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First I wish to express my sincere gratitude to S|S for all the time and effort put into the local geocaching community!! I totally understand your frustration and want to tell you to keep your spirits up 🙂 There are still some good people out here and we appreciate what you have done!
Here are my thoughts…
Geocaching can seem to be a thankless pastime for the CO’s. It is quite easy for some to get wrapped up in the stats game.. the FTF’s… the D/Ts, and the number of states… While the stats are a fun aspect of the game, it is very important to remember what geocaching is all about.
When I try to tell non-cachers about the sport, I usually get asked “well what do you win?” I sigh on the inside and attempt to explain what the goal is here. I explain that caches for the most part, are placed to help bring awareness to locations of interest and significance. If cemetery caches are brought up, they don’t understand why a cache is placed there. I inform them that bringing awareness to a location can help keep it preserved and appreciated. To make sure that local history does not get rolled over by bulldozers and forgotten. They stop and think for a moment and they usually say “yeah I understand that, that makes sense”.
What do I get out of geocaching? For me its about getting outdoors and seeing things and places I have not seen before. I love the outdoors, I love exploring, I love solving mysteries and playing Sherlock Holmes!
It seems our past time has many hurdles it must overcome. Threat scares with law enforcement, vandals who do not understand or respect what geocaching is all about… and an internal struggle now, it seems, against those who just want to grab finds and care nothing about the significance of what the locations have.
We must prevail however… to let these things beat us down would be a very sad thing. I say we should all pull together and help make our caching community the best it can be!
@terribletom wrote:
We must prevail however… to let these things beat us down would be a very sad thing. I say we should all pull together and help make our caching community the best it can be!
All apologies for bringing so many cachers down just when the weather is starting to get us all geared up for spring. I hope everyone will except my apology, especially those who were affected by anything I might have said or done to encourage their own response to the puzzle touring in the valley or by any attempts to squash puzzle tours.
Having received so many responses like this one, echos of encouragement, notes of appreciation and respect for what I try to bring to the sport, it’s obvious to me now that I have more to give than can be taken away by the acts of a few thoughtless cachers. Couple that with the realization that I won’t be able to find homes for all of mine and am having a hard time stomaching the idea of archiving many of them having invested so much time, energy and expense into them, not to mention many personal life experiences, and I just can’t run away with the ball as a sore looser.
I do need a little time away to determine which of mine I am still going to adopt out to others and to figure out how to modify the many puzzle solves a certain cacher has so he can’t simply go back to the hides once they are enabled again. Hence the global disable this morning, because it is also going to require time, but slowly but surely many of my caches will return. All I ask is that you be patient with me and if I don’t respond right away to adoption inquires, know that I am considering them all and am very grateful for every single one of you who has stepped up and shown me support and or offered to adopt caches.
Better, brighter days are ahead….
TerribleTom- you put into words my feelings exactly!
I also like the feeling of being 007 on a secret mission (1st 3 yrs caching my goal was to fly under the radar).
Thanks for putting into words why we cache.
Following the signals from space.
Last week I headed out to Sherwood because I wanted to find a cache on a puzzle I had solved. While I was out that way, I thought I would visit Calumet County Park and search out those caches also. Long story short. I never found the puzzle cache and I am bummed….but the puzzle sure was fun to solve. I got to visit it park I had NEVER been to (we have only lived in the valley 24 years). What a treasure. While hiking up and down the trails, I saw several red-tailed hawks, a couple of eagles, five deer bounding through the forest and a red fox. Plus I got to see what looks like a fun tubing hill for next winter. All in a couple of hours one afternoon. I walked away with a few more finds, but mostly the memories of a beautiful park on a nice spring day! It doesn’t get much better than that.
Yesterday, Aida and I headed down to Fond du Lac to geocache. She’s on spring break and it was a BEAUTIFUL day and we wanted to be outside. What adventures we had and some really fun caches. Our favorite of the day was hiking down this marshy trail only to come into an open place and an incredible view of Lake Winnebago. Seemed like our own private haven. When we got to GZ on that cache, there were plenty of trees to climb on and just be a kid. What fun! Yes…we did find the cache, in a pretty neat hidey spot, but mostly we just had fun. As we drove home in the afternoon, we talked about what our favorite caches were (as we always do) and laughed about some of the funny things! No puzzle caches because we hadn’t solved any ahead of time. It was one of those spontaneous trips.
I have done a number of the puzzle caches and they have been a blast, an education, a challenge, a point of frustration, ambigious…but I must enjoy them despite the varying range of emotions I feel as I try working through each one because I keep doing them. I especially love the historical puzzle caches that many CO’s have taken a lot of time to research and put together. I have learned more about my community from a historical perspective from these puzzle caches than from anywhere else.
