Geocaching Confessions

[+cache_test_dummies]

Lots of emotion in the forums today. Time for something a bit lighter. Share something geocaching-related about yourself that you are finally ready to talk about.

 

I'll go first.

 

Last year, I took an entire girls basketball team and their parents geocaching in Virginia (we had traveled down from New Hampshire to VA for a tournament). I had explained geocaching to them, and convinced everybody that we should do a group trip to find a cache instead of going to see an IMAX movie. Everybody was pretty excited when we left the hotel, but after about an hour of searching in and around the parking lot I had directed the group to, the team was pretty discouraged, and not at all happy with me. This included my daughter, who was completely embarrassed that I had talked her team into this.

 

Then I realized that I had plugged in the parking coordinates instead of the cache coordinates.

[+M-T-P]

ROTFLMAO

[+carleenp]

My dog ate a cow pattie while out caching and later tried to lick my face. I am still traumatized.

[+WYZE01s]

OMG! I laughed so hard over the bus story my sides hurt! Thanks! Whenever I'm in a bad mood, I'll think about that! Too funny!

[+Deliveryguy428]

Nothing sadly too funny about mine, just when I am daying caching in an area I do not know. I always make a point to locate their local library so I can go in and log my finds at the end of the day before going home

[+cache_test_dummies]

My dog ate a cow pattie while out caching and later tried to lick my face. I am still traumatized.

 

Well, they say a dog's mouth is cleaner than a human's, but I guess that isn't always true.

[uperdooper]

My dog ate a cow pattie while out caching and later tried to lick my face. I am still traumatized.

did he have a s***-eating grin after that?

[+TeamK-9]

I once spent a good 45 minutes, bushwacking to an intermediary stage of a multi. My GPS showed it as only 400 feet from the trail, so I thought I'd risk it. I walked probably a mile through incredibly thick brush trying to get to the cache. Eventually, it thinned out, and I made it to the cache site. I didn't even have to look very hard, it was practically right there in front of me.

 

I looked up, and so was the trail...

[+Miragee]

I cache "paperless." Recently I did my first (multi) Multi. I only read the first part of the description on the screen, so I didn't know what my task was . . .

 

So, I found out the waypoint to the cache and walk there. Whoops. No cache, just more numbers to plug in to get the next waypoint.

 

So, I get to the next waypoint. No cache there. Only more numbers.

 

By now I've walked about a half a mile and never once did I think to write down in the Palmie the numbers that were equivalent to A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, etc.

 

I had to go back to the beginning to get those first numbers.

 

But, the worst part was I actually went all the way back to my car to get a notepad and a pen to write the numbers down on . . .

[+Pablo Mac]

I can neither confirm nor deny that I allegedly once used a few questionable techniques to manipulate clues from the owner of this cache in order to find it within a reasonable amount of time.

 

[+Shaggy of Mysteries Inc]

I once wrote TFTC in a cache log, but I really didn't mean it.

 

Shaggy

[+fly46]

Finally drug my best friend out caching only to first have the OP's problems (Why do the cords show us here? Oh wait, parking cords) and then to DNF the cache only to discover my best friend was literally crawling on the container.

[+Team Cotati]

"Then I realized that I had plugged in the parking coordinates instead of the cache coordinates."

 

Guess that that explains why you were searching for the cache in the parking lot where your GPSr was directing you to search because that was where the coordinates which you had loaded into your GPSr were pointing. Really funny.

[+sTeamTraen]

I remove fire-starting items from caches (matches, lighters) even if I have nothing to trade for them. I do almost all my caching in forest and other rural environments, and I cannot believe that people leave these things. Non-natural fires destroy thousands of square miles of European forests every year, and I'm sure it's the same elsewhere.

 

Plus, these things are essentially free. What did the people who placed them "trade up or trade even" for ?

[+Divine]

After finding the cache I deleted the cache coordinates from my GPSr, and since it was so easy trip from the car to the cache, I also deleted the parking coords. I got lost.

[+1NatureMom]

I ALWAYS GET US LOST DRIVING TO THE CACHES! I cannot navigate driving directions to save my life! The marriage-O-meter is always in the red b4 we hit the trails!

 

HOWEVER,,,,,,,I CAN navigate natural landmarks on the trails to find our way out/back.

[+wimseyguy]

I like numbers.

