Need Christmas cache suggestions

[XmasSockPuppet]

My son is just getting into geocaching. He will be graduating high school in May and I had planned on getting him a car at that time, but to make a long story short, I was able to get him one now. So, I thought I would get creative and hide it for him in a cache. I figure this may be the only time I can do something big like this.

 

I believe he thinks he is getting a gpsr for christmas. I wanted to "hide" his present in a cache, and figure out a way for his to hunt for it. Right now, the car is across the street in my neighbor's garage.

 

The idea I am working with is sort of a multi-cache -- Take my gpsr, add a set of coordinates and wrap that up with a note saying, this is the first stage of your gift. Then add a stage or two, and he finds a wrapped present with the remote to the neighbors garage - and a set of coords to the garage. Or I thought of parking the car somewhere that he is lead to.

 

I had also thought of setting up a fake cache page, to add some realism.

 

Any other suggestions? Knowing the creativity I see on these forums, I figure someone else has a better idea. I plan on recording it and sharing. Any ideas and comments are appreciated.

 

Thanks!

XmasSockPuppet (not my real name - using this, in case he is reading the forums)

[+NYPaddleCacher]

You could put the keys to the car in a preliminary stage.

 

If you park it somewhere else you might want to make sure that there are no other cars close by in case the coordinates are not accurate.

[+addisonbr]

I would get a spare garage door opener from a hardware store and set it to the same key as your neighbor's unit. Then I would disguise it so that it's not obvious that it's a garage door opener - maybe build a make-shift box, so that only the button is exposed. And you could use some misdirection, maybe label it an "auto-tuner" and give him a handheld AM radio. Tell him that when he's in the right spot, if he pushes the button on the box a secret message on a digital device inside the box will begin broadcasting - but he doesn't know which AM frequency it will be on, so he'll have to scan with the little radio to try to find the right setting to hear the message. The digital recorder only has 60 seconds of space, so if he doesn't find the right station in that time he'll have to push the button again.

 

Of course, when he pushes the button from your front yard, the garage door opens across the street, with a sign in the car window that says "Merry Christmas Son of XmasSockPuppet!" You should have him turn on the radio first and turn the sound way up - the static noise will help with distraction and misdirection. If he doesn't notice what's going on at first - which he might not, if he doesn't realize he's holding a garage door opener, and presumably it's not unheard of for your neighbor to open his garage door - at some point, it should gradually dawn on him that every time he pushes the button the door across the street is opening or closing, and hopefully he's curious enough to figure it out. If it takes him a while, that's fine, because I would imagine that would be hilarious for everyone watching (and would probably make for pretty good video, if you can manage to obscure the fact that you're also capturing your neighbor's garage in the frame).

 

If you want me to delete any part of this message in case he reads the forums just let me know.

[+SSO JOAT]

Shuttle the car to your local Wal-Mart and park it next to a lamp post at the end of the lot. Under the lamp post, place your magnetic hide-a-key cache with the key to the car and a note saying happy b-day blah, blah, blah, now turn around and try out your present...

 

Do this with great stealth, as you certainly don't want someone to see you hide the key to the car at the same time you parked it, in fact I'd go so far as to place the hide-a-key the day prior to parking the car there, so that the 2 actions can't be seen happening together.

 

So, make that the final stage. Do whatever you want with the first, but I'd suggest writing up a fake cache listing with the coordinates and printing this out. Place it inside a b-day card or wrap it up inside a box... better yet, an ammo can.

[XmasSockPuppet]

Shuttle the car to your local Wal-Mart and park it next to a lamp post at the end of the lot. Under the lamp post, place your magnetic hide-a-key cache with the key to the car and a note saying happy b-day blah, blah, blah, now turn around and try out your present...

 

Do this with great stealth, as you certainly don't want someone to see you hide the key to the car at the same time you parked it, in fact I'd go so far as to place the hide-a-key the day prior to parking the car there, so that the 2 actions can't be seen happening together.

 

So, make that the final stage. Do whatever you want with the first, but I'd suggest writing up a fake cache listing with the coordinates and printing this out. Place it inside a b-day card or wrap it up inside a box... better yet, an ammo can.

 

Thanks! I have it planned like this so far:

He opens a "gift" with a gpsr and the first coordinates preloaded, along with a note to follow the cache to get the real gift.

This takes him to a lamp post cache outside of one his favorite restaurants. There is a cache with a gift card for the restaurant, with a note to keep going and coords to the next cache.

This takes him to another lamp post cache at this shopping center right down the street. I was originally thinking of it as another set of coords where it takes him directly to the car, but I like your idea of putting the key in there with the note like you said.

[+SSO JOAT]

Just be really careful about the stealth thingie. It would really suck to have the Bomb-squad arrive and blow up your new car right after you hid it.

[+RokMartian]

In case anyone is curious - I posted a video about it -

 

Actually, it wasn't my son, but my daughter - just in case she saw this, I wanted to throw her off

I wasn't sure about the weather, so I created a 2 stage cache - the first one was really a time waster so that my son could drive the car to another location. After the first stage, we went to a place where a new IHOP was going in. (Her favorite spot) She found a gift card there with a note to go behind the barns. She was really surprised. Thanks everyone for the suggestions.

 

Rokmartian (formerly XmasSockPuppet)