Jump to content

How Did You Hear About Geocaching?


CroftFamily

Recommended Posts

Hi everyone, we're new to geocaching and this is my first post in the NW forum. We've found two caches so far, easy levels since we don't have a GPS.

 

Anyway, out of pure curiosity, I wonder how everyone found out about geocaching? I find myself wishing I had heard of it years ago.

 

We discovered geocaching by way of Flylady. I read over there once in a while for housekeeping and organizing tips. Geocaching is listed under their date night section. I explained the idea to my husband and kids, and the next thing we knew we were searching a local park for a cache just over a week ago. We've decided that Sundays are our day to hunt and love it.

 

How did you find out about it?

Link to comment

I saw a story on caching in the January 2003 issue of Discover magazine. I already had an eTrex yellow that I got to play around with so the rest was easy. As with yourself, I wish I had heard about it well before, but that is the way it goes.

 

 

I have had a Garmin 45 before Geocaching was even thought of. Loved the GPS and still

have it. I also have three Sony Digital Cameras. During the summer of 2001, the moderator of the Sony Mavica site mentioned another use for your camera - Geocaching. I went to the Geocachng.com site and noticed a cache within a mile of my home. Hopped on my scooter and headed for it. The Garmin GPS 45 lost satellite reception as soon as I went into the trees. so I headed to the local department store and bought a Magellan map 330 and found that cache the same day. Been at it ever since. While the wife is not a geocacher she does like to help me find caches in nice places like Whidbey Island. We also like to find caches in small towns when we travel around the country. I will soon be 81 and have over 1100 finds.

 

Dick

Link to comment

We found out through a friend while we lived back in suburban Philadelphia. He had been out hiking and found a cache by accident. He opened it, read the disclosure and checked out the website.

 

In spring of 2003, the three of us found a cache out in Amish country-without a GPS. While it was amusing, it didnt really catch my interest. Then for my birthday later that year, I got a Magellan and it was still sort of a "oh, thats nice (then a courtesy laugh as I set it aside) A month later we found our second one, then a third, a fourth and so on....

Link to comment

:D My daughter called me on January 1, 2005 and said that they just saw an artical on the TV about a fun past time called GeoCaching and thought that Dad and I would be interested doing something like this while we are traveling in our motor home. I jumped on the computer and found the sight and was intrigued. :D Couldn't beleive all the hidden treasures in our county. Called daughter back and told her this looked like fun and how many there were around are area. Told her that dad had a hand held GPS out in the boat. We decided to sign up as a family group. When they came down for New Years dinner, son-in-law rowed out and got the GPS. We decided to go out the next day and try our hand in this treasure hunting game. After 3 DNF we finally found our first cache, Old Saw Mill Park. :) What a rush. December 31, 2005 we found our 400th. What a way to celebrate our 1st year of caching. :D

 

Lummieh

Link to comment
Anyway, out of pure curiosity, I wonder how everyone found out about geocaching?

I heard about it a couple three years ago (IIRC before Y2K), but could not afford a GPS, and since I (erroneously) believed most caches were heavy hikes back into the woods - it never occured to me that you could cache without a GPS. It stayed in the back of my mind however, and last summer I checked into it again - and found that a) GPSrs had decreased in price (to where we could afford them) and b ) there were caches I could do! (I'm semi mobility impaired - much depends on how my back and legs are doing that particular day.) On to my birthday/Christmas list went a GPSr! (Since they are only a few weeks apart.)

 

Lo and behold! One showed up under the tree - and the rest is history.

 

Actually, what was under the tree was a 3x5 card with "GPS" and a budget amount written under it. Brenda and I settled on this method of giving extremely specialized gifts to each other years ago - it avoids ruining the surprise by asking too detailed questions before Christmas or turning the wish list into a shopping list.

Link to comment

How on earth have I managed to miss every newstory about it? :)

 

Considering that I am geographically impaired, I am actually proud of myself for managing two finds without a GPS. Of course, they have been kid level finds, but with my inate ability to get lost its impressive I didn't completely wander off course and end up in Washington State. :D Now I just need to get a GPS and figure out how to use it, then duct tape it to my forearm to see if I can manage to stay on course on a normal day.