[+2qwerqE]

Two weeks ago, I did the Plainfield Park Series in IndianaOne of the 6. It is six micros, individual finds and smileys. On the back of each log sheet are pieces of the coords for the 'Final' I got to the fifth one before I realized I hadn't wriiten down any of the coords from the back of the log sheets, so I started over to get them. Still came up 1 digit short. Oh, well. I tell myself. No biggie, I only have to walk .1mi along a straight line to hit all the possible 0-9 combinations. How tough can it be?

 

Not tough. Gotta be this here bridge, since I think I 'know' that the 'final' is an ammo can, and nothing else in the area will hide an ammo can, just open grass and random individual trees. I search for ever, turning over hundreds of rocks beneath the bridge. Nothing. Then, the nextday, in a conversation with a friend who has already completed the series, I learn that that 7th coord set is not for the final. It's for the first stage of another 6 micros that lead to the final: total 13 hides. I hadn't read those decsriptions very well, but to my defense, there are several logs from others who didn't get that the 'final' was really a separate 7 stage multi of it's own.

 

I'll finish it up in a few weeks. I won't be in Plainfield for awhile yet...

[+Tharagleb]

After finding the cache I deleted the cache coordinates from my GPSr, and since it was so easy trip from the car to the cache, I also deleted the parking coords. I got lost.

Thanks, that was funny, and I bet hard to confess..

[+AuntieWeasel]

I hadn't really looked at a map or figured out where I should park to do this cache, but I spotted a patch of woods, a turnaround and a trailhead within .5 of a mile and pulled over there. Before too long, I found myself up against a pretty impassable swamp, possibly leading to a creek. I walked along the edge for a while and then gave up. I hate hiking in swampy areas.

 

I got in the car and drove around to the other side of the park, found what turned out to be the correct parking spot and trail-head, and easily made it to the cache, high and dry.

 

On the way back, I found myself in another nasty marsh. How could that be? I made my way painfully back through the wet to...the spot where I'd parked the car the first time.

 

Hadn't moved the waypointed the second time.

 

Got to walk back to the car along the highway in exceedingly muddy boots.

[+vespax]

Went caching last week on a multi. When I got to the first stage, I was looking for something under a rock or on some sticks. After searching for over a half hour and ready to give up, I looked a little closer at the bright orange ribbon wrapped around a small tree branch. The coords where there.

 

After punching those in, I headed off to the final stage. About 100 feet down the trail and cute girl with some rock climbing shoes slung over her shoulder stopped me on the trail and asked what I was doing. Apparently, She had been bouldering around and noticed me rumaging through a random spot in the woods the whole time. I felt stupid.

[+Trekin Triad]

Shhh.... don't tell my husband....

 

but I plan family vacations and weekend adventures based around caches I want to complete

 

After suggesting the location...I casually mention there are some geocaches around and maybe we can check them out. If he knew how many places we've gone only because there was a cache there, he'd suggest therapy

 

Crystal

[+WARedBear]

About a month ago we traveled over to Kellogg Idaho for a family outing and some caching. Cacher N7SZY has four micros scattered around town so we set out to find them. We found the first one with no problems...except for the blowing freezing rain. We had a time finding the second one but we finally zoned in and retrieved it even though the hint didn't help at all. My middle daughter always takes the dollar bills she finds in caches. She wasn't with us on this trip so my youngest daughter jumped on the four quarters she found in this cache. We headed off to the third cache and was having a problem finding it as well so I had my wife decypher the hint. She read it off to us and we looked at each other with a puzzled look and said that bell hint applied to the last cache...not this one. Now we know why the hint from the last cache didn't make any sense...it was for this cache. Some how my GPS had gotten the names mixed up for these two caches. So we found this cache and headed back to the second cache..."The State Quarter Exchange Cache"...so we could put the money back that Skittles Bear had taken. We did exchange a Vermont quater for a California one.

[magellan315]

About 100 feet down the trail and cute girl with some rock climbing shoes slung over her shoulder stopped me on the trail and asked what I was doing.  Apparently, She had been bouldering around and noticed me rumaging through a random spot in the woods the whole time.

Hardly embarrasing, I wish I could run into a cute girl who might be interested in Geocaching, while I was looking for one.

 

I have forgotten to waypoint my car and then get lost trying to find my way back to the car. The other one was deleting the car waypoint, I got back to the car but it was dark and took longer than it should have.

Edited April 13, 2005 by magellan315

[+vespax]

"Hardly embarrasing, I wish I could run into a cute girl who might be interested in Geocaching, while I was looking for one."

