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Koko Needs Inspiration


Michael

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Koko, Groundspeak's famous graphics designer and mother of our beloved Signal needs your help.

 

If you have a funny caching story she would like to hear it. Was there a time you fell in the lake trying to get a cache, followed the wrong trail, took apart a sprinkler system only to find the cache in a tree? Please tell us your story.

 

Thank you.

Edited by Michael
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This is probably one of the funnies things so far for us.......

 

Spent about 15 min Looking for this one in THE DARK first i went down to the river bottom and then my Flaslight started to die man i never ran so fast with a dim flashlight in my life. Back to the car fresh battery walked back down gave up then on way out Dough!!! There it is next to the Wheel....Man what a rush, Took hardware left Cd Case.

Thnks for the Adventure.

 

TB

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I'll let my logs speak for themselves.

 

DNF for The Rocky Lounge

 

I decided to do this one as part of an overnight, solo backpack. Got a very late start due to the fact that a watermain break had closed my street and blocked me in (its a dead end). Arrived at the trailhead with about an hour to go before sunset and hiked in to a favorite spot along the Jimmy Dolan Notch trail.

 

I finished pitching the tent just about the time it got dark, so I hunkered down inside planning on a toasty night inside my sleeping bag. Well I opened my stuff sack and found that I had grabbed my daughter's 20 degree bag instead of my zero degree bag . The temps were forecasted to go down into the low single digits, so I wasn't too pleased, but figured I'd make it through by putting on all my clothing and zippering myself in. Well apparently "womens" sleeping bags aren't designed for 6' tall, 225 lb males. They seem to taper in at about the same spot men get wider..at the shoulders.

 

OK, so now I'm camped on the side of Indian Head Mt. on this very cold night, in a unsuitable sleeping bag that I can't zipper shut . To add insult to injury, I couldn't fit my hiking boots in the bag, so I had to leave them outside and let them freeze into two solid blocks of leather. I knew I was in for an uncomfortable night, but I figured with all my clothing I wouldn't die. I was right on both counts. I probably fell asleep around 8:00, but woke up every hour or so because the bag had come off and I was feeling the cold. I don't recall ever being so cold, for so long in my life.

 

After what seemed like an eternity, morning came. I took a look at the Suunto thermometer on my pack and it read 8 degrees below zero. I don't know if it really was that cold, but I'm sure it was close. The one water bottle I had left outside my sleeping bag was frozen block solid. Now I had to get my feet into those hiking boots. Yeeeeeow!!!! At this point I decided that spending another night out in that sleeping bag was not an option and my feet were so cold, I decided to bag the cache hunt and instead head back down to the warmth of the car.

 

Arriving at the car I had warmed up throroughly and I was feeling pretty good. I could feel my feet again, so I had considered hiking back up to the cache, but after losing all that altitude, I couldn't bring myself to make the climb again. Instead, I headed over to the North Lake area to bag the Kaaterskills Falls virtual.

 

In retrospect, I enjoyed my short night on the mountain (how can you listen to the wind in the trees on a winter night and not enjoy it) and learned that next time to make darn sure I have my own freakin' sleeping bag. If I did, I'd still be up there ejoying the incredible view. BTW, I noticed some veeery big cat prints in the area where I camped. I guess they could have been from a bobcat, but they had me looking over my shoulders when I was packing up my tent.

 

 

And my DNF for The Bridge at Remagen

 

OK this one was a series of mistakes. First, I attempted it in the pouring rain on the way home from work, wearing a light jacket and my good khakis (mistake #1). I parked at the Amboy Cinema lot (Mistake #2, I could have parked much closer) and leaving my car, I noticed a pair of boots in the back. I decided to stick with the flat bottomed penny loafers I had worn to work (Mistake #3). I crossed a water filled ditch with a jump and climbed to the top of the berm and saw a sea of phragmites in front of me. I was about to turn around but didn't (mistake #4). Checking my watch, I noted that I had about a half hour before sunset but figured I could make it the quarter mile to the cache and back before it got dark (mistake #5).

 

I followed the berm as Marty suggested and turned off when the needle said it was .13 miles to my left. I paid no attention to the rain and the fact that I was getting soaked, because the cache was pretty close. I pushed my way through several thick stands of phragmites, but the relatively bare areas between them encouraged me to continue (mistake #6). My GPS was taking me to a spot that looked very promising, so I forged onward. I had picked out an obvious spot from 100 yards away and headed straight there, only to find that I was still 160 feet from the cache (ATMGPS). I forced my way through yet another thick stand of phragmites and arrived at ground zero. I didn't find a tree, but there was a multi trunked sapling in an area that looked a bit like a crop circle.

 

By this time sunset was minutes away. I decided to continue searching (mistake #7), but came up empty. Since it was getting dark I thought it would be a good time to head back.

 

Instead of retracing my route, I hopped on a 4 wheeler trail that seemed to go in the direction of my car (mistake #8). The trail dead ended in, what else, another thick stand of phragmites. I heard Route 35 in the distance and decided to head straight to the road (mistake #9). I was getting close and had to climb a muddy and slick berm to get to my destination. Halfway up, I slipped and impaled my hand on a stick, or something. I continued to the top and noticed blood gushing from my hand (Yuk).

