items of interest for adults and children

[Guest Wesley Horton]

Since the issue of what sort of items should we place in caches, specifically the tendency to focus on children as opposed to adults, I thought it might be a good time to start a thread about items of interest to adults and children. I certainly look forward to hearing your thoughts.

 

Adults:

Road maps

books

videos or DVDs

Music CDs

compass (keychain or other)

emergency blanket

flashlight

batteries

chem light sticks

tools

tire pressure gage

gift certificates

phone calling cards

cash (small amounts)

postcards

cat or dog toys (new of course)

fishing flys or lures

nostalgia items

refrigerator magnets

microwave popcorn (see note)

Altoids (see note)

calenders

Cheap sunglasses

lanyards (good ones)

forign money or coins

planners or calenders

calculators

pipe cleaners

cards

dice

puzzles

old gps units

old pentium processor chips

 

Children:

Chinese finger pull toys

Beads

Small treasure boxes

keychains

notepads

stuffed or plastic animals

dinosaur or pokemon cards or toys

toy cars

toy soldiers

inexpensive watches

toy gliders

water guns

puzzles

 

**Items best left at home**

Food items (lifesavers and altoids)

origami boulders

golf balls (new ones may be ok)

illegal substances

porno

religious paraphenilia (discression of owner)

political paraphenilia (except historical)

 

I know the items best left at home category will raise some ire, but here is my rational:

 

FOOD ITEMS: will attract animals which will destroy a cache box to get the food items. Remember, their sense of smell is pretty good. Is it worth risking the cache over?

 

ORIGAMI BOULDERS: Who wants an oversized paperwad? Origami anything else is probably ok though.

 

GOLF BALLS: This one has been rehashed over and over. The problem with golf balls is that they are almost always discarded golf balls and who wants to add another one to their "collection" As someone once said, "Your old golf balls are as useful to me, as my old lawnmower spark plug is to you." Kind of makes sense, don't take anything you don't want to find. . . You know, do on to others . . .

 

ILLEGAL SUBSTANCES This is all we need to give the public and the police a good perception of our sport. Private stashes should remain private.

 

PORNO Just what some family with young kids wants to find in a cache.

 

RELIGIOUS MATERIAL . . . Should probably be up to the owner of the cache. The owner should post to the web listing if such items are allowed or not. After all, it is their cache. They took the time to put it togather and place it. I'm not saying no to this stuff, but let the owner decide. I can't say I want to find a cache with a few Gideon's bibles, a book of Morman, a copy of the Koran and a few assorted pamphlets . . .Perhaps someone else would like such a find and if that is the intent of the owner, they should call it somthing like tithing cache or cache religion or somthing.

 

POLITICAL MATERIAL Same thing, although I would love to leave such material in caches, I am sure that no one else would appriciate being indroctinated into my political thought.

 

Looking forward to your thoughts . . .

[Guest Choberiba]

I usually leave some balloons for kids when the cache is one or two stars.

 

I own a couple 2000psi 55cf helium tanks, so I always have plenty of balloons around.

 

My trademark is starting to be lotto tickets since the cost to me is a buck. I usually leave one of those as well.

 

I agree about propaganda being unwanted by all but the chorus, but then I live in Berkeley and am up to my love-beads in MUST! ACT! NOW! flyers. Your mileage may vary.

[Guest E=Mc2]

I always and I do mean always left at least 1 Wheresgeorge bill. If you don't know what that is then check out www.wheresgeorge.com to find out. I found out about geocaching through that site. Also I have been know to leave little parrots,turtles,fish, and mice for the kiddies. Toys from fast food restaraunts are good too!

 

Peace On Earth!!!!

E=Mc²