Caching Milestones

[hoosier guy]

I found my 100th cache yesterday. It was in a graveyard over in Illinois on a beautiful day before Easter.

Collected several others in Shawnee NF after that.

 

When it comes to caching milestones (define milestone as you will; number of caches placed or found, caching in X number of states, finding all types of caches, etc) which milestone meant the most to you?

Edited April 5, 2010 by hoosier guy

[+bthomas]

Congrats! I called myself a geocacher at 100 finds. There's a lot more fun geocaches and interesting places ahead for you.

 

Best milestones... Back in the day, 1K and then 10K. Was happy to get my backlog under 1000, and log through 15K. Ah, the 400 day milestone with mjp303 and geoides. 100 5-stars is more characteristic for me.

 

Big challenges were milestones: the 3 Delorme maps for California, Jasmer All-months, the first Fizzy challenge.

[+Markwell]

My next one.

[+DarkZen]

100 was cool as was my first FTF. My favorite number is 505 and one of my caching friends made my a special cache for that number which was very nice. I'm coming up on 1000. hoping that will be a fun one.

 

Congrats on reaching 100! Wohoooo

[+LightHouseSeekers]

Current stats: 1400+

Tne best was 100, better than 1000.

That one was a conquest of finding one that we had 3 DNFs on before.

We made 1 K special but it wasn't as fulfilling.

[+narcissa]

500 and 1000 were the ones I was most excited about.

[+Wooden Cyclist]

Hitting 1000 changed the game for me. I no longer feel the need to find every cache within 50 miles of my house. Caches that look interesting, challenging or fun catch my attention, the others don't.

 

I also am trying to "become part of the change I want to see" by not hiding micros unless nothing else will work in a very place that would be interesting to visit.

[+birder428]

I'm at 400+ finds, so right now I'd say the first one- which got me hooked! - and my 100th, because at the time that seemed like such an accomplishment. I think my next significant milestone will be my 1000th.

 

As for placing, I made a New Year's Resolution to place one cache a month for 2010. At the time I made that resolution, I had only placed two. I'm happy to say that in 2010 I have placed 14, thereby meeting my resolution. (I think it's the only NYR I've ever achieved!) And it's only April!

 

Congrats to all whose find totals are in the thousands!

[+Cardinal Red]

I found my 100th cache yesterday. It was in a graveyard over in Illinois on a beautiful day before Easter.

Collected several others in Shawnee NF after that.

 

When it comes to caching milestones (define milestone as you will; number of caches placed or found, caching in X number of states, finding all tyoes of caches, etc) which milwstone meant the most to you?

Congrats on your 100th. I think #100 and #200 will always stand out for me. #1000 could still be 2+ years away. Obviously 1K is something to look forward to, but it won't be better than those early century marks.

[+ngrrfan]

When it comes to caching milestones (define milestone as you will; number of caches placed or found, caching in X number of states, finding all tyoes of caches, etc) which milwstone meant the most to you?

Watching my partner get her 1000th.

 

Yeah I'm over 600 but I don't really keep track of my milestones. I get more pleasure watching and helping others hit milestones or goals.

Edited April 4, 2010 by ngrrfan

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Hitting 1000 changed the game for me. I no longer feel the need to find every cache within 50 miles of my house. Caches that look interesting, challenging or fun catch my attention, the others don't.

 

I am slowly approaching 1000 myself and think I'll probably have the same reaction. Even though 1000 is in reach (42 to go) I've gone cacheing far less often because I know I'll get there eventually and really don't care how many I get after I hit that milestone. The coolest milestone for me was getting my 909th find at an geocaching event on 09/09/09. I hid a cache for the event that someone found at 9:09am.

[+Tequila]

#1701.

 

A good caching friend, 1701eh, passed away in 2006.

 

To honor him, I chose a special BONUS cache he had created. He placed it in 2005 and I was the 17th cacher to find it in 2008.

 

It was a nice tribute to a great friend and cacher.

[+FancoverFive]

When (if) I manage 100 finds in one year of caching, that's my main milestone. But then it'll be 200. Then 500. Et cetera...