 

Reaching the top, I saw my car about 100 yards away...yeee haa! But wait, there was a body of water and a very thick stand of phragmites between me and my car. I checked the water and it was at least knee deep and I was certain the mud below was even deeper, so I tried to find a way around. At this point, the phragmites were so thick, I could hardly move. With each step forward, I'd slide two steps back because of the mud and my dogone shoes. By this time, I was literally soaked to the skin and it was dark. I reached the top of the berm and although the phragmites were thick, at least it wasn't too muddy, so I stuck with it and headed towards Route 35.

 

Climbing down from the berm, I glanced down at my pants and noticed my left leg was red with blood (ya mix blood with a little water and it always looks a lot worse than it is). Now I had to walk along the highway, literally covered with blood and mud, hoping nobody would notice me and call the cops (Hello officer, there is a man walking along the highway, covered in mud with blood pouring from his hand). I got back to the car and found it was now sitting in a pool of water about 5 inches deep (mistake #...heck, I've lost count).

 

I searched the back for something to stem the bleeding and found a box of tissues that I accidently left in the car after a recent shopping trip (a good mistake, so I won't count it as one).

 

After the application of direct pressure had its desired effect, I was able to get in the car and head home. Luckily, my wife was out with a friend, because she would have really freaked when I walked in the door. Thanks Marty for an interesting evening! Now how am I gonna get those pants clean?!

 

 

Wait, these aren't funny. :rolleyes:

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Mine is simple but I think funny. GCP5NP I was searching for a cache at a local statue that includes a group of people all sitting on a granite bench. There is a reader (Ken Kesey) and his grand kids. I located the cache in the palm of the sitting girls hand. This is a busy intersection in the downtown area where I live so I am trying to get the film canister cache out of her palm and still not garner attention. So there I am sitting next to her on the bench and holding her hand. A guy turning the corner does a one two three triple take and chin hit the ground jaw drop at the guy holding hands with the statue then bursts into laughter. He must have got a kick out of seeing this goofball guy with his new girl at the outdoor plaza. I didn't include the occurrence in my log because I didn't want be a spoiler for the cache. :rolleyes:

 

 

Nice thing is she is always there waiting when I go visit downtown. :P

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I have always enjoyed this log on one of my hides.....

 

September 8, 2004 by S&J (78 found)

Toadstool has long been a favorite spot for us- a multi million-year trip back in time at the end of a 19-mile road. We drove out to find the cache, spend the night, and to take the hike thru’ the “toadstools”. A few days prior to arriving, the area was hit with 4” of rain. The cache sat atop some woody stems, high and dry, surrounded by mud with a slimy make-up unique only to Nebraska. Travel wisely if there have been recent rains.

We went for a late-night walk to look at the stars and ended up in the sod house, a reproduction of the original that once stood here. While standing in the house, looking out the window and talking about the beauty of the desolation, we suddenly heard the unmistakable sound of a rattlesnake. Pointing the flashlight towards the (only) door, we saw the snake, sitting on the threshold, alerting us to his presence. Altho’ he never coiled to strike, his warning was unnerving enough for us to know that we should move on. But how? The snake lay across the only exit, with our excitable dog on the other side, and us trapped in the middle of a 10’x12’ hut. It quickly became apparent that it was the light that attracted the snake to us and that it would also follow the flashlight beam. I gave the dog a very firm “Stay!” command while S ran the light along the foundation away from the door. The snake followed but the angle of the light lessened as it traveled the wall, causing the snake to travel back towards the center of the room... towards us. After a few more well performed flicks of S’s wrist the snake moved far enough from the door to allow us our “escape”. Oh! How we laughed at ourselves on the way back to the trailer.

 

It would be a shame to go after this cache without allowing yourself the time to explore the area. It is both awe-inspiring and mystical. Just don’t go exploring in the dark without a flashlight and a sense of adventure! S&J, and the surprisingly obedient dog, Scarlett O’Hardin

 

 

And this DNF from me:

 

Sometimes I just feel like a rookie cacher out on my first hunt. After 4 and half years I should know better. Thought I would grab this one over the lunch hour today. On the way over to Mitchell from Scottsbluff, the batteries die in the GPS. No problem, I grab the car charger and some AA rechargeables and plug it into the cig lighter. Grabbed something to eat so I could give the batteries a few minutes to charge (after all I just needed them for a few minutes - right??). Put the batteries in and navigated my over to the parking. Jumped out, got within 120 feet and the GPS screen goes blank. Sigh. No problem, just estimate the distance and search. So I did. 10 minutes of frustration later, decided to try the battery trick again. Waited 10 minutes and went hunting. Battery attempt #2 lasted all of 30 seconds - got me to about 75 feet away. Ok - near enough to the first area so I plunged in and tried again. 5 minutes later two young boys walking by ask "what are you doing?" - so I backed off until they moved on. It was about then that the rain started. I ran back to the Jeep and waited about 3 minutes and gave up. About 100 yards down the road - the rain stopped. Sigh. Got back out and ran over to the area. About then I realized that I only had 15 minutes to get back to work in Scottsbluff. Ran back to the Jeep and left. There is always tomorrow......

