Geocaching Dynasty

[MJ4H]

I have been toying with the thought of doing this for a long time, and since the snow hit harder than I thought it would, today is the day.

A couple of years ago, I went on a business trip with a very good friend of mine (I did my student-teaching under him; have always considered him my role-model). When we had a couple of hours of free time, he persuaded me to go do something called geocaching with him. He showed me few pages he printed out from his web browser that were descriptions of locations, complete with GPS coordinates, and some other details. We hopped in a car and plugged those coordinates into his GPS receiver and started following the little arrow. A little while later (gross simplification!) we were walking in the woods with the numbers dwindling down to 50 yards, and finally less than 5 yards. From there, the actual search started.


This particular geocache was a regular-sized one (this one was a tupper-ware container) so it wasn't very difficult to find. It was under a hollow half-piece of wood.

We opened it up and inside were all sorts of things. First and foremost, there was a notebook we were to sign, saying we had found the cache.


Then there were all sorts of little items. From memory, I think there was a yo-yo, a rubber snake, some golf tees, a happy meal toy type thing, and who knows what else on that level. My friend took the yo-yo and put back a coin he had brought along from Norway. He keeps a little pouch full of things this size to trade in these caches.


This was my first ever geocache find. It was in extremely (understatement) rural Oklahoma. It was back in 2008 (I think). We found one other one that day, and I thought little of geocaching since then. I didn't own a GPS receiver at the time, though I kind of wanted one.

Fast forward to this most recent Christmas, 2009. Wal-Mart ran a Black-Friday special on a particular model of TomTom, and my wife snagged me one and wrapped it up. She bought it solely because it was a great deal and I had mentioned it a few times as something I might like to have. Little did she know she would love it as much as I do. Because of geocaching.

Christmas day, I unwrapped my GPS, and was smitten. Later that day, I registered at geocaching.com and saw, to my surprise, that there was a cache nearly within walking distance of the house. Only problem is there were about 3 inches of snow on the ground. We went anyway.

Not knowing what we were doing at all, we didn't know much about what we were looking for. I mistakenly thought that all geocaches were the size of an ammo-can. Well, no. In fact, the one that we selected just to try out was what is called a "nano." About the size of a watch battery! We got to ground zero (the place the GPS tells you to go) with little trouble and started looking. It was quickly apparent we weren't going to find it. We also had no idea that what we were looking for was tiny. We left disappointed.

Our second attempt at finding a geocache came a couple of days later. We printed out 4 or 5 webpages and headed out. I had found out some tricks with the TomTom that would make it more accurate in getting us to ground zero and thought that might help. The first place we headed took us to the dead center of an empty parking lot behind a video store. We were bewildered. There was nowhere here to hide a geocache. We looked around for about 10 minutes, but again had to give up. Later on, we felt really stupid when we discovered that this was one of the easiest types of geocaches there are, the LPC (lamp-post cache*). We left disappointed again, but would try one more that day.

We headed to site #3. This one took us to a lake northeast of town. A lake that I used to live nearby and had much familiarity with. We got out at the park right next to it and started walking along with the GPS.

Actual action photo!


The path took us just into the woods ahead and we were at ground zero. After about 5 minutes of searching, again for something much bigger than we were supposed to be looking for, a little metal tube hanging from a tree caught my eye. I pulled it off and noticed that it unscrewed into 2 parts, and a little rolled up piece of paper was inside. We had found it! I was blown away it was so small. This one was called a "micro." The container is called a bison tube and is fairly common in geocaching. We signed the log and put it back in the tree as we found it. We had found our first geocache!

We actually found a few more that day, including a regular size one like the one I found a couple of years back.


Fast forward to today. Friday we hid our first two caches for others to find. Two people found them on the first day after they were published, both in the rain/snow, apparently. I just logged my 125th geocache find, and I am thrilled to death with the hobby. It gets me out of the house, which my wife loves. And she actually likes it as much as I do. It has a little element of geek-toy tinkering and technology, which I really like. It appeals to the hide and seek itch that I think many people have, and it is really cool knowing about a secret game going on all around everyone that not many people know about.

In this thread I will make occasional posts about the more interesting times I have geocaching, and keep track of stats related to it. Also, watch out for fun photos. Another appeal is that takes you to places you wouldn't ordinarily go and exposes you to views and sights you wouldn't normally see.

*A lamp-post cache (LPC) is extremely common in geocaching. It is a common trick in urban locations (most Wal-Mart parking lots have a LPC in them). On most street light type things in parking lots, there is a concrete base and a metal pole sticking up through it that goes up to the top where the light is. On top of the concrete base is a little skirt that covers up some ugly hardware and smooths the visual transition from the straight pole to the larger concrete base. You can lift up this little skirt. Underneath that skirt is a very common hiding place for a micro cache. Here is a joke picture someone made putting a large geocache container "under" a lamp-post skirt. Obviously, a real LPC is a micro, and fits easily under the skirt. This photo is just a joke, but shows what a lamp-post skirt looks like.



