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i find it hard to believe marc could pass for normal…

if it weren’t for geocaching I wouldn’t really be passionate about any hobby. renewing my interest in hobbies in general has sparked much more activity in other hobbies as well.

if it weren’t for geocaching I would still be an inattentive driver who didn’t wear a seatbelt with a perfect driving record.

i would say it’s changed me for the better.

my mother in law “gave me geocaching” for a birthday present. she gave me a magellan and a newspaper article and printout from geocaching.com. My wife and her mom regret that present to this day 😛

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sweet map!! thanks for sharing with everyone. that is definitely a good one to share during “intro to geocaching” type presentation.

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I definitely take multiple “readings” on my new caches that I list. I usually do not come back over a period of days as is mentioned in other posts but I have done so.

One of the main reasons I see that you might have to come back over days is if the cache you are placing is in an urban area around tall buildings. They seem to mess around with your signal at times and it’s always best to make sure that finding the cache will be reliable and repeatable with your coordinates taken. If not, then you might not want to place a cache in that spot.

Another instance would be areas of heavy tree cover. I have revisited some of mine after the leaves have fallen to double-check the coords.

I was known for notoriously horrible coordinates when I first started placing caches (if you’ve ever done Fav Fishing – The Channel you might agree with this statement) but I think as with anything the more you practice the better you are. Also, it helps to own a Garmin 😉

Usually, if you are placing caches with “bad coordinates”, you will learn so in your logs and you can work to get better. Taking multiple readings and reapproaching ground zero from several angles and taking additional readings is definitely one way to ensure better accuracy. Also, depending on the placement (tall buildings, power lines nearby, etc) I will also come back with the coords and attempt to “find” the cache myself to make sure the coords “work”.

I much prefer making up bogus coords to puzzles over getting the accurate ones for the cache itself 😀

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I heard ole Kevin’s looking for new work… apparenlty he lost all his wealth.

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My kids are at grandma’s today and on the drive over I told my oldeest (little cheeto) to try these… I told him to tell grandma that they are experiments for his school class that were handed out in case school was cancelled. We’ll see what he reports back to me tonight when I get home from work.

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But it would be better if cache owners were around to take care of maintenance issues rather than depending on the other cachers in the area to pick up their archived caches, add logbooks, check on missing caches, etc.

I don’t live in the area nor have I done any of the caches mentioned… but here are a couple ideas to mill over. If you are determined to place new caches (like I am) and you know you cannot dedicate the time involved to be a cache owner (you say this in your own words here in this thread) I think you have a couple options that might help you A. Be able to place caches as that’s what it sounds like you like (and want) to do and B. Not be badgered by your local caching community for caches in ill-repair.

1. Get in touch with area cachers and develop a network of friends. Askl one or more of these folks to be your “trail hand” or “trail boss” which is someone that will help out with cache maintenance during those times that you are busy with coursework, holidays, medical issues, what have you. That person or persons can just place a watch on the caches they are helping with and they would be able to replace logs, containers, whatever. Of course you have to find willing and able people to do so and thats why the first sentence is critical here.

2. Place caches you like and/or want to place and then find people who would be willing to adopt them and become the cache owner. Rather than relying on the “general community”, get in touch with someone who you think would take good care of a particular cache you’ve placed and hand over the responsibility of maintaining to them. You still know that you placed the cache the way you wanted to and you contributed to the game in your own way.

I’m sure this will get negative response from those who beleive that you shouldn’t list a cache unless you are willing to maintain it (as mentioned in prior logs already). However, it sounds like other caches like your cache placements (location, view, etc) and it sounds like you are willing to contribute so I wouldn’t want those 2 things to go to waste.

Part of being a responsible cache owner is understanding where your limits are with cache maintenance and either you stop creating new one’s or you find other ways to continue on but yet not produce a “crappy product” (so to speak). What I mean by that is the container you place today looks great and is full of neat things. Tomorrow it’s cracked, moldy, the log is unsignable, etc. Nobody, not even you, wants to find caches like this. We’ve all found old piles of essentially garbage in the woods that once was a great new geocache. Somehow you have to determine the best way to contribute that does not lead to garbage in the woods.

My post is made with good intentions and again I know no other details than is listed here on the forums.