Link to comment

I found out about geocache because of my new PDA. I had recently moved to a new job and had lost used of a laptop. One of the things I used the laptop for was for traveling and being in a new city, I wanted something to help guide me around. I and also been thinking about getting a PDA for some time so decided to go this route. I got my PDA, Delorme Street Atlas for the PDA, and a bluetooth GPS.

 

So now that I was setup with my PDA and mapping, I started to look for other programs to put on my new toy. Since I had just spent about $650 on everything (most of that was for the PDA - Dell X50v), I started looking a freeware programs. One program that caught my attention was one called Geocache Hint Decoder. While the program really wasn't that interesting to me, I did wonder what a Geocache was and why it needed hints to be decoded.

 

I did a google search for Geocache and up came this site. After reading about it, I knew it was something I wanted to do. I found there was a cache almost on my door step so at 10pm I was out the door searching for my first cache - I didn't find it. :) Turns out the GPS I got for the PDA was great for car navigation, it wasn't any good for geocaching. The next day after work, stopped by Best Buy and got a GPSr, found that first cache, and have been caching ever since. In fact, my first year anniversary of the first cache I found is in just 5 days.

Link to comment

We actually had a GPSr before we knew about geocaching (I had previously gifted a Garmin 12 to my hubby just for hiking purposes). Then we happened to be down in S. CA in June 2002 for one of my business meetings when my sister (Ratdogs) took us on our first cache. We weren't really bitten, but on the day of our return to Seattle, hubby had a catestrophic tear to his retina and he was transferred to Swedish for emergency surgery. We found, in the MANY weeks ahead of recovery (where he was mandated to literally be "face down" for healing) that geocaching was something he could do (that and strawberry picking :P ) and being active helped maintain his sanity. From then, well, it was history! :P

Link to comment

Interesting thread.

 

Thanksgiving Day, 2003... Our extended family is sitting around waiting for the turkey. My brother in law says "Hey, I just heard about this new game called geocaching. Let's go see if we can find one". He grabs his Etrex and we all pile into the car. Half an hour later, we find an old AOL tin with a mildewed logsheet under a boardwalk. We all go home and have turkey.

 

Fast forward to today... my brother-in law and his family have logged about 100 caches. My brother has logged about 30 caches. I've found 2,100 caches :P:P

Link to comment

On Feb. 15 of 2005, I was reading the Bremerton Sun, and they had an article on Geocaching. I was ironically looking for something to break the monotany of everyday life and this seemed to fit the bill. I like being outside, and did have some sense of adventure in me, So I headed to the computer. I signed up for a free account and did a search of caches within 5 miles of my house. I was absolutely floored to find so many had been placed so close to my house. With no GPSr, I found a close one that looked pretty easy to follow with hints and descriptions as well as reading previous log entries, gathered up my two daughters and told them we were going on a treasure hunt! Team Hawkinson was then born. I then found through searching of geocaching.com a website called Lost Outdoors.com and was able to make my next four finds via aerial photograph. By this time I was hooked, and got my first GPS ( Magellan Meridian Gold) and made my first find with a GPS one month to the day that I signed up with Geocaching.com (3/15/05). I was definately in it for the long haul now! I have since changed my usename to -Hawk- and have 568 finds and 9 hides as of two days before my real 1 year anniversary, I have also met some great people, and made some great friends and look forward to more finds with friends.

Great topic...glad you suggested it. I look forward to hearing everyones stories of their introduction into this obsession.