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... on the photo with people peeking in,

There is another person behind a pillar!

I hadn't noticed Mike there before. By the way, I thought of this picture because of the example Michael gave of "took apart a sprinkler system only to find the cache in a tree?" The cache was actually a fake sprinkler. What's really funny is the four cachers in the picture have more than 25,000 finds between them.

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I don't think I have any funny stories to add but I do have some ideas for the shirt

 

GPS in bold letters and a smiley face under it

 

Got GPS with a question mark under it

 

TupperWHERE

 

to add

A smiley face with found it underneath

 

NEXT

 

stick figure sitting on a log looking down - one word TICKS

 

TB logo with your individual TB number

Edited by bogleman
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ok I found a few funny stories

 

DNF- April 21, 2005 by bogleman (425 found)

You know something-------it really helps if I have a print out of the page with me when I try one of your caches, find a code and guess wrong. I decided to take a nice hike to the other side where my guess put me. Searched high & low found three dead deer (that was an unxpected treat) then I decided to go for a swim - ahhhhhh cool and refreshing. Well it's now time to go hime and rethink this latest adventure. Thanks for the fun ALMOST.

Ian

 

DNF - August 5, 2005 by bogleman (425 found) from this cache

First off I am not bashing any cache by logging a DNF multiple times. I have turned over a new leaf and want a more accurate account of my adventures.

Well, that said back to the adventure. The boy and I arrived at 1900 hours and we hit #4 after about 35 minutes of searching I found it, funny I looked there 3X the other day why I never found it I don't know but today I got it (it hurt, but I got it), I think it was not in its original position. Well off to #5 we get to the gereral location after a short romp we begin to look around. My son had a very large stick he is playing with and he says dad I found it, I turn just in time to see him poking at a rather large hornet nest, I see the hornets start to come out, I tell the boy, no son that is not the cache as we quickly retreat to safer ground. After everything quiets down I find the cache. I open the container and see that maintenance is required, luckily I was able to get the numbers and I replaced the paper. On my next visit I will replace the paper with some more visible code numbers (it is hard to write on sweatty paper with a pencil). Since it is getting dark we decide to leave. Back to the mini urban assault vehicle at 2030 and 1.5 hours of searching/hiking, 1.5 miles walking this visit. This is getting better every visit. I will be back.

Ian

 

DNF on a failed FTF attempt - April 5, 2006 by bogleman (425 found)

Denied – LOL. Saw this one when it first published but I had to get ready for work then get the kids and get going, gotta pay the bills. This is in my instant strike zone I’ll try later. Well I checked a couple of times and still no finds, sweet.

Left work and went straight down found my ground zero and the search is on. A VERY short time later I turn and look and see someone, someone I have seen a few times (well pictures), it's ErieScouter. Introductions are made and we search together.

As we were searching EPD car B4 kept driving around (very busy even at 1130 at night). Well after his third pass he pulls up next to me and says “who do you work for”, I politely say “pardon me” he repeats himself. I tell him the geocaching story and we are looking for something, he snorts and says whatever and leaves. I guess he thought I worked for the foil hat people because he saw the antenna to my GPS in my coat pocket. I know several of Erie’s finest so I did not have to use my get out of jail for free card tonight.

Enough of the rambling, we searched nearly every nook & cranny we could find and I got tired after about 45 minutes of searching.

FTF is still up for grabs, dadgum I got class all day tomorrow.

Ian

The MAY portion in the listing did not help - LOL

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Koko, Groundspeak's famous graphics designer and mother of our beloved Signal needs your help.

 

If you have a funny caching story she would like to hear it. Was there a time you fell in the lake trying to get a cache, followed the wrong trail, took apart a sprinkler system only to find the cache in a tree? Please tell us your story.

 

Thank you.

"took apart a sprinkler system only to find the cache in a tree?"

 

Nuh, uh. You're not going to get me to tell about how I molested a sprinkler. The things I did to it are illegal in 42 states. In fact, we've never even had this conversation.

 

;)

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Daughter and I are are still new to geocaching and the current weather in Indiana is not exactly favorable for geocaching forays. Not to be intimidated (and there IS a beauty of a snow encrusted field or woods), we still attempt to find a cache or two.

 

Our foot of snow has melted and refroze through several cycles. This made for an icy covering over the snow. Some places you sink through, some places you cannot stomp a foot hold. It was quite a slippery path.

 

After schlepping through a park, around baseball diamonds, past a playground and through some woods, we come to a hill. Even though we are doubting the trusty GPS, we plunge ahead. Up the steep hill. We found the cache (I still cannot believe we found it, but we did. It was an awesome cache and really well hid deep inside a hollow, fallen tree. Just as daughter replaces the cache (using a stick to push it all the way back down to its original position), she slips and begins to slide all the way back down the hill we just climbed. Since she was not injured, it proved to be hilarious. Imagine sledding without a sled. Or, imagine sledding on blue jeans. As she went zinging past a tree, she shot out an arm and grabbed on successfully. (Otherwise, she may have just made it all the way back to the car - she was picking up steam as she went!)