[+WRASTRO]

I would say our first find. It wasn't a great hide and it wasn't in a great location. It WAS the start of what is now more than six years of caching fun and adventure. When we hit 100 finds after nearly a year we considered ourselves "real" geocachers. We have always made a point of just letting so called milestones happen rather than trying to build them up by planning some super-dooper-special cache hunt.

[+HawkLawless1]

I've been caching since July 09 and hit #100 on 2/18/10. I was pretty selective in timing it because I didn't want it to be a PnG. So I waited and marked a multi-cache for #100...made myself work for it. I'm hoping to hit #200 before my 1yr anniversary.

[+briansnat]

Back when I paid attention to these kinds of things I thought reaching 100 was a big deal. That was before you could find 100 in a weekend of caching (or in a half a day in a few places).

 

I really don't pay attention to milestones anymore, other than the amount of fun I'm having.

Edited April 5, 2010 by briansnat

[+Chrysalides]

I wouldn't say it means the most to me, but my most interesting stat from GSAK is "Maximum distance in a day" : 8488 miles, on 2/16/2009. I think there were only 3 caches found that day, but an early flight, a cache right inside the airport, and crossing the International Date Line helped.

 

I don't put much effort into interesting milestones. Just because it is a nice round number find doesn't mean that much to me. Besides, if I try for a really cool cache for a milestone cache, there's a good chance I'll DNF it. Looking at the milestones in my GSAK stats, my 100th find is a LPC, 200th is a funny puzzle whose final is a LPC, 300th is a hide-a-key in a park, and so on. Some of them are interesting, most of them are fun, but none of them are among my top 5 favorite caches.

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

Numbers milestones never meant much to me, although the golden ammo cans I got from my local Alabama Geocaching Association pals at 1k and again at 2500 and the Golden Nut I got from my California NUTS (Northern Unusual Treasure Seekers) friends were certainly memorable and appreciated.

 

Two 'milestones' stand out... the cache that hooked me on this game, and a difficult 'target' I had set my sights on.

 

The first was early in my geocaching life, a cache named Pig Iron, which is an old iron foundry site. The first thing that interested me was that it was a national memorial park right in the middle of where I grew up that I never knew was there. Then, for some reason, history hit me like a ton of bricks while I sat and looked at the ruins of this old foundry. The sign told me the basics and imagination and some reading online when I got home fleshed out the rest. Toward the end of The War of Northern Aggression a Mississippi foundry owner named McElwain, who was making cannon and other weaponry for our brave fighting men, got word that a Yankee mob known as Wilson's Raiders was headed his way, bent on destroying our infrastructure so that our gallant Southern men would have nothing left to fight with. McElwain had heard of, but never seen, an interesting valley over 150 miles east in Alabama which had water, sulpher, iron ore and coal (the makings of iron and steel) all in one place and close enough to the surface to be quickly mined - a rarity essential for foundry operations. He disassembled his foundry, packed it and the household belongings of fifty-something employee families, and moved them to the Alabama valley. On mule carts. Without roads. Or maps. I had driven to this site in fifteen minutes in an air-conditioned SUV, led to the exact spot by GPS. He had to cut his own roads through uncharted woods. Oh my, how times have changed! How easy my life and how trivial my troubles become when I think of what these men did. He set up his foundry and named it Irondale Foundry due to the abundant iron ore seams near the surface in this dale (valley). Iron dale.

Irondale... That's the name of the town I live in. My kids went to McElwain School. I never thought to ask where those names had come from.

 

So, my first geocaching milestone was a lesson. Pay attention to how things came to be, and appreciate what I have and how easy I have it.

 

When I started geocaching I was a sick puppy. After twenty-four years of surgery featuring years of hospitalizations, forty-two bone grafts, an amputated leg and a broken neck I was in constant pain, incapacitated to the point of being useless, and badly addicted to the narcotic pain medication Fentanyl. Geocaching provided a path to recovery. It motivated me to quit the drugs and find caches as a way to recover both my mental and physical health.