Edited by -Hawk-
Link to comment

I live in Wenatchee Washington and on June 14th 2005 I attended a meeting of the Wenatchee Erratics, a local chapter of the Ice Age Flood Institute and at this meeting there was a handout regarding Bruce Bjornstad who is a Geologist from Batelle Northwest in the Tri Cities. It talked about areas he had recomended to go to and look at places that the Missoula Floods had carved out of the land in this area. A lot of the places he talks about have Geocaches hidden on them. The Geocaching.com website was listed on the handout and the next morning I went to the site and discovered a cache hidden so close to my house I could see it. I got my gps and went to Wells House and after searching for a long time finally found it. I WAS HOOKED ! I went back home and got the next closest coordinates and I have been searching the area since that day. I belong to the Cache-Cadians, our local chapter of WSGA. I am one of the members of the Cache-Cadians that have commited to 1 hide a month for the year and have 2 hidden so far this year. I have only 2 states under my belt so far but plan a trip to Boise this spring to add 2 more states. I attended the WSGA campout last year at Squillchuck and plan on attending this years at Chelan. I enjoy this hobby and look forward to many more finds this year. Thanks to TPTB at Groundspeak for the excellent job they do in aiding us in our endeavers in this craziness that we are all addicted too.

Edited by Blue J Wenatchee
Link to comment

...spring of 2003, the three of us found a cache out in Amish country-without a GPS....

 

Isn't that the ONLY way for the Amish to cache? :D

 

I had asked for a GPS so I would not get lost in the woods and I found one under the Christmas tree in 2002. Since I really didn't know much about GPS, let alone how to operate a receiver, I jumped on the Web and started searching for information. I soon came across the GC web site and went out on my first hunt a few days later. Unfortunately the closest one to my house was a multicache, and I really didn't understand what that meant, or what I was looking for, so it was a DNF. Later that day I selected a straight forward 1/1 cache and the addiction began.

Link to comment

I've had gpses long before caching. My first was Magellan 2000...piece of crap though. I never used it since it took like forever to get fixes. Then I switched over to the Garmin camp Sep. 2000. Etrex Summit. Fell in love with it for hiking. I wish I knew about caching then, but didn't until January 2002. Read about it in a newspaper article. Weekend section of the times I think. Hmmm this sounds very cool!

 

So I set out on my first geo adventure Feb. 14, 2002. Tie Mill. I had the camcorder and videotaped the whole hike up to the general cache area, but failed to find it that day. I'd screwed up in entering the coords into the gps so had to go on what the page said and my gps's barometric altimeter. It got to a point I had to stop and go home.

 

I would return Feb. 28, 2002 and this time, I had the coords entered correctly and found the cache without too much trouble. boy I was elated when I foudn it at the base of tree. I had the camcorder wiht me again so I might make a TB out of my first find on a cd at some point. I'll have to bleep some words out htough *grin* Think I traded an old fisheries field logbook for a US Flag sticker. Went home and officially became a geo member. I went under my name John Maher those days. Switched to Evergreenhiker! sometime in late April around 30 finds give or take.

 

The anniversary is coming up so I'll do something on that day.

Edited by evergreenhiker!
Link to comment

December 2001. 'Rickie' had shown an interest in the confluence project. I didn't know what to buy him for Christmas that year so I hightailed it down to REI to buy a GPS. I wrapped it up and put it under the tree. A couple of days before Christmas he saw an article in the paper about geocaching.

 

He was very happy with his gifts that year :D

 

I just went along with him. It seemed kinda silly to me. We both like getting outdoors and you can't ski EVERY weekend. That is, until we did M10B's Leonardo cache series. I was hooked after that. What fun! :D

 

:D:D:D

Link to comment

December 2001. 'Rickie' had shown an interest in the confluence project. I didn't know what to buy him for Christmas that year so I hightailed it down to REI to buy a GPS. I wrapped it up and put it under the tree. A couple of days before Christmas he saw an article in the paper about geocaching.

 

He was very happy with his gifts that year :D

 

I just went along with him. It seemed kinda silly to me. We both like getting outdoors and you can't ski EVERY weekend. That is, until we did M10B's Leonardo cache series. I was hooked after that. What fun! :D

 

:D:D:D

yeah, MTBs Leonardo series. Really glad I got to do them before being archived. Classic and then some! Got my 100th find on one of those.

Link to comment

Here is my very first log.....

 

February 3, 2001 by nevcowpok (1 found)

My first find!!! The photo helped a great deal, thanks... It only took about 3 minutes to find.

I took nothing, but I left a Hawaii Key ring.

Got the story on Geocashing from a CNN story I hope we see many more cashes in western Washington

I am going to get one out there.....