Here are a few photos from my journey so far. (next post)

[MJ4H]

Streetview of location above with the boot. VERY public location. A little awkward to slink around and find a cache, especially this one, which was a bit of a challenge to actually find. This is one of the busiest intersections in the area.

[MJ4H]

I like these little maps. Here are the places I've Geocached. The darker the color, the more I have in that county.



Approximate cache-to-cache distance: 1321.96 miles

[Swaggs]

Very cool idea for a dynasty.

[MacroGuru]

It was your FB posts that got me started on this with the family.

[MJ4H]

Thanks! Hopefully at least a few people will read along. We have 2 hides. These are caches we made at home and took out into the wild somewhere near our house (somewhat) and made available for people to find and log on the website. They have both been found and logged twice already. Here is where one of them is:



We hid it in that fencepost in the center of the screen. It has a hollow spot in the top. We put camo-tape all around a keyholder containing a log and a few items and dropped it in the top of that. We then put a couple of little twigs lightly over the top of it So someone casually glancing down into it for whatever reason wouldn't see it.

Both of the people that found it wrote in their log that it was difficult to get out of the spot. I was going to go back and try to fix it today (and check that it survived the snow--the camo-tape is supposed to help with weather-proofing) but the roads were a little rough. School was just cancelled for tomorrow so if it clears up enough I will go by and check on it. In my mind, I imagine I will put something underneath the container in the hole so that is closer to the top, and therefore easier to get out.

[MJ4H]

Originally Posted by MacroGuru

It was your FB posts that got me started on this with the family.

This is fantastic. I really hope you like it as much as I do. Send me a friend request on geocaching.com. My name there is pwatts14.

[MJ4H]

Here is our other hide. This one can be tough if you are short or have short arms. The cache is a pill bottle covered in camo-tape. It is hidden in that stump in the back left. You have to stand on the root in the corner of the fenced in area to see into the top which is largely hollow. There is a little pouch area in there that holds the cache nicely. Two finds on this one, neither had a problem. I don't see any need to make any changes on this one anytime soon.


This one is in the middle of a busy part of Rogers, Arkansas. It's a forgotten cemetery across from a Middle School. A school I actually attended. And I never knew this cemetery was right across the street. It is very old and basically just overgrown. This is a good example of what geocaching is supposed to do. Show you things you may never notice otherwise.

[MJ4H]

There are lots of trackable items that get passed around in geocaches. Some of them are called geocoins, travelbugs, and pathtags. I finally found my first one of these Friday. It is called a pathtag. The general concept is that a person customizes a little coin and buys them in bulk (like 50 or 100 of them). They come with an engraved identification number that you can enter into the website pathtags.com. It then shows all the people and places where these tags have been found.

The tags that people order are designed by the person making the order. The graphics on the coin are personalized and mean something to the person that made the tag. The person then places the tags into caches for others to find and either keep or pass on by putting in other caches if they don't collect them.

I am thinking of collecting pathtags (some of the other trackables aren't meant to be kept--you are supposed to move them on--but pathtags can be kept and collected). Here is my first one:

[EagleFan]

Nice dynasty. This may get me back into it.

[MJ4H]

By the way, those three pictures in the first post are from my first caching experience in February of 2008. I still have the pictures I took on my old phone and sent to my computer. I had just gotten a phone that could take pictures for the first time like a day or two before so I was trying it out on our geocaching trip.

The fourth picture in the first post is actually of my wife holding the GPS and following its directions just before our first official find. The only picture I've posted that isn't of us geocaching (besides the street view pictures) is the one of the joke lamp-post cache.

No stock footage in this dynasty!

[MJ4H]

Went out today to check on the cache I hid in the post. Two people had found it on the 20th and both commented that it was difficult to get out of its spot. I wanted to fix it so that it is easier to get out and check on it to make sure it withstood the snowstorm.

Well, I arrived and parked on the far side, went through the gate and trudged across the cemetery in the snow. About 15 feet away, I could see the cache sticking out of the top of the post. The last person to put it back did not put it all the way back in (possibly to make it easier for the next person to get out?) and did not cover it with anything.

I got out the container and opened it up to examine the 2 logs and make sure everything was safe and dry:



Looks fine. A good sign that this container will hold up, though the tape looked a little scarred in a few places already. Probably no big deal, though. My plan was to put it back in the top of the post, but on top of some twigs or rocks so that it was closer to the top, and therefore easier to get out. However, one of the finders apparently had the same thought, as there were rocks and twigs underneath it now. I didn't need to do anything in that area. However, it had to be covered up. It was just far too obvious that close to the top.

