps? (oh, like the rest of you weren't thinking it - I just asked first)

If you're around Eglin AFB in NW Florida, one of our favorites is Hider in a Provider. You'd need a range pass to be on the property (easily acquired), but it's worth it... this one is hidden in a plane that crashed 40 or so years ago. It's our go-to cache whenever we introduce noobs to caching, and my kids never tire of climbing on and in the wreckage.

I've done the exact same thing at around 10:00pm CST. Are you one of the voices in my head?! haha I received the same (lack of) response... the pocket query and bookmark query ran fine, but the route queries still say "never" under the 'run' column. I was also unable to get a previous route pq to run, even though it had come through in the past with no trouble. Gah!!! Leaving for a lonnng drive tomorrow at 6am. You'd think I would learn to run these a day or two in advance. sigh... I'll be doing the PQ dance in the morning just for you, Groundspeak IT heroes!

Here in NW Florida we get a lot of new cachers during the summer months. So although we have to put up with the tourist traffic on the roads we also get lots of new tourist traffic to the caches - a good trade! I'm on my second caching summer and I plan to drop the woods caches until after it gets cooler (probably mid-October). It's frustrating having to wait when there are so many good hides still waiting to be found, but the flying monkeys (mosquitos), heat-stroke, and mutant spiders just aren't worth battling!

Judging from the number of emails I've gotten since adding the virtual Four Windows to my watchlist, I'm betting that one is the most logged/least visited cache in the world.

GW7 - AMAZING time and so many great moments that I'll have in my memory until the alzheimer's kicks in... Probably my favorite part of GW7 was standing in the chow line. Yup! Who knew waiting an hour for lunch would turn into so much fun? Let's see... I got to meet the infamous Snoogans (thanks for the cool smooshed penny - I've been wanting for one of those for a long time), then I turned around and met some crazy cachers from the Starkville Mafia (thanks, Pushmataha for the cool coin), followed by a nice chat with Jenn from Groundspeak (thanks for the cool Lackey coin)! So not only did I get to have some terrific conversations with famous and infamous cachers, but I walked away with some pretty special jingles in my pocket!

Same problem here, getting application.zip in my inbox... GAH!! I'm going on a trip tomorrow and will now be caching "blind" if I can't get these into GSAK! Anyone have any suggestions or work-arounds? I've made no changes to my system, nothing shows up on any of my virus software, when I ran PQs last week everything was fine. I'm leaving in six hours - HELP!!!

Bummer! On the plus side, at least it had one find... better luck next time!

I have four kids (12,10,9,3) and usually we have extra kids with us too on our big cache runs. We refer to the 3 year old as the "cache retrieval tool". Seriously, you can get little kids to crawl anywhere and stick their hands into anything! The 9 year old is responsible for anything overhead. He is the cache monkey for our group as well as the best eyes - if we can't find a cache he is the goto guy! The 11 year old rarely finds the cache, but he's always a cheerful addition to the group and we put him in charge of the camera. You know how when you try to show a cat something by pointing and you have to bring your finger directly to the object? Yeah, that's my 11 year old with geocaches. The 12 year old usually volunteers to stay and "watch the car", but he's a good source to call from the woods when we need info from the cache page that I forgot to bring out. Kids are awesome tools, they just require lots of maintenance to keep them working properly.

BWAHAhahahaha!!!

Thanks for the feedback... I'm glad to hear that it's possible to be "un-banned". Hopefully, the lesson will be learned!

Recently there was a brouhaha (I love that word) with a local cacher and his rather indelicate note to a reviewer. Subsequently this cacher was banned from the site. There may have been more to the story, but if there is I'm not aware of it. I happen to know the cacher in question and he's a good ki... err, person... just had a lot going on in his life in the past year. He's a good guy that just made a poor decision. I'd really like to see him continue to participate, as this is such a great hobby and it was nice to see a younger cacher take initiative to hide his own caches. There is a definite learning curve to this sport, as there is in everything in life, and I hope patience and forgiveness from the community will play a role here. (That being said, an apology from his end would probably help, too!) My question is, will he ever be un-banned or is this a "for life" thing? I realize he could just start a new account, but what happens to his un-archived caches?

Currently I have 14 on two different days. That record will break to 15 as soon as I place my "Micro the World Over" hide to be able to log for find #15. The first 14 find day was over 350 miles, traveling with 4 boys and 1 grammy. We found some really great ones and had a great time! The goal was at least one in each county we drove through and we almost made it - missed by one (I'm coming back for you, Jefferson County!!). Someday I'd like to go out with my caching buddy and no kids and see what kind of numbers we can log in a more cache-dense area!

I'm looking forward to the long weekend and hitting the trails for the next three days. Whenever the boys and I go on a cache run we always, ALWAYS have tag-alongs! Sometimes it's one or two extra kids, but we've taken as many as six extras. I love teaching them about geocaching and getting them out to do something different... And until more of my friends get their own GPS's I can usually round up an adult or two also. This weekend we've got three different runs with three different groups of extras - should be a blast! ...although I must admit it would be nice to go out by myself once in awhile - you never see any wildlife when you've got a bunch of kids crashing around! As for numbers... We never seem to hit more than 3 or 4 at a time, but that means I'll have plenty of local caches to keep me busy for long time!

Grrr... bad hints. Nothing like sitting around for an hour while your 9 year old decrypts the "too easy - you don't need a hint" hint. But this thread reminded me of the hint to my first lamp post skirt find. I never knew those things lifted up and was very new to caching (hadn't visited the forums at that point). The hint: "We'll keep the light on. We are just undercover." Now THAT was a great hint for a rookie cacher! ... but I guess that belongs in a Good Hints thread.