 

Thanks for the memories...

Link to comment

Saw some friend caching out at the Seabeck Cemetery early in September 2003. Thought it was interesting, asked them how many were around, a few was the answer.

 

Did not think much about it till I got sent an email, a few weeks later, about bookcrossing.com from a SF list I was on. Searched near me and found that there was a bookcrossing book in a geocache near me. Hey, maybe there are a couple more of those cache things nearby. Checked and yes there were just a few, 200 within 10 miles, now over 400 within 10 miles. The closest to my house was The Roof of My Cave. Just the idea of a cache hidden like that hooked me.

Link to comment

I read a short article in a magazine about a year ago. Joe's birthday was coming up in July so I bought him a Garmin Etrex and printed out a few caches. We were hooked. Took the Etrex back the next week and traded up for a Legend. Five months later, upgraded again to color. Our college daughters think we're geeks but we sure are having fun.

Link to comment

I work in the Hotel industry and a guest of mine came in from the woods in our back parking lot.

 

Curiosity, I asked him what he was doing in the woods and he told me that he was Geocaching.

 

I said, GEO WHAT?

 

He explained it and I was hooked on the idea.

 

I still haven't found a cache yet. Simply, because I haven't gotten my GPS unit yet. But I just won it last week on Ebay, so, I'll be out there soon with the rest of you guys.

 

Zeph

Link to comment

Had a couple of friends that were doing this in Germany 2003 I went with them once but stayed with other friends in the gasthaus while they were off searching. I was turned off by the hardware required. I used a Loran system for a short painful while as a young paratrooper in the 82nd before the first Gulf War (1990) it was too much work and weight to justify, plus I was a highly trained soldier that could jump in anywhere and not get lost right? A GPS type device was an insult to my skills. About six months ago (older and wiser) my kids found a cache near the house. I bought a GPS soon after and was trilled with all the little parks and great areas that I can visit with the kids. We are recently over 150 since October.

Link to comment

This is great! I love reading all the different ways everyone has discovered geocaching.

 

One year my husband and I went to Champoeg with two of our three kids. We were looking around to find a neat place to camp. As we drove around Champoeg, it seemed pretty full of tents but there wasn't a soul to be found. We stopped by the water for a picnic, and while we were eating we saw :) expressions on peoples faces as they poofed back into the woods. Now I wonder if we accidently "discovered" the champoeg geocaching trip. We're hoping to join up on the Champoeg event this year.

 

Now someone needs to send a memo to mother nature to get rid of this cold front so we can have that lovely spring like weather back.

Link to comment

In September 2003, we were at a family member's lake cabin. We had noticed a trailhead a little way down the road. Since the kids were having fun swimming, we didn't explore the trail. When we got home, we looked up the trail on-line and we saw there was a 'geocache' there. We looked up geocaching and saw that they were all around us! We already had a GPS so we headed out and made our first find. We've been hooked ever since. Oh yeah, we did finally make it back to that trail and found the cache. :)

Link to comment

I first heard of it in from an article in the Seattle Times in early 2003. Thought it sounded cool, but I didn't have a GPSr so put it on the list of things I'd like to do someday. Next thing you know, September rolls around and I can't think of anything interesting to give my hubby Plaidguy for his birthday. I was telling a friend in New York about bookcrossing.com which I had just discovered, and he said it reminded him about geocaching. I flashed back to the article I had read earlier and ordered Plaidguy a little yellow etrex. It seemed like a nice thing to do together on the occasional sunny weekend. We went out the next Saturday and spent all afternoon trying to find 3 of them in the same park. All those secret boxes right under my nose all this time! I was hooked. A few weeks later I learned how to use little yellow by myself and I was off and running with Plaidguy's birthday gift while he was at work. A little more than two years later, Plaidguy has found over 1000 caches and I have found over 2000. Occasional sunny weekend? HA!! :ph34r:

Link to comment

My kid brother, Semper Questio, told me about is in January of '04. He said that I might be interested in it. Have no clue why he thought that. This is nothing like anything else we have ever done for fun.