 

I didn't mean to say she was interested. More of a 'what the &*^ are you doing out here in my spot'. Perhaps she will go to the site and figure it out. One of those Princeton U girls.

 

Oh, and I'm married so it wouldn't have counted anyways!

[+pghlooking]

I have a seperate checking account my wife doesnt know about, with low funds, but is used for geocaching supplies and coins. If i can sneak 10 or 20 bucks from time to time in it, it saves me the looks and such when i want to buy 50 dollars worth of stuff to put in the woods. It comes from my weekly "allowance" so not like i am syphoning it from somewhere else but all the same, its our secret!

[velma13m]

At the moment nothing comes to mind.

[+TetrAmigos]

The other day I was hunting for a place nearby my home to place my second cache, when I spotted what was a wooded forest-like area int eh middle of a suburban housing area. I parked my car, prepared the cache, and as I proceded to hope the 3-ft fence and walk to a suitable location I heard my name being screamed out coming from the road.

 

One of the girls from the office had seen me park my car, and walk into the forest-like area wearing my slacks and dress-shirt.. I had to explain everything, and I could tell she thought I was flippin' nuts when she drove away. Ehh, oh well. I'm happily married!

[Hucklebuck]

My confession

[+Ed & Julie]

I once wrote TFTC in a cache log, but I really didn't mean it.

 

Shaggy

I have done that several times (recently)...

[+OzGuff]

About a month ago I rolled my car while returning from finding a cache. Pigpen & Licklog Falls Cache The car was totaled but I walked away from the accident without a scratch. Even better, the insurance company inexplicably gave me $8000 MORE than Kelly Blue Book for the car! Old Acura MDX is now a new Honda Pilot! (I now take corners/cirves on gravel roads a little slower...)

[CoyoteRed]

(I now take corners/cirves on gravel roads a little slower...)

Glad you're back in the saddle.

[WH]

Guess who this topic is about.

[+mzmtg]

 

I looked up, and so was the trail...

We were trying to get as close to the cache as possible using Street Atlas in the car. Well, the map didnt match the roads it was trying to send us down at all, so we truned around and tried to get close from the opposite direction. According to the GPSr, we were getting closer and closer, then we started getting farther and farther. I backed up a little and figured this was as close as I was going to get.

 

"Heck, it's only 0.4 miles through the woods right there." It was raining and she was injured, so there was no way my wife was goin in there with me. I figured I'd head into the woods a couple hundred yards and see what the terrain was like.

 

Well, I got in there and it didnt look too bad. I went over 4 hills and through 3 creeks. It took me almost an hour to cover those 4 tenths of a mile. Finally, I was coming up the last hill, 450 feet from the cache.

 

As I crested the hill, headed straight for it...there was a road. A road that was NOT included on the Street Atlas map.

 

It took me an hour to get to the cache through the woods and 10 minutes to walk back to the car on the road.

[+VegasCacheHounds]

I have had to ask for a hint on a puzzle cache near my house from the owner. The silly part is that the puzzle was the coordinates in UPC format, just the numerical version instead of the graphical. I didn't reconize this format, even though there was a whole section in one of my college classes that covered all that in detail. Duh! And the encrypted clue even pointed out the capital letters in the cache name that were U, P and C. Talk about a forehead slapper.

[+One of the Texas Vikings]

As the second part of a multi, I had to follow the GPSr into some thick area down by the San Jacinto river. After 45 min of walking around looking at my GPSr, I found the cache. Signed the log and stood up to go and realized I had no idea where I was or how I got there. I clicked the "breadcrumb" section of my Vista and of course, because of the canopy, I had spent all this time walking around in circles.

I thought about calling my daughter and have her go into the student parking lot and blow her horn, but then I would never hear the end of it.

After awhile, I realized I had to go due east, as the river was west, and I couldn't miss the freeway...

After a half hour, I walked out 20 ft from my car. Morale of the story ?

Mark the car before you leave it...

Of course, I was out yesterday and three times forgot to mark the car...

 

Hmmm wonder if I could get a small flare gun to carry next time, I get lost....

 

Image, lost in the city limits of the fifth largest city in the US.. duh!!!!!!!