In doing these puzzler caches, I have learned that:
-cheeto-‘s I can generally solve if I just stick with them
s|s has a unique kind of mind and I do not think like him too much, but if I stick with it and ask him for a nudge or two, I can generally solve them
sagasu’s – need I say more? Sinsister says it all!
gottarun’s – challenging for sure, but solvable
marc_54140’s – just started working on these and they are challenging
GizFinder – I let my husband do those!
zoesbrother – I love suduko puzzles!
JimandLinda – solvable and educational!I will try any puzzle at least once. And I tend to be like a puppy with a pork chop once I get going on a puzzle. I find it amazing that so many CO’s have put so much time and effort and even expense into creating these puzzle caches. Wow! Don’t get me wrong, I still like those dead-end traditionals too that I can run out for at 10:30 at night and snag an FTF (thanks neonride93)….but if caching was only dead-end traditionals, how boring would that be. It is so wonderful that we have such a variety of geocaches here in the valley. You can find anything from the simplest 1/1 that you could find blindfolded to a 5/5 puzzle that is downright sinister (yes…I admit I have been working on it off and on for several months) which requires every ounce of brain power and tenacity that you have….and everything in between.
I have seen the word “respect” several times and it is about respect. We need to respect each other. This is suppose to be a fun sport that one can enjoy with family and/or friends while at the same time raising our level of awareness about the communities we live, work and play in.
I am pretty much a newbie on these forums, but I have great respect for the veteran geocachers of this area. They have all been wonderful in making the Lacknothing team feel a part of the geocaching community. And I want to publically say “thank you” to each CO listed above and the many, many more whose caches we have searched out and found. We are having a blast! Our foreign exchange student, Aida, has seen more of Wisconsin than most Wisconsin natives have. We appreciate each of you and are looking forward to differences being settled in a respectful manner and every geocacher using common sense when it comes to any kind of cache.
The views expressed here are that of myself only and do not necessarily represent that of the WGA board.
Thanks to all the takers so far and for those patiently waiting for some kind of reply. Here are a handful that I would like to still find new homes for. If you’ve already adopted some, let others have a go first.
Here are a few others I’m letting go of.
GC13MT9 Bored Members
GC15WQB The Psychedelic J’s
Hooked on Phonics Series
Iconoclast Series (might have a taker)
Phenomenal SeriesBecause almost all of these require some paperwork hand-offs for original material reference when geocachers start bugging you, I am going to set up a RENDEVROUS point at Dr Jeckyl’s in downtown Appleton every Wednesday night, from now until May, between 9pm and 11pm or so. You can send me a PM the night of if you want to hook up. I figure there’s no better way to manage all these hand-offs with a bear and some story sharing.
They serve bears at the taverns in Appleton? Sounds like the start of a joke. “A bear walked into a bar in Appleton…”
@Team Deejay wrote:
They serve bears at the taverns in Appleton? Sounds like the start of a joke. “A bear walked into a bar in Appleton…”
LOL…..I’m glad it wasn’t just me who got a smile out of the typo.
@Team Deejay wrote:
They serve bears at the taverns in Appleton? Sounds like the start of a joke. “A bear walked into a bar in Appleton…”
Up North, the bears just walk in to the liquor stores and sleep it off after being in the bars.
@lostby7 wrote:
@Team Deejay wrote:
They serve bears at the taverns in Appleton? Sounds like the start of a joke. “A bear walked into a bar in Appleton…”
LOL…..I’m glad it wasn’t just me who got a smile out of the typo.
It was shortly before midnight and the bears I had for supper were starting to work me over…
@seldom|seen wrote:
Here are a few others I’m letting go of.
GC13MT9 Bored Members
GC15WQB The Psychedelic J’s
Hooked on Phonics Series
Iconoclast Series (decided to keep for now)
Phenomenal SeriesBecause almost all of these require some paperwork hand-offs for original material reference when geocachers start bugging you, I am going to set up a RENDEVROUS point at Dr Jeckyl’s in downtown Appleton every Wednesday night, from now until May, between 9pm and 11pm or so. You can send me a PM the night of if you want to hook up. I figure there’s no better way to manage all these hand-offs with a bear and some story sharing.
With all the requests coming in from every angle immaginable, I’ve lost track of a couple requests. This is what I want to offer up yet. If you asked from one of these previously, send me a reminder.
Decided to keep Iconoclast series and am still wainting on the Postmarked series confirmation
Everyday Heros series (somebody asked for these earlier)
Phenomenal Series
Hooked on Phonics Series
Crossing Over’s
For Immediate Release (someone asked for this one)
GC13MT9 Bored Members
Light at the End? of the TunnelIt’s amazing that even after shaving off what will amount to about a third of what I had, I still feel like that list in immense. Crazy. Who would even think that getting it down to about 150 caches owned would be liberating?
@seldom|seen wrote:
It’s amazing that even after shaving off what will amount to about a third of what I had, I still feel like that list in immense. Crazy. Who would even think that getting it down to about 150 caches owned would be liberating?
I just took 4 of yours and feel the same way….
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