 

So, we went to the site, read about caching, and decided to try it. We had been looking for a new hobby, and thought "why not?".

 

We found our first cache in February of '04, and have been hooked ever since.

Link to comment

Thanksgiving 2002 with family in Post Falls ID. My Brother in Law RvrRnr said "want to go for a walk". He had a new toy that he pulled out to show me. Then he explained his Magellan as he drove and put in a go to. Next thing I know we were trapsing around the lake and I have made my 1st find. Loved it. Talked about it alot and my own GPSr arrived for Christmas. Our family has been looking for these crazy things ever since.

Link to comment

I received my first GPS as a Christmas gift in 1995. My parents thought it was ideal for all of the mountain biking I was doing - mom worried that I was going to get lost out in the woods all by myself.

 

I was very interested in mapping trails and so that was the first use I got out of the unit. I fell in love with the technology and had always been very interested in maps, so GPS became a real passion for me. I was reading the sci.geo.satellite-nav newsgroup regularly and was extremely excited about the upcoming shutdown of Selective Availability, which would give these consumer units (and my maps) unheard of accuracy. A guy named Dave Ulmer posted on the list about the idea of now being able to hide stashes in the woods and have other people find them with GPS receivers. A few days later, he had posted about having gone ahead and done so. I thought that it sounded like great fun, so I waited for the snow to melt a little near our cabin in Idaho and headed up to a mountaintop with some nice views to plant my own. That was June 17, 2000, and that cache was Idaho's first (and the 40th in the world).

 

I was hoping that caching would take off that summer, but it didn't. By the end of summer there were still only 82 caches in existence and only one placed within an hour of my house. After shipping out the product that we had labored over at work all summer, I headed out over Snoqualmie Pass and went to find that cache. It was Jeremy's first placement. Nothing else was really accessible at that time and winter came and went with me thinking that the activity had just been a flash in the pan. However, by February of 2001 things had started to take hold and caches started popping up nearby. I found my second cache that month and haven't stopped since!

Link to comment

In mid-2004 I got the idea in my head that a GPSr would be a cool thing to have. I didn't really know what I would do with it, but I had this jar of change I had been collecting, so I figured when I had enough I would buy a good one. In Jan 2005 I bought a Garmin 76CS and then started to play with it. I saw something about Geocaching in the manual but had no idea what that was. One day in February, I was looking on Garmin's site and read more info and checked out Geocaching.com. I signed up, but didn't try to find anything for a few weeks. Then, I did... :laughing:

Link to comment

We're outdoorsy people and Gordy had been complaining that we don't get out as often as we'd like to so I was scouring the NW Hiking forums looking for something fun or interesting to do during the rainy month of November last year. I had never posted there, but I read there often enough to get to recognize some of the 'regulars' and one day I read a trip report for one of our favorite hikes - the RR tunnels (Robe Canyon) and one of the posters (EGH!) mentions that on the trip he scored a geocache on what IIRC was a milestone cache for him. It took about a month for me to convince the family that this was going to be a fun family adventure. We weren't real serious at first we could take it or leave it so to speak. I'll confess that those days are over as I'm sure I'm not telling you nothing when I say caching can get addicting and now if we aren't caching, we're researching caches to plan a caching outing.

 

We had a goal of logging 200 caches before out one year mark - we beat that goal by 120!! I can't wait to see where the next year of caching will take us. (disneyland??)

 

Great topic! I recognize lost of names in this thread mostly because we sign the logs after ya'll. Happy Caching!!

Sassy

Link to comment

My interest started sometime in 2003 when I saw a Northwest Backroads show on Geocaching. I mentioned to my lady friend how cool that sounded. Xmas came and I had a Garmin Legend under the tree. I did a Google search and found geocaching.com and ran a search. There was a cache about 4 miles down the road and many more nearby.

 

I liked that many were hike to caches and areas that I knew nothing about. Having lived in WA all my life I'm continually amazed at the diversity and wonderful places that geocaching has opened up for me.