 

The second milestone became a cache called Higher Than A Hawk, which is at the peak of the second-highest point in Alabama. I could see that mountain top out of my window, but after years of being nailed to the couch there was no way I could see myself getting up there. So that became my goal. I would get that cache, and when I did I would know that I had recovered, that I could do whatever I wanted, that I had my life back. So I cached. At first I would do one park-and-grab and get home exhausted. Then I could get five. Then I could hike a half-mile. Then two miles. Each week I could do more and harder, and after six months of caching daily I climbed that mountain and signed that log. Then I sat on a nearby rock overlook and cried like a baby for the first time in my adult life. I had signed that log. Thank you, Jesus. I thought I was going to die on that hike, but I kept going. What takes 'normal' cachers an hour-and-a-half took me six hours, by which time the park was closed, my car locked in the parking lot, so I had to bushwhack down the back side of the mountain to a road and hitch-hike home. Now THAT was a milestone. That was the day I knew that I was back in control and would never be a weak victim again.

 

Milestones. Yeah, for me they have nothing to do with numbers!

Edited April 5, 2010 by TheAlabamaRambler

[vagabond]

I guess it would have to be my 300th on June 23 2002 that I'll always remember caching with a dear friend who is no longer with us. His handle was Yrium and some of you old timers might remember him, he was a story teller extraordinaire, and his logs could always get a chuckle out of you. sometimes when I'm feeling a little low I'll go back and read some of his logs.

[+bthomas]

Milestones. Yeah, for me they have nothing to do with numbers!

Inspirational.

 

I like how geocaching can continually bring you to the unexpected, and maybe that's the next milestone.

Edited April 5, 2010 by bthomas

[+simpjkee]

Originally I wanted a thousand finds so I went cache crazy to hit 1,000. I got there and was proud of it. Since then I haven't really paid much attention to my milestones.

 

There is a cache though that is out along a hiking trail in the middle of the desert. When I first started caching I was browsing profiles and saw it and wanted to go find it. I had never hiked before I started caching so it was WAY out of my league. I spent a couple of years hiking with more experienced hikers and gaining knowledge about hiking and such. Eventually, I had enough experience that I finally felt it wasn't out of my league anymore so I went and found it. To know that I had gone from a hiking newbie knowing nothing about hiking to being experienced enough to make that hike safelty was a big personal milestone for me. I've since been there again and have done some more advanced hikes as well.

[+t4e]

 

Milestones. Yeah, for me they have nothing to do with numbers!

 

after that story how can i possibly brag about my 1100 finds and my milestones

 

that is truly an inspirational story and an amazing showcase of determination

 

congrats!!!!!

[+Fncnca]

The first one was a huge rush, we were giddy when we found it.

But other than being the first, it has no more of a special meaning than any of the others. We celebrate all of them, because we got out and found them.

 

Got our first FTF last weekend, it has no special meaning to us other than we found it.

 

The milestone that means the most to us, is the day we started doing this. That one can only happen once.

[+Knight2000]

My next one.

That's how we roll. Every cache is a milestone.

Edited April 5, 2010 by Knight2000

[+tzipora]

Finding my first cache was pretty significant - Spruce Tree near Uranus.

 

I felt very accomplished after #100, I wish I was an Apple Tree.

 

For #200, I tried to go for a couple of caches with names related to trees - Lone Tree and XMAS Tree Farm?, but DNFed both of them spectacularly and ended up giving in on my dreams of keeping trees for my milestones.

 

By the time I got to #300 a couple weeks ago, I didn't even realize that it was #300 until I logged it online. I lost track of how many I'd found, so my plans to have an EarthCache be the milestone failed.

 

Right now, I care more about maintaining my streak - this weekend, I beat my previous personal best, so every day that I keep it going is a new milestone for me. My other challenges are filling in my difficulty/terrain matrix and racking up the EarthCaches.

 

In the end, it's more about exploration for me. Geocaching takes me places that I might not otherwise have gone and makes me look at the places I've already been in a slightly different way.

[+fizzymagic]

When I finished the Fizzy Challenge. And then when I hit 300,000 caching miles it seemed like a big deal.

