Why so many, why so tricky?

[IceCreamManMember]

Many of us remember hearing The Lil Otter’s stories of her trip down south last year.

I’ve been reading your forums as I have a trip to Wisconsin coming up in July. I happened to catch this reference to Lil Otter’s post on her Florida trip. Her comments caused an understandable stir in Jacksonville and I wanted to jump in to defend the quality of our caches because I believe that her comments were unfair and inacurate.

I met Lil Otter (a wonderful lady from my own home town whom I enjoyed finally meeting) at the CITO event she attened in Jacksonville and discussed with her the methodology she used on her trip. She had pulled pocket queries from the downtown areas of the cities she visited. Surprise surprise. Urban areas contain lots of urban micros, few hikes and little terrain above a 2.

A little time spent on planning and selection would have yielded multitudes of caches that were right up her alley. Whatever direction her alley might take.

To get an accurate flavor of the quality of the caches in the Jacksonville area and level at which they are maintained, I suggest reading the logs from Geowoodstock 3 as well as several of the lead up articles from Today’s Cacher. While we certainly have urban micros that some might consider lame (but that others consider a fun diversion), we have a high quantity and a wide variety of quality caches for all kinds of cachers. The descrptions and ratings are as accurate as any area I’ve cached in and the level of cache maintenence is head and shoulders above. Not only that, you’ll find that the locals are a warm and welcoming bunch.

[The Lil OtterParticipant]

quote:

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Originally posted by IceCreamMan:
I’ve been reading your forums as I have a trip to Wisconsin coming up in July. I happened to catch this reference to Lil Otter’s post on her Florida trip. Her comments caused an understandable stir in Jacksonville and I wanted to jump in to defend the quality of our caches because I believe that her comments were unfair and inacurate.

I met Lil Otter (a wonderful lady from my own home town whom I enjoyed finally meeting) at the CITO event she attened in Jacksonville and discussed with her the methodology she used on her trip. She had pulled pocket queries from the downtown areas of the cities she visited. Surprise surprise. Urban areas contain lots of urban micros, few hikes and little terrain above a 2.

A little time spent on planning and selection would have yielded multitudes of caches that were right up her alley. Whatever direction her alley might take.

To get an accurate flavor of the quality of the caches in the Jacksonville area and level at which they are maintained, I suggest reading the logs from Geowoodstock 3 as well as several of the lead up articles from Today’s Cacher. While we certainly have urban micros that some might consider lame (but that others consider a fun diversion), we have a high quantity and a wide variety of quality caches for all kinds of cachers. The descrptions and ratings are as accurate as any area I’ve cached in and the level of cache maintenence is head and shoulders above. Not only that, you’ll find that the locals are a warm and welcoming bunch.

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A copy of my last post in that Geocaching forum follows below.. just to correct the fact that it is yet thought that I only downloaded urban…
also remember that in that gpx at the time I only had 7 UNFOUND caches in that 35mile Jackosnville area since my last visit.

My words stand.. as should have yours stood in your original postings on that forum.. Grousetales is perhaps concerned with how many parking lot/mall/traffic light/guardrail/business/mailbox etc type hides are filtering into our state and only used my words on the geocaching.com forum to bring to light how others coming to visit Wisconsin could be overwhelmed with driveup hides without any view/history/reason etc except for the hide/count.

So what does it matter that I had done almost all of Jacksonville’s caches… except for my own insight of how drastically the hide ‘area’ has changed in just one year’s time. Perhaps a newcomer into the area would have the balance you speak of when you stated “A little time spent on planning and selection would have yielded multitudes of caches that were right up her alley. Whatever direction her alley might take.” If they would have had the MIX of the OLDER caches involved in their gpx.. 500+ new caches placed in a 35 mile range is extreme within a years time.. but perhaps not if the norm is just parking lot drive ups or hides geared towards numbers and not memories to make.

If you would check out and download all the caches I did on that last trip in FL.. you’ll notice that I did not just HEAD to cities but traveled around.. now able to do multis as well as any terrain below 5..

Please tell me if you are again to personally attack me/or Wisconsin.. if so.. please take this BACK to the original forum on Geocaching.com and not cause troubles here on the WGA boards.. I had respected the rights of the FL board forum site and stayed quiet on them.. please do the same here if you’ve come to cause strife.

(quote)
Last posting on that forum in Geocaching.com
The Lil Otter
Charter Member

Posts: 18
Joined: 28-May 02

Understood.. that’s why I have not closed this forum.. because I already knew I’d have some PERSONALLY attacking me.. misundering me.. twisting my words around as well and trying to find someway to get back at me.. but trust me.. it’s hard to read some of this without wishing to REPEAT and CONSTANTLY explain my personal thoughts and words.. It’s really odd how my words at the CITO have been twisted.. not just once but several times.. even my own state attacked when it wasn’t good enough to just do a personal attack on me.

With that said.. I’ll prove how hard it is to actually sort and figure out what is not just a drive up mall/parking lot/diner/business/guardrail etc type that offers nothing but the search..

My Jacksonville .gpx 35miles area that I received before my trip now to weed out the ones I need to study/read – (35 miles south brings in a bit of St Augustine’s caches.. heading north GA’s caches..)

500 locationless already removed prior to receiving .gpx
Remove these:
486 14 sent already archived/disabled
485 1 knock down terrain from 5 to 4.5 (brought no special gear)
485 0 remove event caches (can’t hunt them until that day/time)
485 0 remove CITO cache in trash out events (can’t hunt them until that day)
478 7 virtuals (almost always historical/special interests)
476 2 webcams
470 6 Mystery type caches
468 2 Letterbox (almost always placed in parks/trails)
449 19 Multi’s (usually in parks)

now just dealing with these remaining caches.. let’ refine our list of those to study by:

448 0 drop Terrain rating to below 4.5
448 1 drop Terrain rating to below 4
446 2 drop Terrain rating to below 3.5
439 7 drop Terrain rating to below 3
427 12 drop Terrain rating to below 2.5

still further refining of searchs:

420 7 placed prior to my 1st trip last year that I did not find or didn’t yet do
418 2 LARGE containers (these are usually in parks/trails/woodland)
308 110 REGULAR containers (though this area now hides them in micro settings)
299 9 drop Terrain rating to below 2
269 30 drop Terrain rating to below 1.5

254 15 remove UNKNOWN size caches

252 2 Using Gsak do a search on “Histor”
249 3 Georgia caches with the 35 mile radius

249 rated 1 Terrain Micros to wade through now to find if there are any historical/special interest or reason besides the hide to sort through..

~The Lil Otter

(corrected the terrain 5 rated cache removed.. typo of 0 changed to 1)

(end quote on forums)

[IceCreamManMember]

Please accept my apology. I didn’t mean my post as an attack. Nor was it an attempt to stir up strife. I was simply standing up for my home area which I believe had been unfairly and inacurately characterised. Apparently I missed a good opportunity to shut up.

[Author]

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