Caching Coincidences

[+Brandi Sour]

Just wondering if anyone else out there has experienced anything similar and wonder what the probability was of it happening?

 

We collected TB Skarloey, a cute red train, from a bug hotel in the UK and brought it to Cyprus. It's misssion is to visit famous trains/railways around the world. We don't have a rail network here, but there are a number of abandoned ex mining engines about, so we dropped Skarloey off at a cache called 'Off The Rails' (GCV5W1). 13 days later, Skarloey was collected by cachers from New Zealand who own a cache called - wait for it - 'Off The Rails' in Auckland NZ!! (GCNF7B). Spooky or what?

 

We'd be interested in hearing of any other 'strange happenings' or million-to-one chances that you've experienced through caching.

[+nikcap]

Every once in a while I happen to be in the right spot to actually find a cache.

[+paintfiction]

My best caching coincidence was at my cache: Georgia View. It seems me and another cacher had the same idea for a hide - only 3' apart. I had hidden an ammo can (evidently) pretty well because he came along a day or so after I hid it and hid a cache at the end of the same downed tree I hid my ammo can in. The funny thing is a couple of finders missed his container and found mine. Read the first 5 or 6 logs for the whole story. It's pretty interesting. The funniest part was when I got a call from Soulbait asking me which container was the cache.... If you're in the area, the view is beautiful and there is a super cool benchmark nearby.

[Dan&Chris]

Yesterday we did a virtual cache http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...31-ee6ecad15a5a

in my hometown. I knew where this was because my father had donated to the building of this monument, and had a brick with his name on it on site. I was going to set a marker on our GPS as to where his brick was, but couldn't find it anywhere. There were just some blank bricks where his name should have been. Dan finally came to see what was taking me so long. Once I had explained to him and showed him where my dad's brick ought to be, he started flipping over the blank bricks. And there it was! Some random vandal must have flipped it over; or my dad has enemies (I don't think so though.) It was the only brick with a name on it that was flipped over. I thought this was a pretty good coincidence, and a most excellent Father's Day tale too!

[+SG-MIN]

I was driving across Kansas on a road trip with friends and had loaded about 300 random caches in my gps without reading about any of them.

 

Halfway through the trip, we were getting tired, so I asked my friends if they wanted to grab a cache. I noticed one right along the interstate, so we found it. When I went to log it, I thought it was odd that the GC# was only 4 digits (GC30).

 

It turns out the cache was Mingo - which is the oldest active cache in the world.

 

We thought we were grabbing a random park and grab, but it turns out we hit up a peice of geocaching history.

[+PaperBlob]

I have a couple.

 

There's a virtual in my area called Cherry Hill Curiosity. Turns out the subjects of the cache are my great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents, whom I'd found out about just months before.

 

My second story just happened. Three days ago I was checking local caches for bugs going north, since we're going to Maine in a few weeks. Among the many bugs that weren't going my way was one headed for Turkey. Lotsa luck, I remember thinking about that one. The next day, at an event at my daughter's school, I ran into a friend who caches only very occasionally. He asked me if I had any bugs going to - you guessed it - Turkey! Much to his surprise, I told him I could hook him up with one (The Trojan Travel Bug). Yesterday morning I picked up the bug and dropped it off at his house, and they left yesterday evening, bug in hand.

 

I think that's some pretty amazing good luck for that travel bug!

[+wimseyguy]

I once found a cache in CT while passing through during President's Day weekend, and the owner of that cache logged one of mine back here in NC that same weekend. They were in town for business.

[+GEO.JOE]

I think the most coincidental thing that has happened to me was about a year ago I was 4 hours from home camping and caching in Missouri. The few caches I really wanted to hit while there where owned by Knowfuture, when I got back home and checked my Emails I saw that Knowfuture had hunted some of my caches on the days that I was hunting his caches.

[+GEO.JOE]

I once found a cache in CT while passing through during President's Day weekend, and the owner of that cache logged one of mine back here in NC that same weekend. They were in town for business.

 

I think the most coincidental thing that has happened to me was about a year ago I was 4 hours from home camping and caching in Missouri. The few caches I really wanted to hit while there where owned by Knowfuture, when I got back home and checked my Emails I saw that Knowfuture had hunted some of my caches on the days that I was hunting his caches.

 

How about wimseyguy and I posting about similar coincidences within minutes of each other over an hour after the last post was made???

[+Miragee]

For nearly ten months, I had a caching partner. We went caching two days a week, every week.

 

Then she took off in an RV and has been traveling around since March.

 

I took a trip to Colorado in late April. I wanted to go to the remote town of Paradox and really hadn't noticed there was a cache on the road out of town until I started up the switchbacks.