[+moose61]

Not really any milestone. I don't care about the numbers, only about the quality of the caches and some special finds. I don't care if it is a milestone or not.

[+wimseyguy]

I'd have to say the most significant was 1000. When I first started I was caching alone all the time, except for the very occasional times my wife tagged along. Somewhere around 500-600 it became something to do with friends.

 

A tradition adapted from somewhere that I visited with some close geopals was started here-you had to find a really nasty tough multi for your 1000th find and then attend an event in your honor. Four of us hit 1000 at about the same time, so the organizers plotted out a unique test for all of us that began in the same parking lot, took different paths around town, and then ended up on the same trailhead for a hike to the combined final stage. We had been on the hunt for about 6 hours already, it was over 90 degrees and about the same for the humidity, but the camaraderie made the hike worthwhile. We finally got to our event sweaty, exhausted, dirty and probably smelly, and met up with dozens of cachers from near and far who were awaiting our arrival.

 

There have been a lot of other milestones and finds since then, but the friendships that were forged that weekend are still very special to me.

 

The best stages of those four special caches were later combined into one multi for all to attempt. So I returned to that trail for #1500, and saw some of the intermediate stages that baffled my comrades six months earlier.

[+AlohaBra and MaksMom]

My caching milestone was somewhere after my 100th find when I figured out how to do paperless geocaching with my NUVI. I found out from reading these forums. I became a premium member and the number of caches found really took off. One other milestone was when I got a Garmin Vista HCx to replace my I-Que 3600 GPSr.

Edited April 5, 2010 by alohabra

[+KJcachers]

100 was special, 500 was suppose to be but "somebody" can't count and it turned out to be a guardrail and 1000 was nice also. We are only going to plan special caches for the 500 increments from this point on.

[+bflentje]

After 2000 I really quit caring "as much" until I hit 3000. That was my coolest milestone.. I was FTF on a 5/5 cache, located on an abandoned lighthouse at the mouth of the Mississippi River. It was like the topper after just having completed the Great River Road challenge from Itasca, MN to Venice, LA. That was also my most expensive cache find ever if you factor in the chartered boat.

[+atmospherium]

At find #100 I felt like I had arrived as a genuine geocacher. A newbie no more. It was a tough cache that took me several attempts. I was pretty happy about that one

 

For #200 I made an 80 mile pilgrimage to "The Spot".

 

Those are the two memorable milestones so far. #300 was another tough cache, but I lost count the day I hit #400.

 

I'm stuck at #452, thanks to financial problems, so my next milestone will be the day I can afford to go out caching again.

[+chachi44089]

Numbers milestones never meant much to me, although the golden ammo cans I got from my local Alabama Geocaching Association pals at 1k and again at 2500 and the Golden Nut I got from my California NUTS (Northern Unusual Treasure Seekers) friends were certainly memorable and appreciated.

 

Two 'milestones' stand out... the cache that hooked me on this game, and a difficult 'target' I had set my sights on.

 

The first was early in my geocaching life, a cache named Pig Iron, which is an old iron foundry site. The first thing that interested me was that it was a national memorial park right in the middle of where I grew up that I never knew was there. Then, for some reason, history hit me like a ton of bricks while I sat and looked at the ruins of this old foundry. The sign told me the basics and imagination and some reading online when I got home fleshed out the rest. Toward the end of The War of Northern Aggression a Mississippi foundry owner named McElwain, who was making cannon and other weaponry for our brave fighting men, got word that a Yankee mob known as Wilson's Raiders was headed his way, bent on destroying our infrastructure so that our gallant Southern men would have nothing left to fight with. McElwain had heard of, but never seen, an interesting valley over 150 miles east in Alabama which had water, sulpher, iron ore and coal (the makings of iron and steel) all in one place and close enough to the surface to be quickly mined - a rarity essential for foundry operations. He disassembled his foundry, packed it and the household belongings of fifty-something employee families, and moved them to the Alabama valley. On mule carts. Without roads. Or maps. I had driven to this site in fifteen minutes in an air-conditioned SUV, led to the exact spot by GPS. He had to cut his own roads through uncharted woods. Oh my, how times have changed! How easy my life and how trivial my troubles become when I think of what these men did. He set up his foundry and named it Irondale Foundry due to the abundant iron ore seams near the surface in this dale (valley). Iron dale.