 

After she has stopped, regained her senses (and probably mentally checked for any internal injuries), she smashes through the snow to get a foothold. She rises to her feet and has just regained an upright posture when her cell phone rings. Not missing a beat, she answers. Her cell phone is always on speaker (her preference), so I can hear the conversation. It is a good friend, who asks "Whatcha doing?" Again, not missing a beat, she replies "Sliding down a hill. You?"

 

Now, the trip turned out to be one of most fun caches we have ever found. Imagine the disappointment that when we got home, I could not log the find. For some odd reason, it has been turned into a member only cache. (It must not have been before, though, lest I would not have been able to read it in the first place!) So, after all the effort (and risk of life and limb), it is not logged as a find! I guess that is how they will get me to join! LOL

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Well, this didn't happen to me but I thought it was funny. This cache was at the top of this cliff with the stairs being over to the right:

 

6891cd18-99a4-40bd-80cd-594932a12b12.jpg

 

Two Bear Cubs posted the following:

 

'We were momentarily thwarted by the sheer rock cliff. Stood at bottom looking straight up it w/ drops of water hitting our foreheads from up above: "But the GPS says it's still 129 feet through this sheer rock."

Bears are not always the brightest critters in the woods.'

Edited by mertat
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Im not sure where the cache was or the name of it.My wife and I left the truck and walked a couple blocks into the woods.I found the container right off.It was a 2 gallon water cooler with a screw on lid.I unsrewed the lid and opened the container.Attached to the lid was fishing line attached to a rubber snake.When I lifted the lid the snake came out.As I picked myself up off the ground 20 feet away I realized what had happened.My wife almost wet herself laughing.She didnt think I could move that FAST.As I said I dont remember the name of the cache but it should have been called "Heart Attack City"

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hey guys ! <_<

 

Thanks for the post...I enjoy reading them!!

 

Let me ask this:

huum... do you guys have any funny mistakes or action that you made, since you started Geocaching?

 

Like for me,

 

1.I keep spelling "cache" instead of "cash $".

2.I tried to ask the IMPERIAL PALACE in TOKYO if I can hide cache there....and of course, the guardman said NO.

 

Would be cool to find a super cache in Imperial Palace, maybe geocaching with Princess Masako...or something like that I thought.

 

Short and simple example... anyone ? :D

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This doesn't really fit the last question, but I recall one night when a group did a night cache and Land Rover, Prying Pandora, Little Blue and myself did several others in the area. On one of them all four of us were standing together with our 60c's and each was showing 400 feet to the cache. The only problem was we each had a different direction to the cache which was within 50 feet of us.

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Ha,

It seems like my post didn't go through yesterday somehow.... so here it goes again.

 

Do you mean, this?

4people having their own GPS, which is showing all diffrent direction...?

 

6abbcbdf-92b8-4340-ba5a-0b32281044cb.jpg

 

 

This doesn't really fit the last question, but I recall one night when a group did a night cache and Land Rover, Prying Pandora, Little Blue and myself did several others in the area. On one of them all four of us were standing together with our 60c's and each was showing 400 feet to the cache. The only problem was we each had a different direction to the cache which was within 50 feet of us.

Edited by gokokoro
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Saturday September 9th was a day like no other. Started out light misting, then the weather turned pretty.

 

Hubby, myself and daughter went out to find Addie's Trip. Hubby drove us to were stage 1 was located, While he went to grab the coordinates , littlebit and myself stayed to play on the swings that were in the area. After what seemed like an eternity, hubby came back empty handed, soaked to the bone, and looking like he just ran the 10k. I took one look at him and knew not to ask any questions. We loaded back up in the car, headed home. Just about 4 miles down the road, as we are crossing the 2nd bridge, he gets this light bulb in his head and stops the car. I am looking at him, when he says get the geocaching book from the back seat. He remembers reading in the logs that the 2nd stage is on a bridge, could this be the bridge??? Yes it was, we grabbed the coordinates and off we go for stage 3.

 

Mission to finish Addie's Trip. Hubby plugs in the coords and off we go, oh it is only a few miles from our house. Cool this should be easy. We leave littlebit with the grandparents and off we go to an area called Riverside. I have never been here before and it has been years since Hubby had been out on these backroads.

 

We finally get a good reading and find a little trail to go. I am looking at the thick grass in the woods and decided to stay behind, since I am still recovering from 40 tick bites. Again hubby hands me the radio, saying I'll keep in touch. Then he was gone.

 

I am sitting in the car with the bright idea that I will text message some friends while he is out scouting the area for the next micro. Haha, no cell phone service. I am bored to death. What ever shall I do. For the next 45 minutes, I floss my teeth, try walking around outside the car looking for cell service, read over the logs again, listen to the radio (1 station I am picking up, out here in the boonies), watch other vehicles go by and the most important thing stay by the radio.

 

Finally I get a call from sniperchicken, this is how it goes.