Link to comment

In August 2001 a visiting friend decided Washington was a better place for a GPSr to live than his home in Missouri, he gave us his Venture. One year later, September 2002, with the Venture still on the shelf a college friend e-mailed us suggesting we check out Geocaching.com. The next day I found GC783B, the only nearby cache. The day after I took Ms. Birdy (as yet unnamed) to find it. She was hooked and we headed to GC131C at Washington Pass the same day. The addiction has only gotten worse since, only winter gives us a break.

Our college friend had found 19 when he infected us. His count is now 29!!

Some of us are immune. :laughing:

Barnabirdy(s)

Link to comment

I do not exactly remember when it was when I first heard of Geo-caching. I believe it was when I bought my First Garmin vista, and read about it in the Operators manual. Geo caching did not reach out and grab me at the time.

My use of GPS go back in the early 1990's. I had the job of trail maintenance, signing, and mapping for our snowmobile club in Wenatchee. I was glad when GPS were made available for civilain use. It made making maps a lot better and I was able to make trails that most other maps did not have.

I believe it was l994 or 95 when I bought Eagle AccuNav Sport. (What a boat anchor). It took 6 AA to power it up and you had to be very careful or your power supply was gone in 4-6 hrs. My next gps was a Eagle Map Guide Pro. My first mapping GPS which was equipped with a 2MB mapping memory. It was physically smaller in size that the first unit, only 4 battterises and about 10-12 hours of battery life. My brother bought a e-trex (yellow) and he was very impressed with the accuracy. At his place of employment there was a certified bench mark and when he checked the accuracy of his gps it was right on at the BM. He convience me to look at Garmin. I looked at the Vista and the GPS V and was torn which to get. I wanted the compact size of the Vista to pack with me out in the woods, and the GPS V was the one I wanted for my vehicle. I ended up with both.

Now comes the drought winter of 2005 and no snow for snowmobiling locally. One of my employer partners went to central Idaho snowmobiling. He call me from Lewiston asking me what kind of GPS I would revcommend for him to purchase. He had a choice of a Garmin Gieko or a Street Pilot at the store he was at. He bought the Gieko. When he got home he told me again about Geo caching after reading about it in his OP manual.

At work, we were talking about geocaching for something to do this winter in place of snowmobiling. Things took off from this point. My employer partners decided to get involved in the sport and they go shopping for GPS' We all bought the new Vista-C color units. I signed up on Feb 10 2005 and have been HOOKED since. I found that the Vista C was to small as I ran out of way point room. My lateat gps is a Map 60cs.

I have found Geo-caching to be a teriffic sport. A lot of people doing this have become very good friends. The places of finding caches has taken me to places I would not have know about otherwise. My hides have become quite entertaining too us as we read logs by you, the finders. I enjoy finding unique cache hides and this motovates me to create something as equal or try to out do making someones cache container.

Link to comment

I read an article about geocaching in the Nov. 2004 Parade magazine and thought this sounds like it is right up my alley! The article hung around my computer until the Spring of 2005 when I decided to log into this site. I was absolutely excited when I saw that there was a cache less than a half mile from my home in a cute little park that I had never heard of (Baker Park cache...now down...I am trying to adopt it). I was so intrigued by that idea that I immediately walked down to the park to validate that it indeed existed..... much to my chagrin...complete with a totem pole! ;) I searched the park without a GPS...without even knowing what I was looking for and of course didn't find it. I rushed home and bought I GPSr that night on EBay or somewhere...a Garmin Geko. I had no idea what it was or how to use it, but someone posted here that there were 25 on sale for about $120.00 and they were the next best thing or something like that...I couldn't wait until it came in the mail. I met with Mossman and learned the basics and spent my free time last summer caching....and have been ever since! Clever hides intrgue me the most. I still love POTS for that reason. Happy caching! :)

Link to comment

I didn't actually hear about geocaching...I kind of stumbled across it after receiving a Garmin GPSIII for Christmas 2002. My dad and I are both licensed pilots and he thought it was something I could use for either flying or to map elevations and routes while cycling.