Irondale... That's the name of the town I live in. My kids went to McElwain School. I never thought to ask where those names had come from.

 

So, my first geocaching milestone was a lesson. Pay attention to how things came to be, and appreciate what I have and how easy I have it.

 

When I started geocaching I was a sick puppy. After twenty-four years of surgery featuring years of hospitalizations, forty-two bone grafts, an amputated leg and a broken neck I was in constant pain, incapacitated to the point of being useless, and badly addicted to the narcotic pain medication Fentanyl. Geocaching provided a path to recovery. It motivated me to quit the drugs and find caches as a way to recover both my mental and physical health.

 

The second milestone became a cache called Higher Than A Hawk, which is at the peak of the second-highest point in Alabama. I could see that mountain top out of my window, but after years of being nailed to the couch there was no way I could see myself getting up there. So that became my goal. I would get that cache, and when I did I would know that I had recovered, that I could do whatever I wanted, that I had my life back. So I cached. At first I would do one park-and-grab and get home exhausted. Then I could get five. Then I could hike a half-mile. Then two miles. Each week I could do more and harder, and after six months of caching daily I climbed that mountain and signed that log. Then I sat on a nearby rock overlook and cried like a baby for the first time in my adult life. I had signed that log. Thank you, Jesus. I thought I was going to die on that hike, but I kept going. What takes 'normal' cachers an hour-and-a-half took me six hours, by which time the park was closed, my car locked in the parking lot, so I had to bushwhack down the back side of the mountain to a road and hitch-hike home. Now THAT was a milestone. That was the day I knew that I was back in control and would never be a weak victim again.

 

Milestones. Yeah, for me they have nothing to do with numbers!

I would say my first,because it represents a new begining for me.

AlabamaRambler,you have no idea how much your post hit home for me.I have not gone through near the things you have but I can relate.Ten years of back trouble and pain to the point of having to take a buy-out from my employer of 16 years at the age of 39.Several surguries and on fentinyl patches and percocet for almost 3 years,and slowly slipping into a deep depression.I am now off the drugs and have a positive outlook on life,even with a spinal cord stimulator implant and my cane.I can almost walk around the block "1/4 mile".I discovered this game by accident last winter and knew I had to do it,get outside,clear the cobwebs and get myself happy and as healthy as I can.Finding my first cache let me think that I can do it,and after reading your story,I KNOW I can do it.My find count is low but to me it feels like a thousand.Thank you for your story,the inspiration,and letting me know that there are people who have went through much more than me and climbed back to the top.Happy Caching!!

[+wolfslady]

Hitting 1000 changed the game for me. I no longer feel the need to find every cache within 50 miles of my house. Caches that look interesting, challenging or fun catch my attention, the others don't.

 

I also am trying to "become part of the change I want to see" by not hiding micros unless nothing else will work in a very place that would be interesting to visit.

 

 

 

I love this idea. To me micros should be saved for places where their in no other choice. Actually no other coice within .10 of mile. To me it's a much bigger challange to hide something large enough to hold swag even if you have to hide it in plain sight. So that is what I'm going to strive for. The largest possible cache in any give place. The only planned micros might be as part of a series or multi. Otherwise it has to be somewhere or something unique otherwise what's the point. I really dislike micros in kids parks with pleanty of hiding spots, where it would be a perfect place to take the kids on a treasure hunt.

 

 

Good luck.

[hoosier guy]

Wow you guys have some great stories to tell, thanks for sharing them.

[+Anno Lynke]

100 seemed like a big deal when I hit it

When I noticed I was approaching my 1 year anniversary I thought 200 would be a fine mark.

With the planned trip next weekend I am thinking 250 in the first year will be pretty cool.