HUBBY-Houston we have a problem..

LACEY38655-Ok now I begin to freak out. Whats the problem.

HUBBY- I lost my book crossing the creek, it is stuck in the mud.

LACEY38655-Can you get it?

HUBBY-Hang on let me try..

LACEY38655-Well?

HUBBY-Yeah I got it. I am headed out.

LACEY38655- Ok

 

About ten minutes later.....

 

HUBBY- Honk the horn

LACEY38655- honking the horn

HUBBY- Ok dang you are far away.

 

About ten more minutes later.......

 

LACEY38655-Where are you and what are you doing?

HUBBY- On my way, wipping the sweat and spiderwebs from my face.

 

About ten more minutes pass.

 

I roll the windows down on the car and turn in off, so maybe I can hear him beating around in the woods. Sure enough sounds like bigfoot coming right at me.

 

LACEY38655- Hey I can hear you, (Honking horn again)

HUBBY- Yeah I hear you.

 

( ok here is the funny part)

When HUBBY comes out of the woods, he is covered in mud to his knees. I look at him and shake my head. The whole time thinking We just spent the better part of the day detailing my car.

I asked him what happened and he tells me that when he was crossing the creek, he sunk down to both his knees, when he took a step, lost his right boot, and nearly lost the other one. The FD radio was muddy, the GPS covered in mud, the sheet on the cache was torn with muddy handprints all over it. Lets see his hair was covered with spiderwebs, he had a sweat stain on his shirt, bleeding on his arm from a long stratch from a thorn bush. I felt so sorry for him.

HUBBY you are not getting in my car looking like that. He looked at me and looked around. I went and popped the trunk. Take your clothes off. As he began to undress, we were laughing so hard. Praying that no cars were going to drive by.Can you imagine having to ride 15 minutes home with no clothes on? Sitting on a cold leather seat?

The story does not end here. We get to the house and guess what our neightbor happens to be out side doing lawn work. Being the nice wife that I am, and to help HUBBY out, I back into our garage so he can run into the house. Lord that was to funny, seeing him trying to duck down under our fence so that no one would see him in his underwear.

 

Edited to add... That Hubby plugged in the wrong coords and we were 10 miles from the actual cache location. We did eventually get a smiley for the find..

Edited by lacey38655
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Ha,

It seems like my post didn't go through yesterday somehow.... so here it goes again.

 

Do you mean, this?

4people having their own GPS, which is showing all diffrent direction...?

 

6abbcbdf-92b8-4340-ba5a-0b32281044cb.jpg

 

 

This doesn't really fit the last question, but I recall one night when a group did a night cache and Land Rover, Prying Pandora, Little Blue and myself did several others in the area. On one of them all four of us were standing together with our 60c's and each was showing 400 feet to the cache. The only problem was we each had a different direction to the cache which was within 50 feet of us.

Well the cache would not have been right in between us like that, but a bit off to one side, but you have the general idea.

 

Edit to note that it was really five of us. I said Prying Pandora, but at that time it was Phil and Cathy and both were there.

Edited by WeightMan
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My story of how stubborn we can be in finding a cache...an event cache.

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LU...37-489a9ecf4287

 

Wow... Where to begin.

We started out the day caching along the way to this event, and planned to come in the afternoon. Well, we got caught up and didn't leave the 75& Immokallee interchange until about 5.

According to Google earth, I should have been able to exit 75 at 29, take that north to a road, which would snake over to Turner River and then to the event.

 

BIG MISTAKE!!!!

 

We drove North until I knew we had gone too far. We pulled over at a gas station and walked in. There were some arab guys around the counter, and we asked them if they knew where the camp ground was. They broke into Arabic amongst themselves, and after several more exchanges, suggest we try the Dirt road down their road near the prison.

I knew this wasn't the right route, so thanked them and walked out to the car. Then an idea hit. I called my brother at home and asked him to Google Earth the road I had looked for. With the coordinategs of that in hand, we headed south. The enterance was hidden by a new bridge project! No wonder we didn't see it! As we drove in, the road diverged into two roads. One was gated and locked with a DNR sign. The other was blocked by a VERY large off-road vehiche being pulled by a white pickup. Both were stopped in the path. We got out of the car amd knocked on the window of the pickup. The guy inside at first didn't answer, but then woke up and tried fiddling with the window buttons, thne turning his engine on and off. He eventually gave up and got out of his car. It was apparent that he was drunk. He looked tired, he was wobbly, and there was a brown paper bag on his seat with a bottle sticking out. We asked him for directions, and got nowhere. His North and South were mixed up, and at times he wanted to call the sheriff. He said he'd go scout our intended path for us, and what could we say but yes? His massive ensemble was much bigger than our minivan. He drives down the road, and a few minutes later comes bacl and tells us that it's blocked.

