[froggerz]

Congratulations on 1100!

Plus, it looks like you cleared out a good number in the West Bend area–which is a feat in itself!

[froggerz]

Earlier this year we were visiting some friends in northcentral Ohio. It was a mild Sunday afternoon and we decided to get some fresh air and headed out to do some caching.

One of the nearby caches was on church property, but the description noted it was alright to park in their lot while searching the cache and that the placer knew the pastor personally. The handle of the placer was “parsonfam” and I kept insisting that based on the handle the placer was probably the pastor himself. Nobody was listening.

Being mid-afternoon, the services for the day were already complete, so we pulled up in the lot. The GPSr zeroed us in on a row of pines on the lot line between the church and an adjacent house. However, there was a man in the backyard of that house playing ball with his dog. We were apprehensive about approaching the cache. I kept saying it’s probably the pastor’s house anyway–especially since there was a path in the middle of the row of pines from the house to the church. Nobody was listening.

Still, we tried to be stealthy and figure out how to go look for the cache without drawing too much attention to ourselves. I guess it didn’t look good for four adults to be milling around behind a church when the man walked by and casually said “Beware of muggles,” went inside the house for awhile and let us be. We felt relieved to know that he actually knew what we were trying to accomplish. We became less cautious in our search and after a hint from the muggle when he returned back outside, made the find.

Afterward, we found out that indeed, he was the pastor “parsonfam” as I thought. So, we guess he wasn’t really a “muggle” after all. But, it has to be one of our favorite and most memorable caching experiences.

[froggerz]

@Ry and Ny wrote:

I would

a) reinstall Plucker from scratch, then

b) on the PC, recreate the “channel” you synched to the Palm before using it again.

Well, I’m usually apprehensive about taking the uninstall/reinstall approach, but felt I had nothing to lose. To be safe, I also followed Ry and Ny’s suggestion and recreated the channel, in case that was the issue–and it worked like a charm.

Everything is back up and running and so far, so good. We’ll see how it holds up to caching this weekend.

Thanks for the help

Mary of froggerz

[froggerz]

We use Plucker/Spinner too. We’re really happy with how it works with the Palm. The only complaint is with large queries (usually 350+ caches). Plucker takes a long time to update the channels. We’re still running XP on both our desktop and laptop computers, so until we upgrade later this year to either a PC with Vista or a Mac, we think we’ll stick with this.

[froggerz]

There’s an Army Navy surplus store in downtown Milwaukee, about 7th or 8th and Wisconsin. I’m pretty sure they have them.

[froggerz]

We have had 1 come back in about 10 days and 1 took almost a full month.

[froggerz]

We’ll give it a try!

[froggerz]

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions.

We tackled some of the easier puzzle caches in the area on Sunday as well as a few traditionals we passed along the way. We highly recommend Big Sty Country (GCR81Q) to anyone who hasn’t found it yet. We had a really, really fun time with that one.

Today we found several along the Wiouwash Trail and the Friendship State Trail. Disappointingly, the snow on the trails was already pretty well packed from snowmobile traffic, so we abandoned the snowshoes and just walked the trails. But, we had them all to ourselves and were able to spend a nice Monday off work together.

And, as usual, there are plenty more to find, so we have plenty of reasons to head back…

[froggerz]

Congrats, Matt!
You’re going to have to start hiding some now so we can start to catch up.

[froggerz]

We keep telling ourselves it’s not about the numbers, but at the end of the caching day, we’re fooling nobody but ourselves. It’s all about the numbers.

We just achieved two of our caching goals yesterday: to find 10 puzzle caches in one day and to hit 50 puzzle caches found at our 300 milestone. To be honest, even though it was rewarding to achieve the goal, it required a lot more planning and exertion than when we just randomly pick a starting spot and see how the day takes us. I’d say we’re going to lay low on reaching for another brass ring for awhile, but again, we’d only be fooling ourselves.

I have to say, I don’t think we would aspire to find everything in a 50-mile radius. Of course, we’re not close to that even being a possibility yet. But, it sure is nice when the stars align in such a way that we both get out of work early enough to enjoy some daylight and hit some caches that are near home.

[froggerz]

I have to say–we love the puzzle caches–it’s a happy medium for us. I get the joy out of solving the puzzles and typically it’s my husband who finds the cache container. So it’s a win-win.

I have to say though, we spent a weekend earlier this summer in the Fox Cities area, and armed with a handful of puzzles I had painstakingly solved, we were more frustrated that they were difficult to find. Since my brain was (proudly) spinning from actually figuring out the coords, it’s tough when you have to walk away with the DNF.

Thank goodness there are so many caches in the area, because we salvaged our trip by finding a handful of traditionals. But, I didn’t solve all those puzzles for naught, so we’ll be back. Keep ’em coming!

[froggerz]

Yes it is a Z22. Oops.

We have it in a case and didn’t realize there was a reset button on the back. Sure enough, that seemed to do the trick. Thanks for the tip.

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