 

I was visiting my folks in New Mexico at the time and a couple days after getting the GPS and seeing some of the cool things it could do, I took it along on a ride to the top of Sandia Peak on the tramway. After getting back to the house, I went online and did a search for coordinates of some of the features I had seen on the mountain. One of the pages that came up was a geocache. In fact it was this one. I was intrigued but it was winter and this was at very high elevation. Still I really wanted to find it. Then I went to the home page and did a search at my coords on the off chance there was another one closer. What came up shocked me: these things were all over and there was one within walking distance! Well I proudly announced to my folks that I was off to find a geocache! They said "huh? geo-what?"

 

So off I went across the mesa for .81 mile and there it was, a film can hanging in a juniper bush. I could hardly believe that it was really there! I was so excited...I had found a new use for my GPSr! Next day I borrowed the car and found two more and have been hooked ever since. I'll never forget that first one though; it was archived last year.

Link to comment

A friend of mine in California mentioned it one time back in 2002. I looked at the website and the nearest one was a 90 minutes away. Didn't think I could justify a GPSr for that and I was busy doing other things anyway.

 

In 2003 I decided I *had* to have a GPSr but realized I really needed a reason to get one. I recalled geocaching and checked it out again. This time there were a couple of caches nearby. I ordered my yellow Garmin on the internet and the day it came the kids and I raced down to the park and found our first cache. Woo Hoo! I found 20 some more that week and we've been finding them ever since.

 

Though not nearly as many now as we used to...

Link to comment

I read a short article in a magazine about a year ago. Joe's birthday was coming up in July so I bought him a Garmin Etrex and printed out a few caches. We were hooked. Took the Etrex back the next week and traded up for a Legend. Five months later, upgraded again to color. Our college daughters think we're geeks but we sure are having fun.

 

Our college daughters thought we were nuts, too, until we got them their own GPSrs. Now they have joined in! They don't get out much but at least it doesn't cost them more than gas money! <_<

We got started last Nov. My sister went caching with a friend from work, told us about it. Tried it with her and loved it! We cached using her GPS for awhile, then got a GEKO 301 for half price on an after Christmas sale!

Edited by What rock?
Link to comment

I joined GC.com in Oct. 01 and only found about geocaching from stumbling around the internet. I was looking for information on gps and mapping when I came across something on this geocaching game althought I had been using a gps for about 4 years prior to joining. My main puprose of purchasing a gps was so I wouldn't get lost while hunting and was glad to find something where I could use my gps more often therefore I was able to tell my wife that I use it all the time and it wasn't just another gadget. Geocaching has been getting me and my wife outside and to places we would have never seen had it not been for geocaching.

Link to comment

On a slow day at work. (18 Jan 2005) I was perusing CNN.com and bumped into a link to GC.com. I had used a GPS for years hunting and boating. I thought, hmmmmm, I can do that. The next day I found my 1st cache. Duck Feathers. I'd lived in Burien for 20 years and never knew this cool little park existed. I promptly did some research and upgraded to a GPSMAP76CS.

 

I went to a WSGA meeting in February, (I think) and sat next to Prying Pandora and Plaidguy. The Jester gave a presentaion on GSAK which went right over my head. I was there more to see what kind of group was doing this geocaching thing. PP was carying a bag with some lok-n-lok's and she bumped it over. I reached to help her pick them up and got a look from PP like "Your going to lose that hand buddy." so I sucked my horns in. :o Never spoke a word to anyone and no, I'm not shy. Came away from the meeting with mixed feelings. :o

 

Never being one to do things small. I mulled things over a bit and on Mar 9th with my impressive 19 finds I made my 1st forum post. Thus was the beginning of The Great Alaska Cache And Dash. The initial response was, shall we say, lukewarm. :lol: (I'm pretty certain it was more a matter of "WHO the heck is this guy? He can't possibly be serious. Can HE?)

 

On Apr 5th the 1st set of ACD TB's was set out and for the next 5 months I had a ball culminating in a fabulous trip to Alaska with 8 fantastic people. The warmth of our newfound Alaska contingent was truely amazing.