By now, we've figured out that we're going to have to go South to find this place. I wan to go home at this point, but the rest of the party, out of stubbornness, wants to forge on. WE drive south, over 75, and come upon a Sherriff's car pulling somebody over. We pull up along side his car and ask if he knows where this place is. Thankfully, he was not drunk and spoke English, and was able to get us on our way. We drove and drove until we reached Tamiami, then turned and looked for Turner River. Every road seemed to be it, but we finally found it and, 20 gruling miles later, we found the event. By this time, it was 7:20, and with a 2.5 hour commute ahead of us, we couldn't stay long. We walked in, mewt some people (Nice meeting you Doc Dean and GatorMan!) and signed the log. I really wish there had been some more time for more meeting with people, but the return trip beckoned, and we bid you all farewell and headed back towards Tamiami. WE got back to the interastate, dog tired, and were home by 11:00.

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We had a lot of fun with this log:

 

It was a nice day and we decided to try the caches in Double Rock Park today. We introduced my daughters friend Kyra and her family to the game today.

The trouble began almost immediately when I couldn't even get a decent signal in the parking lot. Eventually I determined which trail to take and we headed off, a happy band of adventure seekers. With my (not so) trusty Legend GPS in hand, I took the lead, explaining the game in short bursts over my shoulder as I forged on toward the cache coordinates. "Yeah, this baby will get us within 20 to 30 feet of the cache" I bragged as we trekked along the trail. "It's a LOT of fun! You'll see." The GPS briefly lost lock a couple of times on the way in, and the arrow never really seemed to point in the same direction, but the distance kept dropping, so I decided to keep going, pretending that I knew exactly where I was going.

 

I was bluffing nicely until the GPS indicated that we were 100 feet from the cache. Then, it happened. The unit went crazy. Suddenly we were 36.2 miles away.

 

Okay, no problem. We had gotten within 100 feet right? So I said, "Look around, guys! It's right around here." " Look where?" they asked. "You know, AROUND!" I replied, with just a hint of frustration beginning to creep into my voice.

 

I quickly decrypted the hint which, had we been closer to the cache, would have helped immensely. I told everyone what to look for and tried finding a spot with a more favorable view of the sky, while growing ever more convinced that we had been abducted by aliens, been transported 36.2 miles west, and had our memories erased.

 

Growing more frustrated by the minute, I tried turning the GPS off and then back on. BIG mistake. Before I knew it, we were in St. Louis, Missouri. (The trip was pleasant enough, but they lost my luggage. The weather was much as it was in Baltimore, though.)

 

By now, our happy group had turned into wandering nomads, each convinced that they, and they alone knew what the hint meant, and where to find the cache.

 

Needless to say, I was feeling pretty foolish by this point, telling Marge (The Mom of the family that had never been caching) that this type of thing NEVER happens. "It's usually a LOT of fun. You'll see."

 

 

We arrived back in Baltimore after I turned the unit off and on a couple more times, but with all of this travelling, jet lag was beginning to take it's toll. It still wouldn't behave properly so I sent it to bed with no dinner.

 

I went back to the area where the GPS went on strike and back tracked a little. Lo and behold, bathed in a shaft of light, streaming through the trees, there it was! The answer to the hint! It had to be. It was perfect, what with the shaft of light and all. I followed it and FOUND the cache!

 

"I FOUND IT! I FOUND IT! I bellowed" I shouted as loud as I could, because by now some members of the group actually WERE 36.2 miles away!

 

My wife said, "Why didn't you let the new guys find it?" "BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW WHERE THEY ARE AND I WANTED TO FINISH THIS CACHE IN MY LIFETIME!" I calmly replied.

 

We took a squishy golf ball, and left a rescue vehicle and a matchbox car. We also dropped off the Peter Pan travel bug. After the weird way the GPS was acting, I figure this is as close to Neverland as He's going to get.

 

After replacing the cache, we decided to tempt fate and try the other cache you placed in this "Bermuda Triangle", all the while telling Marge over and over, "It's a LOT of fun! You'll see!"

Thanks!

 

Followed by this log:

 

As I noted in the logs of "The Double Rock Stumper" my GPS had been misbehaving badly today. After being sent to bed without dinner, I suspect that it knew I meant business. I fired that little blue box of frustration back up and it actually told me where we were this time. feeling giddy with relief, I punched in the coordinates and we headed off, my half of Trinity's Crew, and a family of newbies that I was trying valiantly to impress with how "fun" this hobby really was, in what I hoped was the right direction.

 

This time the GPS seemed to cooperate nicely, and took us right to an area where examples of the "common folk practice" abounded. "See," I exclaimed gleefully, "look at all of this common folk practice! Start looking for Alex and Erin." It was at this point that my wife informed me that the ENTIRE trail (and the whole park for that matter)was COVERED with the folk practice. I had been too busy staring at the directional arrow to notice this until now. However, I was convinced that THIS TIME the GPS was right.

 

Too bad the rest of the group wasn't as confident as me. After looking at some of the common folk practice nearby, I looked up to find that the group had spread out in an attempt to cover an area roughly the size of Rhode Island.

 

"Come back and look around here!", I shouted. "Yeah, right, Dad." my son said with a look of utter pity on his face. "No, really!" I replied, "It's RIGHT this time!"

My son decided to humor me and before long he found the information.