 

I scrambled around in the rocks where there was an incredible view of the valley. I finally found the infrequently-visited cache and was amazed to see the last signature was my former caching partner . . . and that is her only Colorado cache.

[+loraonly]

I collected a TB here in Oregon last spring that wanted to go back to Illinoise. I was going to be going both to Colorado to visit my brother in June, and then July would be in Michigan for a family reunion. I emailed the owner asking where he would rather I place it, or just find another cache here within a couple weeks to put it in. He told me he didn't mind waiting, and so I opted for the Michigan trip since that was the closest to Ill. Okay, so I place it in a cache in Michigan, get back home to Oregon, check the status of this TB, and find that someone from Colorado visiting there too took it and brought it back home with him! Well, this guy turns out to be in the same area in Colorado as my brother, so I emailed him quick, asked him to go retrieve the TB from the cache this guy had put it in. My very obliging brother did this for me, but unfortunately, the little statue guy(Rider of Rohan) was not attached to the tag any longer. I emailed the owner explaining and asking what he wanted us to do with it. My brother ended up mailing him back the tag.

Darn - I really wanted to help that bug fulfill its' mission!

[+Brandi Sour]

Some great tales and the two similar posts have actually thrown up another coincidence in 'real time' as they say!

 

Any more offerings?

[+BBWolf+3Pigs]

I started a TB off in Hawaii last year, and about 3 months later, it was dropped off in a cache in Bremerton, WA the same day I had visited the same cache!

[+AuntieWeasel]

Passing through London, we noticed a new cache had been hidden about 400' from where we were staying. Went out and found it, and inside was a TB from a local cacher in Boston. As it would've preferred being in its home state, I brought it back with me a few days later. Cool.

[+OzGuff]

A local cacher in western NC started a TB with a goal of visiting castles. Since castles are scarce in western NC, and with me visiting London on business, I picked up the TB on my way to the airport. I found a great full-size cache not far from the middle of London and deposited the TB, pleased that it was now much closer to lots of castles.

 

I placed the TB on my watchlist hoping to see tales of castles. Upon my return to the US I get an email that the TB has been picked up by a cacher from NC -- who brought it back to NC! So within the space of less than a week this TB makes two trans-Atlantic flights!

 

(I actually retrieved the TB before my next trip to London a few weeks later and it has had much fun touring castles in the United Kingdom!)

[+Brandi Sour]

Returning from another trip to the UK, we placed a TB in one of our own Cyprus caches. Within a week, some UK cachers dropped a TB in the adjacent cache (also ours) - both TBs were owned by the same person. Decided to reunite them for a photo shoot the next day, but one had already moved on down the road

[+2trax]

I have a travel bug http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=113410 that i sent out to see the tropics and after its trip to hawaii and back to the mainland i ran across it in the palm springs area where its was dropped off by THX4SHT from the shasta area so i took it along on my journey to arizona and dropped it off in a cache there in pheonix and a short time later THX4SHT was in the area and picked out just a few caches to grab while he was there and low and behold the first cache he comes to is the cache i placed the travel bug in so he grabbed it again and took it back to shasta where it had came from . Another time i grabbed a travel bug from Oregon where i live and took it about 800 miles away on a trip and picked one of 100s of caches i visited and placed it in the cache and was emailed later that the cache i placed it in was owned by the father of the cacher who owns the travel bug and lives in idaho

Edited June 24, 2006 by 2trax

[+SNEEZY]

Passing through London, we noticed a new cache had been hidden about 400' from where we were staying. Went out and found it, and inside was a TB from a local cacher in Boston. As it would've preferred being in its home state, I brought it back with me a few days later. Cool.

Thanks again Auntie Weasel for bringing my TB back home.

 

Since then I had a more unique coincidental experience.

While helping to look for a missing cache I found a toy embedded in the ground.

It turned out to be a SNEEZY:

link

I will be moving out west soon. I plan to turn this new found SNEEZY into a TB to remain in New England.

[+the hermit crabs]

I wasn't involved in this one personally; I just happened to see it last fall on a bug I had on my watchlist:

 

Crawling Chaos started off in Arizona, and wanted to go to Ireland and then back home to AZ. After it reached Ireland, it was picked up by a cacher who lives in New Zealand. That cacher never logged the bug pickup. He brought the bug back home to New Zealand, and dropped it in a cache, and didn't log the drop, either.

 

The very next cacher to find it, unlogged in a NZ cache 12,000 miles from where it had last been seen in Ireland a few weeks before, just happened to be from Arizona! He brought it home with him after his NZ trip, completing the bug's goal.

[+Sue Gremlin]

Every once in a while I happen to be in the right spot to actually find a cache.