 

I've always maintained, it's not about the numbers but more about who you meet and get to know. I've been blessed in my caching to have met a BUNCH of wonderful, warm people. :lol::mad: And yes, PP is now a great friend. :huh:

Link to comment

It's hard to remember, it's so long ago! My husband (LogBear) has been a map afficianado for as long as I've known him. He stumbled on the gc.com site sometime in 2002. He kept nagging me to join, and finally I did, but did little with it. At some point, I gave him a yellow eTrex as a gift, and he cached every now and then. I found my 1st cache in late 2004, but still didn't do much with it because I had to fight :laughing: three others to get my hands on the one GPSr we had at the time. Not much fun in my eyes. :laughing: But, finally in June of 2005, LogBear gave me my own, and that was all it took! :lol: I took off running and haven't looked back.

Link to comment

To make a short story long, every year near my birthday I sum up my past year's goals and accomplishments. Amazingly, the TODO list is getting longer, not shorter... imagine that.

 

On the list for a few years now was the fact that I have enjoyed too much of my wife's good cooking and sitting watching sports... but this is gonna change on my b-day, again this year! Right.

 

Last year while looking at some old emails, I remembered this site: geocaching.com.... but cannot remember my password. Quickly figure that one out and wanted to know more... as it approached midnight, my wife called to ask if I am coming home... (ya know, self employed, work longer hours, get paid much less). I knew what I had to do....

 

After a few calls the next day, I found out that not only am I a Garmin/Magellan distributor, I can get them within two days. Voila, two ordered. Now to spring the trap....

 

Called my brother, Lowrider71, to let him know about the adventure we were about to take. Told him that I had good/bad news..... good news, I figured out my new diet, bad news, it included him.

 

About 10 months now and I have number 500 in my site. My brother however has been blessed on this trip, not only has he gotten to travel and cache, he won a trip to Alaska on The Great Alaska Cache & Dash. He is targeting 600 as we speak.

 

I have enjoyed caching for three main reasons, hiking and traveling around the state to places I missed or vaguely remember visiting growing up here in the Pacific Northwest. Secondly, it absolutely warms my heart to hear a little voice announce that they "Got it!" or "Found it!"... from an experienced cacher or a child out for the first time. Lastly, meeting the good people who love the outdoors as much as I do, adventuresome and clever as they may be, wanting to do or share more. I love being an American with all the freedoms and blessings I have living in God's Country.

Edited by SilentNW
Link to comment

I came across Prying Pandora's Jenkins Creek cache while I was in Jenkins Creek park, which is right behind my home. I showed my best friend and my dad and my best friend and I looked at the site. I forgot about it for a while until my dad brought home from the library a copy of Geocaching for dummies because he had just gotten a new gps for work and wanted to learn more about it. Ironically I am the one who is hooked. I used his until I finally got my own.

Link to comment

I read about Geocaching in Outside magazine sometime back in 2000. I signed up right away and found my first cache soon after.

 

JayST

 

Here's the magazine. I read about it in December of 2000. Article is in dispatches. http://outside.away.com/outside/magazine/200101/200101.html

Geocaching has sure changed since then. I remeber when I could enter my zip and see caches all the way down in Seattle (Remember Toot Toot City?) on the first page - the only page. Now when I enter my zip, I get 6619 caches as a result.

My first attempt to find a cache was one at Fort Warden in Port Townsend. Unfortunatley it was gone. muggled as they say now, the term wasn't invented yet. The hiding place was really cool though - an old bunker with the entrance barely visible from just a few feet away.

 

JayST

Link to comment

I can't remember where I first heard about it, either a news article or on the Xterra Owner's website. Sounded cool and I lurked around around the website now and then for about a year before registering. I bought a Magellan GPS 2000 on ebay for $20.00, which included the shipping. Went out with the wife and kids looking for treasure and got all of us hooked. Later I picked up a Geko101, and that is what I have been using. I like the simplicity of it and the straight-line-only-figure-out-which-road,trail, etc aspect of using it. I should have got a etrex yellow but the price was right, about $40.00. My wife has been at school full time for a year so our caching has been slowed way down until she is done, 1 more week to go. The kids are hooked too and have their own accounts. I still have one solo now and then to feed the addiction. :D

Edited by hikergps
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...