 

We found the second and third examples of the common folk practice pretty quickly and headed for the cache. About halfway there the children in the group had their attention diverted by a nylon rope swing hanging over the stream in the area. I tried to spur them on, stamping my feet and whining, "Come on guys! Stop acting like children!" (Nevermind that they were children)

"It's right up this hill!" I exclaimed, "Why do you want to do that when you can play this "really fun" game with me?"

 

Apparently I had begun to speak in a language that they did not understand, because I know that they couldn't have just been ignoring me.

 

My wife and Marge caught up to us quickly and I took this opportunity to ditch the uncooperative kids and head on toward the cache.

 

As it turns out, having the time to search for this cache with the rest of the group several hundred yards away was a blessing, because my GPS decided that it didn't want to play with me any more, either.

 

Resorting to the clue again, I scoured the hillside for what felt like hours, (Hey, 15 minutes CAN feel like hours sometimes) until I finally spied the cache.

 

I walked about halfway back to the rest of crew, and yelled, "Hey guys, let's go! I'm sure the GPS will take us right to it this time!"

 

As they caught up with me I stared intently at the now useless Etrex Legend in my hand while proclaiming, "Follow me guys! The GPS says it's right up here!" It was at this point that my son Kevin glanced over at the unit and said, "Hey Dad, where's the directional arrow? The navigation screen is blank, Dad." then he asked loudly, "That thing stopped working again, didn't it?" "Ix-nay on the erking-way omments-cay, Evin-cay!" I replied tersely, "these guys don't know that, or at least they didn't until you pointed it out."

 

I took them to within 30 feet of the cache and let them find it for themselves. My daughter's friend Kyra found it. She was quite happy to claim the WG dollar as her well earned prize. Her brother Mitchell took a small super ball, and this pretty much left the cache empty, so we left a deck of cards, a matchbox car, a lizard, an army guy, a small rescue vehicle, a flexible Easter bunny, and two refrigerator magnets.

 

As I hope you can tell we had a great time searching for your caches in this beautiful park. Thanks for taking the time to hide them for us!

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Short and simple example... anyone ? :anibad:

 

We found a micro on a street corner (hanging from the walk/don't walk sign) in a large city. Afterwards we joked about how embarrasing it would have been if I had waited in the car and let my wife stand on the street corner for fifteen minutes trying to look inconspicuous.

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Some simple phrases - along the line of the focus & bliss shirts

 

Find it

Found it

Let's go

Good friends - great places

Get outside

Go caching

Making tracks

Explore

Discover

Thrill

Adventure

Al fresco

 

a side note I can see that arriving at a good idea can be quite a challenge

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Well, there was the day I was headed toward the second waypoint, when suddenly a wild boar about the size of a Greyhound bus (well, maybe a small VW) jumps out from under a bush. Fortunately, he wasn't being territorial. We both snorted and ran in opposite directions. Unfortunately, his direction was toward the cache.

 

I don't know which one of us scared the more poop out of the other. I do know that I saw a trail of it where he had been running. I will remain silent about the area where I was running. For the rest of the trek, I was whistling loudly and banging my stick on trees in the area to forestall a second occurance.

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We had a good time just a couple of days ago. Went caching with my mom and dad. We decided to do a trail around a local creek. The map made it seem that the trail wound around the creek. It didn't. We picked up 9 caches on this single trail, we were about 5 miles in when we ran into someone on a horse. She told us that there was no way out, except to go back.

 

Okay, I'm no spring chicken, and neither are my parents. Besides, I was really tired because the last half mile I COULDN'T STOP LAUGHING :P . My mom (think Zsa Zsa Gabor) had fashioned a walking stick, and my dad and I were casting quick glances at the GPSr. We didn't want mom to see us look, because then she'd ask us how far the truck was! We had our geocaching chihuahua with us and a fun time was had by all. EXCEPT... We were 5 miles away from our vehicle and it was 5:15 pm. Nothing left to do but call for help. The only person I could think to call (when I realized where we were which was an equestrian trailhead) was the local fire chief. Sure enough, he showed up to "rescue" us in the Fire Department's Rescue Suburban.... But he forgot the diet cokes!

 

Something is ALWAYS happening with us. Another funny incident occurred in Arkansas. My son was trying to get a cache and it had been raining. He ended up sliding off some logs and taking a mud bath. He still went on to get 2 more caches!

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mine was the whetstone resevour 1 i went at it from rattlesnake road so i was on the wrong side. found the first stage no problem but the next coordinance pointed like at an angle from the way i came in. i remembered seeing a trail that went back the same direction so i thought that has to be it. the gps said i was about .75 miles from the cache but after 2 hours on this trail im still .5 miles away. time to bushwack straight line to the cache. what a jungle 1 hour later there it was the resevour. hmm walk down the hill and try and cross the raging creek below walk the whole way around the resevour?. piss on that im beat and this spillway looks easy enough to cross.... yeehaww down i went on one of the wildest water rides of my life. it was so much fun after finding the cache took the trip down a few more times.