So I looked around for some twigs or bark to cover it with. Unfortunately, there was still a lot of snow on the ground, so it wasn't easy to find something suitable. I did find 3 little twigs and I laid them on top of the cache inside the hole. Looks a little odd, but blends in much better.



We'll see how this holds up and if I get any other complaints about it being difficult to get out.

[MJ4H]

Both of my hides have been found once today. The one in the post above apparently after I was there, since the log was only signed twice at the time.

[Swaggs]

Do the caches ever come up missing?

Like people randomly stumble upon them and completely take them?

Also, with the pathtags, do the people hiding the cache just put a bunch of them in their cache?

This is an interesting activity that I knew relatively little about (I kept seeing a friend on facebook post that she was going geocaching, so I finally looked it up on wikipedia a few months ago ).

[MJ4H]

Yes, they can come up missing. This is called getting "muggled." Apparently the term "muggle" refers to a non-geocacher (and comes from Harry Potter where muggles are non-witches or whatever). The cache owner is expected to check on it and do maintenance on it periodically to make sure it is there and ready to be found. This is especially important if someone logs a DNF (did not find), or, even more importantly, when multiple DNFs show up.

I don't know much about pathtags yet. I just came across one for the first time this past week. I had to look up what they were. It looks like you can do whatever you want with them, but my guess is the normal behavior is to put them in caches as your personal "I was here" tag. Then others can take them out and collect them or move them into a new cache to try to spread them out. Not really sure, yet.

[sabotai]

Checked out the website and found that these things pretty much litter the entire area, including 1 in my town, 1 next to the WaWa that I get my coffee from and 3 at this small park that I go to a lot. I'll keep an eye out for them the next time I go.

And it looks like someone put one on this tiny island in the Delaware River between my town and Philly. That's pretty funny.

[MJ4H]

The wife and I like to play over/under and other prop-bet sorts of games (without the wagering, just as topics of conversation). For instance, I will see someone at a restaurant eating and pick a number of times that person will get up for a refill on their coke. Then my wife has to take the over or the under. Sometimes we don't even follow-up on it, but it just makes for something to do.

One of our items of discussion is which of our two cache hides will get more finds. Neither is particularly tricky to find, so I don't anticipate many, if any, DNFs. However, one is in a particularly busy part of town, the other is off the interstate about a mile where not many people ever go. Cache #1 (the one in the pictures above) is the one that is in the less-trafficked area. I asked her what ratio of finds for Cache #2 to Cache #1 she expects in the long run. She picked 1.5 to 1 and I picked 3 to 1. I guess whichever is closer in the end wins.

Current count: Cache #2 = 4 finds, Cache #1 = 3 finds.

[MJ4H]

Saturday. The one day of the week when we are most likely to be able to get some geocaching in. I was very worried because there was rain in the forecast for today, but we went ahead and made plans as if there would not be rain and hoped for the best.

My in-laws had called and offered to watch our son (which is the biggest obstacle to geocaching--he is wheelchair bound and very difficult to take with us most places) so we took them up on it. The plan was to take him over there early, get some geocaching in, hit the Arkansas vs. Alabama baseball game, and then maybe do some clean-up caching on the way home (which is what I call it when we try to get the ones very near our home that we haven't gotten to cross off the list yet).

The day got off to a rough start. My son was up all night sick, and we decided we needed to run him by the doctor while we had a chance (his clinic is open Saturdays until about noon, so that was our only window of the weekend). After his appointment, though, he was asleep in his wheelchair in the back of the van, so we grabbed a couple of caches that were near the clinic. Both were very near an area to park, so we didn't have to leave him out of view while we looked for those couple. We went 2 for 2 in that area and went ahead and took my son to his babysitter's.

The second order of business on the day was to head out to our first cemetery cache that we hid to check on it and scout another nearby location for another hiding place for our third cache. That was a bust as the area we had in mind appeared to be on private property or unreachable without going through private property.

As we approached our cache, we noticed a young couple in their 20s were in the cemetery. At first glance, I was a little annoyed, because it meant we were going to have to either be very stealthy or come back later. A second glance showed that the girl was holding a GPS and the guy was looking around the south fenceline. They were looking for our cache! Very cool feeling. We parked on the far side of the cemetery to see if we could watch them search without them knowing we were there. The girl turned and saw us and we didn't want to bother them, so we left. We drove out past the cemetery to an area I hadn't ever been to, and turned around to come back after awhile. The couple was gone and the cemetery was deserted, so we headed in to check on the cache. It was, again, uncovered and exposed, but at least down inside the post this time. I checked the log and the young couple that looked earlier did not find it, apparently, because the log had not been signed by them or anyone else on today's date. Three signatures were there, and they were the three I knew about. I actually thought that was kind of sad since there was nothing even covering it up inside the top of the post. I covered it back up with some loose wood chips even better than it was before today.