Keep on caching away and if you place new caches, come up with the best way to keep them maintained so that what’s happened in the past is the past and what happens tomorrow is new and improved 💡

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it is easily searchable

But correct me if I’m wrong but aren’t you “in the field” when you do these WhereIgo Cartridges?

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Kept this sweet cache for a milestone.

That is how their cache log starts on “Surreal”…

Congrats to team wiskey33 (even if it is belated a few months).

I’d give anything to borrow some of the weather from August! So much easier to cache in August then it is in January.

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Honestly, I think it would be faster to create a mashup between existing finals and waypoints within the 2-mile circle of the dummy coordinates and then wander around in the spaces left over.

For me it certainly would have. That puzzle was the ultimate in endurance for me. Most other “difficult” or cryptic puzzles I just stare at a while here and there and either A. Forget about them forever or B. Luck into solving them or someone else helps me. This particular one pulled at me because solving it is right there in front of you. I am a research nut. There is no “mystery” on how it needs to be solved. You just have to research until you can’t research anymore and come up with some great plan for keeping track of who goes where and who overlaps. I made the terrible “mistake” of finding more in common (supporting roles on page 2 of the list so to speak) than the cache owner which had to be corrected by him or I would never have completed the matrix.

The good thing is the difficulty is not in the hide.

Man, with all these folks coming to town eyeing up these difficult Appleton lonely’s the scoreboard might be a’ changin’ come next week!

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Hey gotta run, I can just lead the tour group to find Spagetti if you get sick of the grid. 🙄 (I’m imagining the steam rolling about now…)

I’m just kidding.

Last night’s local (Appleton) weatherman said bitter cold will end on Friday and Saturday and Sunday will be only slightly colder than “normal” mid-january conditions. Also looks like small amount of snow to fall on Saturday. To me this sounds like perfect bowling weather. 😉

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And you can always add a link on the cache description to the prior archived cache if you want cachers to be able to find the prior one for historical reasons.

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So hard to choose just one. So I’ll compromise and choose one regular and one puzzle 😀

GC17163 – Apple Creek Crossing is by far my favorite cache placement to date. It’s a great cache spot along a creek on a paved walking trail. You must cross the creek from the trail to find the cache. It’s a micro but the placement is a very fitting micro placement and the cache is more about your surroundings than the container.

GC15F6F – Historic Neenah- Whiting Boathouse. I worked very hard on all of my historic Neenah caches to try to find accurate historical information and present a learning experience with each one. However, this is the kind of cache I personally like to do the best and that’s why it’s my favorite of the series. You have to “explore” the area around the boathouse looking for clues in the field and then you find the cache very near where the old police boat was parked in one of the old pictures. Oh and the “urban camo” hide technique on the cache has proven successful on this and another of my caches.

Now I have to hit submit before I change my mind….

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my plate says cheetoh (cheeto was taken). It’s a sesquicentenial plate so it predates my caching identity by quite a long time.

i used to have a FTF sticker (that resembles an international company sticker) but that went away with the prior vehicle that i totaled. Now my sticker is a “GEO” sticker, same design.

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That would be something I am interested in.

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I’m not suggesting that the BOD conduct their business in total privacy. I am suggesting that the BOD has every right to make a decision that they believe is in the best interest of the organization that isn’t covered elsewhere in the bylaws

Even THE BOARD doesn’t think this was the best logo choice! If some on the current board can’t even say they got the best outcome and that it was “handled incorrecly” then why not see if it should be revisited????

I actually agree with TBC on one thing. The board can certainly have made this decision without any input from the members. However, the fact that they did ask for member input makes this a group I want to be a part of. However, where I think we went wrong as a group is we should have continued to use the expertise in the group throughout the process not just to sumbit initial ideas. There are obviously talented people who both geocache AND work in the field of graphic arts. Those folks at a minmum should have been involved in the last stage of the game. Not necessarily the masses. I think the board’s interaction with “the rest of us” was right on. We were asked which design was best and whether to keep the old logo or just spruce it up. However, after that we had a small group of geocachers and some person we dont know who was hired for peanuts to work through an additional 20 designs. At that stage, what would have been ideal would be to pull in a “subcomittee” by volunteer basis of those members who have expertise in the area to further assist the board to make an excellent design choice.

My comments are made specifically because we have board members claiming they were not impressed with the final outcome nor how the process was handled. If that is the case, why not as a board just revisit the whole thing? What is there to lose? My point is, you dont lose much.

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