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Here's my log from GCKBKJ

 

Went after this one this morning thinking a quick in and out and one more logged. Yeah right!!!! Came in from the wrong side of creek. Thought I could make it across, after all it's not that wide. The 'solid ground' I was standing on fell in to the creek, as ice is want to do, and I tumbled down with it. Lucky just one foot and one un-gloved hand went into the freezing water. The rest of me landed with a thump on the hard berg I had carved away from the edge. Stand up, get across the creek, dust off the snow and get on with it. Followed the GPSr within 30' and then a blank screen. Should changed the batteries before I left the car. Now to hike back. This time all use the bridge. Oh well, a bad day of caching is better than a good day doing anything else. I shall return!!

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My funniest story just happened a few days back. Out caching for the day, on the way home and decided to find one last cache as a night cap. It was pitch black, but thought I would give it a shot. Never read any logs on it, but a cache is a cache, right? Was in a residential/industrial/rural area (sounds weird, but true) . Took off for GZ in an open, dirt field and caught something out of the corner of my eye. It appeared to be the largest dog I had ever seen in my life. I ran like hell back to the car. Thought it was an attack dog from the local business ready to tear me a new one. Went home, and went on a rant about a cache being by guard dogs. Read some logs and realized there was indead an animal living close-by. Went back in the daylight, and found the mean, vicous dog was actually the biggest, happiest pig I have ever seen (behind a fence). And I was affraid of THAT? Fed Wilbur some strawberries. I think we bonded.

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Which, of course, reminded me of DPA, a cache I found during the Gig Harbor Cache Machine. The cache was a fake pile.

 

ewwwwwww and LOL

I hope you poked it with a stick first...!

As I recall it was the toe of my boot, but it just didn't look real.

We have one of those in our area, very realistic. Even though I figured it was the cache, it took me a long time to get the courage up to touch it. icon8.gif

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Hi all!

 

I am trying to come up with a new Tshirt design... like, FOCUS which makes people "grin" and a story that can link to many of geocachers :D

 

That's why I need to hear funny stories...

Domo Arigato!! Thank you!!

 

Ok. How about this:

 

--TNLNSL--

It's a caching thing,

You woundn't understand

 

ALTOIDS

The curiously refreshing

caching container

 

My Mom and Dad went caching.

All I got is this lousy rubber lizzard

 

"Muggles"

Always the best

excuse for DNF

 

****FTF****

I am the master of my domain!

 

Listen to none of this. Just late night babble. Good luck on the T-shirts.

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This is my story.

This was find number six on my first geocaching trek in JCMF Tom Wallace recreation area. Wow I made a big mistake on this one, when I was inputting the coord's for this one I got mix up, I took the north coord's from Ronald Reagan Memorial Cache and mix them up with the west coord's from Trinity Tree. So after searching in the wrong area for some time I check the coord's finding my mistake, so I fix the coord's, but when all of this is going on I keep hearing gunshot like sounds so this give's me more incentive to check the coord's. So with the fix coord's I hike to the cache and after a quick search I find the cache. Thanks for the heart pounding trek and rock on!

And here is the cache that I was looking for.

Edited by emurock
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hey guys ! :ph34r:

 

Thanks for the post...I enjoy reading them!!

 

Let me ask this:

huum... do you guys have any funny mistakes or action that you made, since you started Geocaching?

 

Like for me,

 

1.I keep spelling "cache" instead of "cash $".

2.I tried to ask the IMPERIAL PALACE in TOKYO if I can hide cache there....and of course, the guardman said NO.

 

Would be cool to find a super cache in Imperial Palace, maybe geocaching with Princess Masako...or something like that I thought.

 

Short and simple example... anyone ? :ph34r:

 

After looking at the interesting cache box posts including the fake dog doo cache....well lets just say the one my brother found with me wasnt fake. teee heee heee

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I was a brand new cacher, still in-putting the coordinates by hand when, while looking for a cache, I ended up on a small Indian Reservation near their cemetary. :ph34r:

 

It was very interesting, but it was obvious there was no cache where I was. :ph34r:

 

When I checked the coordinates and corrected them, I found the cache about a mile away on a sign protesting the impending construction of a huge casino on that six-acre reservation . . . bigeyes.gif

 

Spooky . . . :(

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Well, I'm pretty much a newbie at this, but I'm sure its going to be awhile before I live this one down. Yesterday I was caching out of state with my dd and my dad. DD is my caching buddy and used to weird things that happen, dad has never been before. Being that I wasn't near my own computer I had to manually enter the coords from the print out to set the GPSr. Somehow I hit the enter button twice and managed not only to enter what I had intended to but also the coords of where I happened to be standing at that moment. Anyone care to guess which set of coords we spent 45 minutes using? Yep. The ones that kept taking us back to the car, over and over and over again. My dad even had me MOVE the car to see if I'd parked on top of it. LOL!

 

The actual cache was finally found with the correct coords, completely across the river from where we were parked. DD was happy she finally got her first find...the location was beautiful and we explored it more thoroughly than we probably otherwise would have, but I'm sure I'm going to spend a long time hearing about how we spent 45 minutes trying to find my car. So maybe we need a shirt that says....

 

DUDE! Where's my car?

Edited by teribear68
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