The next phase of the day was to work our way from this cache site towards Fayetteville for the baseball game, picking up any interesting geocaches that were on our path.

[MJ4H]

Our first cache was one hidden by a user named "Red Ink." Red Ink apparently has a good reputation for tricky but fun hides. This one was behind an abandoned white house next to a cemetery. After searching around for a bit near an old, thankfully no longer used outhouse behind it, we spotted an office type telephone mounted to the back of a tree and painted with a camouflage pattern. We picked up the handset and unscrewed the earpiece to find the cache. This was really awesome. Snapped a photo of my wife pretending to talk on the phone, which she requested I didn't post. OK fine.

The next one was another Red Ink cache, but this one was rated a 4-star difficulty (out of 5). That means that it is extremely difficult to find. We parked near ground zero, and as we approached, we couldn't believe where the GPS was taking us. Here is google streetview's perspective on ground zero:



As you can see, there aren't a whole lot of options here. Our best guess is it in the little gutter drain. We spent about 15 minutes taking turns looking/feeling around in the area while the other person watched for traffic. This was extremely frustrating. Every time you'd start looking, you'd have to quickly jump up and get out of the way since a car was coming. This also meant that every single car that came along would see you on your hands and knees feeling around in the gutter and quickly jumping up and acting non-chalant as they approached. Not terribly fun.

We gave up before too long, but promised to return and try again after having a while to think about it.

The third Red Ink cache along this road was on a bridge. This one was much easier to find, again, and only took a few minutes. Here is a streetview of the bridge in question:



The cache coordinates are marked, too. The little metal connector from the concrete wall to the metal guardrail was the key here. Mr. Red Ink had apparently gone through the trouble of making a fake connector mount that looked like all the other ones spaced along the bridge. He then just set it down on top of the concrete wall and pushed up flush with the guardrail. It looked just like all the others, but when you grab it, it moves. It isn't attached at all. I picked it up, and the cache was magnetized inside of a hole in the bottom of it. Pretty nifty.

In all, we managed to log 7 finds, 2 DNFs (the one in the gutter, and another one we had to abandon when the wife came face to face with a snake) and we managed to hide one more cache. This one was a small container that we hid in the woods right by the interstate near our house. It hasn't been approved by the geocaching reviewer in our area, yet, but it probably will be tomorrow. I expect this one to get a lot of traffic.

[MJ4H]

Just got a note that the cache we hid yesterday violates some obscure rule about being within whatever whatever of an interstate highway. Surprised, but whatever. I'm going to go retrieve it in a few minutes and we will have to find a better spot for it some other time.

[Dodgerchick]

How awesome! I saw your geocache updates on Facebook but now that I read your dynasty it sounds pretty damn awesome! A fun activity to do with the whole family.

I'm pretty clueless when it comes to GPS systems, is there any one brand that's best? Also, do we have to pay for service like we do for cell phones, or is it something that the GPS system does automatically?

I signed up to geocaching.com... I'm really excited to start this!

[MJ4H]

I think Garmin is the brand that most people point to as the best GPS receiver. No, you do not need a subscription to use GPS, you just need a receiver. I have a TomTom, which is also a very good brand. You have to be mindful of the difference between a GPS that is geared towards car-navigation and one that is geared towards off-road and hand-held. Usually, the hand-helds are better for geoacaching. What I would do is do an initial check at Best-Buy or Wal-mart for ones in your price range and make a note of ones that look interesting. Then come back to geocaching.com and read some user reviews (they have a section there just for that) and see how it fares for geocaching.

[Dodgerchick]

Ahh, okay. I thought they were all the same thing, but I can see how a hand held one would be a better option.

I plugged in our address and found 2 geocaches right outside our apt. complex. I'm gonna go and see if I get lucky, all I have to go on is a picture on Google Maps. Lots and lots of trees, plants and bushes, should be fun.

[MJ4H]

Originally Posted by Dodgerchick

Ahh, okay. I thought they were all the same thing, but I can see how a hand held one would be a better option.

I plugged in our address and found 2 geocaches right outside our apt. complex. I'm gonna go and see if I get lucky, all I have to go on is a picture on Google Maps. Lots and lots of trees, plants and bushes, should be fun.

Look at the webpage of each individual geocache and read everything about it, including the logs of people that found it or searched for it before you. It helps to know what size container you are looking for (large, normal, small, or micro) as well as any hints or help in the description, title. If you do find it, all you *have* to do is sign the log that is inside of the cache container (if you want to count it as a find) and then log it on the cache webpage under your account name.