[+Chi-Rho]

When I first started caching I realized I needed experience to find geocaches, especially well-hidden urban hides. The only way to get experience, I reasoned, was to cache often and try to find as many as possible. The goal was to find 100 caches a month for my first several months in the hobby. I now realize that wasn't sane. I had fun, learned a ton, but eventually grew tired of trying to reach a magic round number by a specific date.

 

The best milestone was a recent cache. I tried to find this urban cache 3 times when I first started caching and DNFed every time. Six months of caching experience later I tried again, walked up to GZ, and spotted it immediately. Now perhaps it was just a good day, or perhaps the cache wasn't placed back in the exactly right manner by the previous finder, but to me it meant my caching skill has improved and served as an indication of my progress in this insane hobby.

[+Chi-Rho]

Oops. Accidental duplicate of previous post.

Edited April 5, 2010 by Chi-Rho

[+linuxxpert]

I try to a "milestone" cache every time I go out. I stopped doing the "just because they're there" caches a long time ago.

[+CanDMan47]

My 100th was a special find for me. It wasn't difficult, in fact it was a virtual in a National Cemetery. Here is most of the log I posted for it:

 

This is a special cache log for me for two reasons.

 

First, it's my 100th find.

 

Second: I had planned to use this cache for when I needed an easy find on a day to keep my streak of days alive, but when I started getting near 100, I knew I wanted to make this the milestone find. My Grandfather was laid to rest here in '06. I haven't been out to see him much, but this was a great time to visit. My Grandfather was a wonderful human being. He served in WWII well before I was born of course. He and my Grandmother had 4 children, 7 grandchildren and so far 5 great-grandchildren. He was always ready with a joke. He told me once he went to D.D.S. school, but not for dentistry. His D.D.S. stood for Ding Dong School. My grandparents lived here in Battle Creek until about 1990, when the moved to North Carolina for a while. I only got to see him for once or twice a year for the years they were gone, but they were fun times. When they knew his time was near, they moved back home so he could be near most of his family, including a couple surviving siblings. I/ we had about 2 years with him back home. His hearing was mostly gone by this point, so he wasn't involved in most conversations, but when he was, the jokes were right there with him. He died 22 days shy of his 79th birthday.

 

I now have just over 300 (313) and I pay attention to milestones, but don't pick out special caches for them. I am stuck somewhere in between not caring about the numbers and always knowing, within a few, exactly how many I have. I'm caught in the area of wishing I didn't care how many I finds I have, and secretly wanting to have many, many more finds. It's a strange place I find myself in. Maybe at 500 or 1000 I'll be able to fully not care about the numbers.

[+humboldt flier]

Hitting 1000 changed the game for me. I no longer feel the need to find every cache within 50 miles of my house. Caches that look interesting, challenging or fun catch my attention, the others don't.

 

I am slowly approaching 1000 myself and think I'll probably have the same reaction. Even though 1000 is in reach (42 to go) I've gone cacheing far less often because I know I'll get there eventually and really don't care how many I get after I hit that milestone. The coolest milestone for me was getting my 909th find at an geocaching event on 09/09/09. I hid a cache for the event that someone found at 9:09am.

Now that is waaaaaaay cool

[+humboldt flier]

My most memorable find was before I got into the game. That would be number 0 zero for me.

 

Although it is not a milestone in the usual sense it launched me into this activity. I never logged in because I had no understanding of the activity The cache was located at the memorial wall where Flight 93 crashed in N.E Pennsylvania on 911. Cache is now archived. >>> Heros Of Flight 93 GC 22C9 <<<

Edited April 6, 2010 by humboldt flier

[hoosier guy]

The stories of those special caches are so neat to read about. thanks for sharing.

[+TwoSox Trekkers]

My 100th, 200th, and 300th all happened to be special.

 

100th: I was really being bitten by the geocaching bug and was close to 100, I think I had 94. I was DETERMINED one Tuesday to get that 100th. My better wasn't able to go out but wished me luck and sent me on my way.

 

In an absolutely downpour of rain, I went looking for a geocache under a freaking fishing pier in Alki (an area of Seattle right on the water). I managed to find it, and realized -haha!- I left the freaking pen in the car.

