kodiakdave

One other thing. I sent out a really neat Travel Bug (The Maltese Pig: TB1F457) that I really was disapointed to see go missing. If any one can help, forever will I be in your debt. Thanks.

It’s always sad and a shame when a Travel Bug or Geocoin goes missing, no matter what the cause. Although I do believe that you shouldn’t release something that you are afraid to lose, I was not prepared to have so many become “lost” and never be seen again. I have released about 50 TB’s and 50 coins. About a third of the coins are still being moved around, a third have been marked as missing, and the other third have been in someone’s hands for quite a few months and sometimes up to a year or more. The TB are doing better: about half are still going and the other half are either marked as missing or is in somebody’s hands. What is most disappointing is that most of my Travel Bugs have had a lot of thought, humor, and work put into them. After spending my time and money to send them out, I find it sad that a very small but seemingly active minority of the geocaching community has no problem taking other people’s property and depriving the owner and all other cachers the enjoyment of the travelers. They must think that people send out these items for the purpose of adding to someone else’s personal collection. But, in reality, they really are just petty thieves. I don’t think I could enjoy looking at something if every time I did; it would remind me that I stole it. Now having said that, I do believe that the vast majority of geocachers love caching and would not think of doing anything but moving coins and TB’s along. Also, stuff happens. I placed one TB in a TB Hotel the day before it was bulldozed by the state weed abatement crew. Another cache was washed away by a rain storm. Like I said, stuff happens…oh, well. I know that I am preaching to the choir, but I do hope that the folks that keep coins and TB’s come to realize that when they do that they remove the joy of geocaching for a lot of people and replace it with anger and frustration. Let’s all encourage each other to do the right thing with Geocoins and TB’s. And please, don’t lose the fun and enjoyment of geocaching because of the actions of a few. I’ve rambled on long enough.

I absolutly love it when someone is concerned enough to ask. This attitude is what makes it fun for those of us that send out the Travel Bugs. As owner of the TB in question, I say have fun with it and send it on it's way to NY! Thanks to all, Kodiak Dave

OK, you might try what I did to (I hope) fix this problem. I was using the Garmin Mapsource and I received a "could not be imported" error message. The only Pocket Queries that I had a problem with were the Caches along a route, with regular (based on a fixed point) caches working fine. The problem with the route caches occured when I added several filter items, such as not found, my hides, and the one that I think is the culprit: EARTHCACHES (not sure though). I returned and reset my queries to very basic filters. After I did that, they worked OK. I will be returning to add filters one at a time to see what causes the problem, but since I am limited to 5 queries a day, it wil be a while before I totally figure this one out. Hope this helps you Dave

There's a small group of us (the Star Cachers) that go caching at lunch. We have also planted a few, including one right outside the back door of the sheriff's office in a court building. It's very interesting to see other cachers try to climb around in the bushes next to the court to find the cache and ask them what they are doing there. It always turns out OK because we (Star Cachers) are the cops! (hence the name: STAR Cachers, as in Sheriff's Star).

When activating a new Travel Bug or Geocoin, I enjoy making the item a bit interesting. I like to give the item some depth of character or perhaps a fictional back-story to make it more fun. My problem is in the format of the Travel Bug page, whatever I write ends up in a giant run-on paragraph. There is not a paragraph break or even a change in lines for a humorous limerick (clean ones, of course). Is there any way to change this? It would make reading and writing much easier and more enjoyable. Any comments?