[MJ4H]

Overall Total Finds:	133 finds in 25 caching days over 93 total days (26.8 %)
Overall Averages:	5.32 finds per caching day, 1.43/day, 10.01/week, 43.53/month
Last 365 Days:	133 finds in 25 caching days over 365 total days (6.84 %)
Last 365 Days Averages:	5.32 finds per caching day, 0.36/day, 2.55/week, 11.09/month
Most consecutive days with finds:	3, from 02/13/2010 to 02/15/2010
Most consecutive days without a find:	18, from 01/19/2010 to 02/05/2010
Most finds in a day:	22 on 03/15/2010; 14 on 02/15/2010; 12 on 03/17/2010
Best weekend caching:	8 finds, on Saturday 03/27/2010 & Sunday 03/28/2010
Best week caching:	48 finds, from Monday 03/15/2010 to Sunday 03/21/2010
Most finds in a calendar month:	75, in Mar 2010
Most Cache Types in a day:	2 ( ) on 02/27/2010
Fastest 100 finds:	35 days from 02/13/2010 to 03/19/2010
Last 100 finds:	42 days
Total cache-to-cache distance:	2155 km, Note: includes locationless caches. 0.05x Earth Circumnavigation, 0.006x Distance to the Moon
Maximum distance in a day:	335 km, on 01/01/2010 Note: includes locationless caches.
Nearest cache found:	Speed Racer GC1GFTZ
Furthest cache found:	310.79 km, Downtown Waterfall GCVHGW
Most Northerly cache found:	N 36° 25.694, Spanker Creek Farm GC1VHY9
Most Southerly cache found:	N 34° 47.973, Burns Park Cache Bash Cache GC12FZP
Most Easterly cache found:	W 90° 42.302, Downtown Waterfall GCVHGW
Most Westerly cache found:	W 95° 07.763, Stop-n-Reflect GC1TW0Y
Cache centroid:	N 36° 07.533 W 94° 02.053 Map
Youngest cache found:	02/20/2010, Hair It Is GC2466X
Oldest cache found:	08/20/2003, West Bestern IH-40 WESTBOUND Travel Bug Re... GCGPPJ
Caches found which are now archived:	1 (0.75 %)
Most consecutive months with a FTF:	1
Log Length, words:	Total Words: 4338, Average: 32, (Total Characters: 21464) Longest: GCRN5F 139, Shortest: GC13P2D 3

Cumulative Finds by Month

[MacroGuru]

Originally Posted by Dodgerchick

Ahh, okay. I thought they were all the same thing, but I can see how a hand held one would be a better option.

I plugged in our address and found 2 geocaches right outside our apt. complex. I'm gonna go and see if I get lucky, all I have to go on is a picture on Google Maps. Lots and lots of trees, plants and bushes, should be fun.

Woot had a Garmin hand-held yesterday for $70, just checked my emails and a buddy had sent me that link yesterday, I know it doesn't help much, but I am keeping my eyes open for great deals.

[MJ4H]

There are Garmins out there that are pretty useless for geocaching. Make sure to check out some user reviews of it on geocaching.com before buying one.

[MJ4H]

I expect to see some finds logged soon, Dodgerchick!

[Dodgerchick]

Originally Posted by MJ4H

I expect to see some finds logged soon, Dodgerchick!

Hopefully tomorrow if we get lucky. This time I know not to wear flip flops.

Amazon seems to have GPS devices fairly often as their "Deal of the Day", so I'm a keep my eyes open. I have my eye on a 76 dollar one that seems to have decent reviews on both Amazon and geocaching.com; but I'll wait a bit and see if anything better pops up.

[MJ4H]

Went back and browsed the "Light at the End of the Tunnel" cache (the one that is pictured above with a manhole and water drain) today. I periodically review some of the ones that I didn't find to see if others found them or if it is more and more likely that that cache is missing for one reason or another.

Well, this one is a challenging one, and the owner of the cache emailed me with a response to a question I asked of him (I asked him if the cache was supposed to be on the end of a string that was embedded in the concrete--we found a string with nothing attached and thought it might have been it, but no). The owner said the cache was recently repaired and that it wasn't where I suggested, so I'm sure it is there and we just haven't figured it out yet.

Well, I was looking at the cache page and reading the logs of those that have tried and failed and a few that have tried and succeeded. One of the ones that succeeded said that the information you need to find it is contained in the cache description page and not even hidden. So I read and read the description page to no avail.

Then something struck me, and I now have a theory. I looked at the cache attributes. These are little icons you can select for your cache such as safe for pets, available 24/7, parking nearby, wheelchair accessible, etc. Two of the attributes that were selected for this caught my eye, and I'm pretty sure they are a major hint. The owner selected the NOT available 24/7 icon (hmm) but he also selected the "flashlight required" icon. Now, it not being available 24/7 is probably not just related to it being dark since you will have a flashlight. It is just possible that the cache is only VISIBLE at night with a flashlight shining on it. Maybe it glows in the dark, and the flashlight requirement is only there because you have to be looking at night.