 

So I get out from under the pier -no easy feat in driving rain and on sharp shore rocks- and do a Rocky-like "YES!" before sprinting to my car. I signed the log and then gingerly replaced the cache. I headed home drenched but happy.

 

200th: Our friend Seattlegeekgrrrlz had joined us for a biking/cache day up on the Mountain Loop Hwy, NE of Seattle. Somewhere along the way she lost her keys. But by the time we realized it, they had been found and turned into the ranger station- which was closed. So the next day I drove her back up to retrieve them. After we got them -and her truck, which we'd had to leave- we decided to do a little caching. I wasn't really prepared except for my GPS and the proper attire- no water or whatnot.

 

Welllll.... it turned into a hike from hell in about 15m. After the 10th switchback I was ready to cry. After an eternity and a gallon of sweat, we made it the cache was Barlowe Point- GCJNP1. The elevation gain from the parking lot was significant. I found the cache and I realized, "Whoah, this is 200!" So an accidental milestone, but cool nonetheless.

 

300th: We made a trip at the end of March to the WA peninsula. On our way home we cached a bit, and again found ourselves close to rolling over another 100. This one was special because my better half was able to be with me, and she picked it out. We found it, in a gorgeous little thicket off I-5, and celebrated in the woods with a couple high-fives.

 

I can't wait to see what the next ones bring.

[+roziecakes]

For me, each cache that I find really is a milestone. I used to weigh almost 500 pounds, and every time I can run up a hill, or hike a trail, or just jog a couple of miles to find a cache, I am reminded of how far I've come. I'm working on the fizzy right now, and every cache over a 2 terrain is a huge accomplishment for me! I've lost enough weight to make up a whole big person... unbelievable to me

[hoosier guy]

For me, each cache that I find really is a milestone. I used to weigh almost 500 pounds, and every time I can run up a hill, or hike a trail, or just jog a couple of miles to find a cache, I am reminded of how far I've come. I'm working on the fizzy right now, and every cache over a 2 terrain is a huge accomplishment for me! I've lost enough weight to make up a whole big person... unbelievable to me

 

Good for you! I need to follow your example myself.

[+chachi44089]

For me, each cache that I find really is a milestone. I used to weigh almost 500 pounds, and every time I can run up a hill, or hike a trail, or just jog a couple of miles to find a cache, I am reminded of how far I've come. I'm working on the fizzy right now, and every cache over a 2 terrain is a huge accomplishment for me! I've lost enough weight to make up a whole big person... unbelievable to me

Wow..Way to go! I am 375lbs.I know how hard it is.You also give me much needed inspiration.I want to be a normal weight man.Its really tough being who I am right now.Its easier to give up then to try sometimes.I dont like what I have become,but only I can change that.Every new adventure in this game gives me a little more hope that I can beat these problems,or at least accept them.Right now my goals are small,but they are big to me.This topic has been a real "feel good" read for me.Thank you all

[+roziecakes]

I'm so glad that my post inspired you! It might seem like it's really hard, but you're on the right path setting small goals. Each small goal adds up to a greater whole. And really, I think geocaching is a great tool. Many people don't like to exercise because they think it's not 'fun.' Welll.... Geocaching is exercise (if you're doing caches that require walks or hikes) and it's way fun! I truly wish you the best in your endeavors, and making your own personal milestones

[hoosier guy]

"This topic has been a real "feel good" read for me.Thank you all"

 

Could not agree more Bro. Hearing about people overcoming challenges, honoring others and improving their lives has been uplifting.

[+Bullfrog Eh-Team]

We're two retired seniors who enjoy traveling, and RVing, until age and/or health might interfere. Our current caching GOALS involve distances, locations, and interesting caches. We've cached in half (26) of the USA states, half (5) of our Canadian provinces, over half (30) of the Ontario counties, and in eight countries. Although we don't pay much attention to accumulation numbers, we were very pleased to do our 500th in Austria, and are currently planning our 1000th for Spain. I think most cachers have goals that involve either numbers, distances, locations, dates, or 'that next one'. That's the pleasure of this great avocation. We each have our own 'motivation'.