Edited April 14, 2005 by One of the Texas Vikings

[+Fivebales]

When looking for a cache this past winter, we found the site, a cemetary, but not the cache. In the description the owner had told how she hoped it wasn't as hot as when she had planted the cache in the summer, but not to worry there was a water spigot nearby. We found the water spigot, but didn't need it since it was a cold, windy January day. We also saw a thermometer on a pole, but we didn't see anyplace where a cache could be hidden. We weren't too anxious to do an extended search in the cold weather, so we soon gave up. In the middle of a sleepless night I had an AH HAA moment; Why would there be a thermometer on a pole in the cemetary??? Sure enough, when we went back the next day, we found the log only cache hidden in the white box the thermometer was mounted on. Very clever hide!

[+suzylou]

I'm a relative noob, but I definitely had a bad night the other night. As I was looking for the first cache of three for that evening, it started to POUR with rain. And there's me without a coat or anything.....I didn't find it.

 

Headed for the second one. Bushwacked for about an hour getting closer and closer in the woods, only to spot it on the far side of a river. Thought about wading across since I was so damp, but sanity prevailed.

 

So then bushwacked towards cache 3 (clearly, there was a path out there somewhere I never found). Still raining, soaked to the bone, DETERMINED to find at least one of the three caches, and another dadgum river in the way....so I tried to walk across a log to cross the river which of course gave me wet feet and a very sore bum. Just by the cache site, of course, there was a bridge.

 

I didn't find cache number three that night either.

 

To compound things, I got home about the same time as non-geocaching hubby who found me standing by the washing machine and stripping. That took a LOT of explaining since I'd told him I'd be home that evening

[uperdooper]

i've spent way too much money on midwest geobash 2005, and it's not until july. maybe 1 of the lawyers there will be able to help me file chapter 13 bankruptcy.

[+carleenp]

i've spent way too much money on midwest geobash 2005, and it's not until july. maybe 1 of the lawyers there will be able to help me file chapter 13 bankruptcy.

 

Of course I am almost bankrupt too.

[+Konnarock Kid & Marge]

Well this cache almost got me killed. Not by wild anumals or the terrain but by Marge and the Johnson Party of Five. Here is the cache page/log if you are interested; A woman's Place

We were new at geocaching and really believed in following the 'ol GPSr in a straight line.

At the top of the steep brair infested hill, we met Brian (part of the Johnson et.al) who was carring baby Grace. He found a gentle uphill trail leading right to the cache.

[+thumperness]

We had tryed several times to find a multi but could not get past one of the stages. Got a hint from a fellow cacher that you HAD to have and could not wait to go back one more time. It was pouring rain and Easter afternoon but it was bugging me. So with the kids in the car and my brother with them we said "we will just run up that hill and grab it" up we went and Jack and Jill went slideing down. Well now that we were muddy already I was not giving up. Last stage, hubby said we gotta go up that mudsliding hill... are you sure I ask... yep so up we went down we slid up we went, down we slid ah made it... now were honey I ask (this is the nice version) the gps says down we did not have to go up that last hill. And why did we do this?? To sign the log, move a TB, and take home a hocky puk. Now I know we are nuts!

[+M-T-P]

A horrible, but funny thing just happened a few hours ago. While searching for a cache in a public park near a lake, I did not find the cache in almost 30 minutes of searching and was beginning to think I entered the wrong coordinates into my GPS. When I stopped and checked, I had indeed entered the wrong coordinates by a few digits. But the horror story continues....

 

Now that I had the right coordinates, it took me to a nearby location not too far from the first. But still no cache. Instead, I did find a stash of some teenage boy's girly mags scattered all around where the GPS was zero'd out. So I still did not find the cache, but decided to help CITO the area and stacked up all the filth to deposit in the nearest bin on my way out of the park. As I was leaving the wooded area, I notice a group of people gathered near where I was parked just enjoying the park. Not remembering what I was carrying under my arms, I casually walk to my car and drove off to the nearest dumpster. Then it dawned on me that a bunch of people just saw a man walk out of the woods alone with a stack of girly magazines! That had to look pretty darn strange! And after all that, I STILL had to log a DNF!

[+5¢]

I admit................I am a numbers junkie...............wow that feels better

[+Skip_]

There was my first nemesis cache. I tried and tried to find the first waypoint, and after numerous helpful hints from the owner I finally found it right where I had been looking!

 

Then there was the other day when I entered wrong coordinates and ended up in the wrong conservation area, hiking through it out onto a side road and ended up walking along the side of the road back to my car, since I was pretty sure the cache wasn't located in private property. It wasn't a bad walk, and I saw three wild turkeys while I was in the woods. I got the right coordinates plugged in and found the cache.