Anyway, I think the next time we look for this cache, we will be doing it at night and with a flashlight (obviously, since it says flashlight required). I think we are on the right track to finding it, though. These tough ones are really fun, but it can be frustrating if you don't have time to figure them out and examine every little thing on the cache description page.

We won't have time to go looking for this one until the weekend, likely, but I thought I'd give an update, anyway.

[Dodgerchick]

Found my first geocache! I had two things to go on: the clues on geocaching website, and this map:



I looked near some rocks, near a drain and nothing. Then I looked at the map again, looked at the little guy and where he was pointing. Didn't take long before I found the micro cache.

After the first one, I went looking for the second one less than a mile away. This one was a little tougher. There were trees, high grass, and a few drains. I was busy looking near some twigs and saw one move... fuck a snake!!! I jumped up, walked around to compose myself and went back. Looked for about 15 minutes and didn't find it. I had dropped Larissa (our 9 year old) at a friend's house so I picked her up, drove her to the first cache to see if she could find it, and she did! She was wearing a cute outfit and props to her for getting down and dirty to find it. We went to the second location but she was getting warm and we left. We came home, I read the clues (something about needing a flashlight even if it's bright outside) to Antmeister and he said, "If there's a mirror, you might be able to shine a flashlight on it and find it." WTF, how did he know there was a mirror? So there's my first gigantic clue. I already had a flashlight but using it against a mirror didn't even cross my mind. We'll be going back soon, I'm sure.

One of our neighbors came over yesterday to see if we could look for the 2 geocaches around out apt. It was dark but we'll probably go looking for it this weekend, if he's around.

[Dodgerchick]

dola,

looks like I need a walking stick. It'll make it easier to go down steep hills and poking around near bushes and whatnot. Actually, make that 2 cuz Larissa's liking this geocaching thing too. She found a medium sized stick and used it to poke around near bushes and high grass.

[Izulde]

Two snake sightings in this geocaching thing already make me paranoid to try it.

[MJ4H]

Originally Posted by Izulde

Two snake sightings in this geocaching thing already make me paranoid to try it.

Well it is easy to geocache and avoid the possibility of snakes by just selecting ones that aren't in areas that snakes live, but the only snake I've seen after about 140 finds is the one my wife came across and I had to go way out of my way to try to find it just so I could see it. I'm sure I'll come across another snake or two in my time, but I'm not too worried about it. And I hate snakes.

[MJ4H]

Well, Saturday is our traditional geocaching day. We didn't have as much time today because our son was sick and we didn't want to leave him with someone else for very long. So we decided to go around Lake Atalanta and get the 4 that were around the lake before heading to a quick dinner. Then, it was off to "A Light at the End of the Tunnel" for an after-dark attempt.

There were two caches on the way to the lake that we wanted to try to grab. One was at a park and the other was right outside of a Jiffy Kwik gas station. We arrived at the park and it was full of people. That makes it challenging for a couple of reasons. One, you always feel conspicuous when you are on your hands and knees feeling around picnic tables or stumps or looking in trees when everyone else in the park is doing normal things. Two, when you find the cache, you want to be careful that people don't see that you pulled something out of a hiding place and then put it back in or they may go get after you leave and either just take it and do whatever with it, or not understand how to hide it or whatever. It is just safer if they don't see it (unless you explain the whole thing to them).

We headed over to a picnic table which appeared to be GZ based on the GPS and sat down. We casually felt around underneath the table and only occasionally did we have to duck down or crawl around to really search. We found it without much trouble. It was a nano magnetized to a metal bracket underneath the table.

We moved onto the gas station. There was a red storage building at ground zero behind/beside the gas station. The cache description said the owner knew about the cache so we didn't think we needed to worry, but we were there awhile without finding it. The longer we were there, the more I started being concerned about people looking out the window and seeing us snooping around the storage building. It could be someone that just works there and doesn't know about the cache and they could get concerned and who knows. Eventually we had to give up on it. However, we did a little checking on this one last night when we got home by reading the logs of people that had found it, and we went back right after church today and found it in 5 minutes. It was still a tough one to find even with that information, honestly.

Finally, on to the lake. It was a beautiful evening, and there were people everywhere. The park (the same park that is in the first post: the location of our first geocache find) was packed with kids hunting easter eggs. The trail around the lake was crammed with people fishing. It was as crowded as I've ever seen it, and I lived just up the hill from here when I was a kid.

There are 5 caches around the lake, and we had found one of them in the past (our first ever find). Our job tonight was to try to get all 4 of the others and then head to dinner. We pulled up to the first one, and it was across the trail from an obviously popular fishing spot. We found this one without too much trouble. I snapped two pictures from this spot, one of which I think is really cool.