OMG!!!!!!!!! ME TOO! What are the odds of THAT?!

[+Show Me the Cache]

Here is a log that describes my biggest geo-coincidence:

 

November 11, 2005 by Show Me the Cache (7075 found)

 

I HAVE WAITED FOR THIS DAY FOR FOUR YEARS!

 

Ever since the explosive proliferation of cache hides a few years ago, I have often imagined that I would someday ACCIDENTALLY find a cache in the middle of nowhere without even looking for it.

 

On the way to this cache ("Reason I Cache #1"), at approximately N38:36.386 W85:51.610, in the middle of nowhere, I noticed some strange growths on the side of a tall tree stump and stopped to examine them more closely. THERE WAS A BRAND NEW CACHE HIDDEN IN THE TOP OF THE STUMP.

 

Headed for a cache named "Reason I Cache" seemed like the appropriate place to experience a new THRILL at this point in my geo-career. I have never been so excited to sign a logsheet as "first to find". Now...where do I log this one online?

 

-end of log-

 

Turns out this cache, like most, was placed prior to being approved. Since it was within 528 feet of another cache, it was not approved. The hider had not returned yet to retreive it.

[Scuzball]

At the time of this coincidence, I was excited to get my first cache outside of Kentucky, or Louisville, for that matter. Anyway, I was at my aunt's house because she was in France with her students. I had no computer, so I decided to use the library and walked through the town, as we always do when we go somewhere in Madison. I remember noticing the street names on the way to the library, so I could find caches easier once I got the information (I had no GPS until last week). Upon passing Elm Street, I entered the library. I searched for caches in the area by the zip code. Waiting for the results to pop up, I was teeming with excitement because I was still fairly new to Geocaching and I was obsessed then..........but I'm not....now....er...anyway, the first name to pop up was 796.51. I didn't know what it was, but I read the info. The clue said to look for a log "BOOK". I looked at the maps, and it said it was just past Elm Street....but I had just crossed Elm Stre.....OOH! I thought about asking the staff at the library about it, thinking it would be available upon request. The cache page said that the workers were friendly if I had problems. I thought a little more. Hold on! 796.51? duhh! I want downstairs to find the book numbered 796.51, opened it up, and logged it. How many times do you search for a cache that happens to be in the same building you're in??

[+Webfoot]

I met GPSaxophone through the bulletin boards after he'd found my All Aboard, for Anaheim, Azusa and Cooooookamonga! cache which I could see from my backyard. He lived in New Mexico at the time and I wondered why he was out in Rancho Cucamonga caching. Through various posts and subsequent emails, he told me that his wife, when she was younger, used to walk along that trail behind my house to get to her school. Yep. Saxman's wife is a former student of mine.

 

Another time I was camping up in the Bay Area in California. We had planned several caches, one of which had a nice healthy hike to it. When we got to ground zero, we started looking around and didn't have much success. About 15 minutes into our search, a family came up the trail, led by a young girl of about 13 or so with a GPSr in her hand. She saw us at approximately ground zero and froze. I could almost see the wheels turning in her head - MUGGLES! Yet, once I stated that we were geocachers also, we got to look together. We never did find the cache, but discovered that we had both driven over 300 miles to find a cache and we lived only about 10 miles away from each other in Southern California.

[+ByrnedFish]

came across one of my own TB's while out cache hunting (kinda knew it was in there tho).

 

My friend found a letterbox while he was on his way to a cache he decided to start looking while he was stil 300 feet away, and first place he looked there was a letter box

[+Teamcoz]

While vactioning in the Outerbanks we picked up TB Rocket, whose goal is to travel around teaching people about organ donation, I live in the town where Deborah Heart & Lung Center is, a nationally known hospital for heart and lung transplants, we placed Rocket in the cache closest to the hospital.

[+Thrak]

1. I have a cache called Slow Down! near the town of Vina in Northern California. It turns out there is another cache called Slow Down! in Sunnyvale in Southern California. The wierd part is that the Western coordinates of both end with .744.

 

2. While on vacation I logged a cache in Nevada. The very next cachers to sign the log were local cachers from where I live in California.

 

3. On another vacation hundreds of miles from home I spied a TB in a cache and was about to snag it when I looked at the logs and realized that it had been dropped by someone who lives about a mile from me and that they had been the last person to sign the log. Needless to say I left the TB so it could travel elsewhere.

[+Teamcoz]

 

2. While on vacation I logged a cache in Nevada. The very next cachers to sign the log were local cachers from where I live in California.

 

 

This happened to us in the Outerbanks, each cache we visited we came right after or close to another cacher, we kept noting the parrot erasers in the caches, turns out that cacher is from Jersey, not far from us.