Standing right beside the first lake cache:



Next we moved on to a little road off of the main trail around the lake. It turned into a residential area and we found ourselves on private property searching for a cache. The description said we had permission to look, but I still hate searching on private property. To make matters worse, the GPS signal was bouncing all over the place. We had no idea even with the GPS when were within 50-100 yards of the cache the way the signal was bouncing us around. We eventually had to give up.

The third cache was back down where the turnoff from the main trail forked. The GPS sent me off the trail towards the lake. The terrain was very rugged here. A steep dropoff from the trail down towards the water. I had to be very careful. It did lead to a nice view, though.




We only found this one after giving up and heading back to where we parked. Unfortunately, the coordinates given on this one were off by a good 30+ yards. We did find it, but only after wasting a lot of time looking in the wrong place.

The final cache of the day took us to the dam at the far end of the lake. The cache overlooked a little rapids area of the river/stream. We found this cache quickly, hidden in one of the joint holes in the fence.

Looking down the hill by the cache towards the water:


After signing the log and turning to head back to the van, my GPS slipped out of my hand. I picked it up and the screen was cracked. I turned it on and it worked fine, but the touch screen wouldn't accept input. We are going to try to get it replaced under warranty, but if not, we will have to buy a new one.

[MJ4H]

Originally Posted by Dodgerchick

Found my first geocache!

AWESOME

[MJ4H]

Here is a little map of the 5 caches around the lake.



The bottom left smiley is our first ever cache find, detailed in the first post of this thread. Tonight, we entered the park there, then went counter-clockwise around the lake.

[Izulde]

Pretty pictures, which I think is one of my favorite parts of this dynasty.

[MJ4H]

Forgot to update on "Light at the End of the Tunnel." We went last night about 9:00. We each had a flashlight. There was nothing in the sewer that glowed, nothing that we found that stood out at night in any way. We looked for about 20 minutes and got sick of having to abort every 15 seconds because a car was coming and gave up. We have probably given up on this one unless we get a hint or something. I get the feeling we are overlooking something obvious, though.

[Dodgerchick]

I found my second cache!! Well, it was my daughter's friend that found it actually. I kept moving branches and rocks and nothing. The boy actually found some stairs behind all the branches, went down and said, "I see it I see it!!" I was close but didn't bother to check near the rails. The cache was inside a basket which was hanging from a rope... very clever!

"Not Just Jellystone" has been found!



Still having a tough time finding "Grande Cache" which is behind my apt. complex. One of the clues is "cliffhanger", so I'm guessing it's hanging off of something? Dunno, I emailed the person who hid it and asked if the high grass, bushes, shrub would prevent me from finding it, so we'll see.

[MJ4H]

It's so cool to read about others that are geocaching now and having fun. I hope you keep it up. Don't get too frustrated by one you can't find. There are plenty of them out there.

In fact, about a month ago, it passed the 1,000,000 active geocaches in the world mark.

[MJ4H]

Bought an upgraded TomTom tonight. Heading to Fort Smith for a monster caching run tomorrow. Excited to try out the new GPS and try out having the cache notes on my ipod instead of on the GPS.

[MJ4H]

Today we had planned a trip to the south for our geocaching. Ft. Smith, Arkansas is around an hour away and full of caches we know nothing about. Our in-laws were ready to take our son for most of the day, so we decided to go out of area and leave some of the nearby caches for when we don't have as much time.

We turned the baseball game on the radio and listened on the way down to Ft. Smith and in between the first few caches that we picked up on Rogers Ave (just picked a few at random that were near restaurant options, because we were starving) to get things started. Our real goal was to head to Ben Geren Park, which is a huge city park with playgrounds, mini-golf, tennis, disc golf, you name it. There was also a nice cluster of geocaches in and around the park. By the time we had arrived at Ben Geren Park, we had already found 7 geocaches. Aside from 2 in a dog park (of all things!), they were all basically park and grabs (very near to a place to park--you just get out and find it quickly, sign it, and go on). The two in the dog park were pretty long walks.

Ben Geren was a different story. We parked near the entrance and planned to walk to all of the caches that we could. Here is a map of the park and its geocaches:


Of course, the container icons are geocaches, and the smiley faces are geocaches that we have found (today's finds included).

Our first stop the northernmost one on the map. Here we traded some little toy for a coin from some unknown country. I kind of decided on a whim at this cache that I was going to start collecting coins and similar items from caches. I had already grabbed a pathtag from a cache earlier in my caching career, so I sort of had a start at it anyway. Of course, the thing to remember is to always replace what you take from a cache with something of equal or greater value. From the location of this cache I snapped this picture looking west:



We then headed SSW and around to the back side of a Go-Kart track. This cache was pretty funny. It is common to hide little tiny bison tubes in trees, but this was the first time I'd seen a full sized ammo can hidden in a tree. It was on the backside so it wasn't easily seen, but it was sure obvious when you get to the backside. Not a hard one to find, but plenty of goodies. I think I came out of this one with a $1 poker chip from a Vegas casino.



SW from here to a geocache that we did not find. It appeared that this one probably was a casualty to some severe tree/bush-trimming in the area. We spent a few minutes here and moved on when it seemed obvious we weren't going to find it.

SE this time to a cache that was described as near an old BMX track that had since been bull-dozed. As we neared this one, we could see an old wheel back in the trees a little bit. Sure enough, the micro was hidden in that wheel. Not hard to find at all. Looking back to the west, again, the sun was setting and the telephone poles were all in a neat line, so I snapped a picture that I think is kind of cool.



NE we went from there. There is a little stream that runs along the eastern edge of the park. This cache and the next one took us to the edge of the creek at points where you could walk out next to it. Of course, I snapped a picture at each of them.





From here we walked back to the van and drove south to get one more down at the south end of the park. We thought we had time to get just one more if it was a park and grab. We had to drive past the first one because it wasn't near parking. We just went on to the next one which was less than 100 yards from parking. No picture at this one because we were tired and ready to head home.

All in all, we scored 13 finds today. This brings the total number of finds since we started to 151.

[Dodgerchick]

How long did it take to find 13 caches?

[MJ4H]

We got to Ft. Smith at about 4pm and we started back at about 8pm. However, we had dinner at IHOP while we were down there, so take about 45 minutes out of that time. A little over 3 hours. That included a lot of walking, too. If we were doing park and grabs only and didn't have many DNFs we could've broken 20 probably. Our record for a day is 22, but that took most of the day when my son was in school and I wasn't (but also wasn't just park and grabs, we walked a lot that day, too).

It usually doesn't take more than 5 minutes to find a cache once we are at GZ.

[MJ4H]

I mentioned this briefly above, but I have decided to start collecting coin-like objects I find in geocaches. I've always had an interest in coin-collecting because my dad has one of the most insane collections I've ever even heard of. I know a little about it, but certainly nothing about most foreign coins. Below is a photo of the coins I found in geocaches, just this Saturday alone:



From left to right:

A $1 poker chip from Horseshoe Club, Las Vegas
A L.500 from Italy (Lira?)
A 50 centavos piece from Argentina
A 20 something from somewhere (honestly, no idea)
A 1945 Canadian penny

[Travis]

Looked into this a bit more yesterday due to this thread as something low key/relaxing to do this summer with my girlfriend (and hopefully as kind of a fun side track way of sight seeing on a trip we're taking in July). Downloaded the freebie app they have for the iPhone and it looks very promising. Going to give it a whirl in the next couple weeks and likely upgrade to the full app they have on there. Looks like quite a few cache's around where I live so hopefully I'll have some finds to report going forward.

[DanGarion]

Really cool to see people getting interested in Geocaching on here. I've done some caches the past couple years. I got a renewed interest when I discovered there was a cache right across the street from our house. Looking forward to following your dynasty.

[Dodgerchick]

I went to the YMCA yesterday and found out there was a cache in the parking lot next door. I went to look for it and was surprised there was a very small cemetery there! Really shocked, I had absolutely no idea it was there and we've passed by many many times. I took a picture of it with my cell phone but I have no idea how to get it on here. Anyway, I couldn't get a street view so I went off satellite pictures on gmaps. I counted how many trees and parking lot spaces to the cache, etc. Went there and couldn't find it Still, the fact that there's a cemetery there blew my mind and it's actually a Texas landmark!

I'm still not giving up, I think this is incredibly fun. So far I've found 2 caches but the best part for me is finding these interesting locations that I wouldn't know were there. So far I've discovered a cemetery and a great walking trail and I've gone looking for only 5 caches.

I'm trying to talk Antmeister into getting me a GPS Device but he's not budging. There are rumors that Apple might come out with an iPhone for Verizon so if they're true, we're gonna hold out til then. In the meantime, it's gmaps for now.

[MJ4H]

Hid our third geocache today. We put this one behind a grocery store, and directly behind the center field fence of a little baseball field at the city park in our little town.



The cache itself is hidden on the ground underneath a little log on the ground. I love this location because you can get to it from three different directions, and all three offer different expriences. You can park at the city park and walk around the baseball field to get to it, you can drive behind the grocery store and it becomes a park and grab, or you can park across from the field in the upper-right portion of the picture above, where it becomes a pretty good little walk across a big field.

When you submit a cache, it isn't published until the local reviewer checks it out to make sure it follows all guidelines. I expect this one to pass and be published sometime tomorrow. I'm excited about this one!