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Way to go Chris, and a great log to boot!

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Congrats Sherry! And I remember way back when you only had about 3,650 finds!

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Great topic. Here’s some of our favorite cache owners of SE WI:

At the top of my favorite hiders list, and I suspect at the top of many people’s list in SE Wisconsin, would be Ranger Boy. I really don’t know of any other who is comparable. He is a master of incredible, outside-the-box thinking. His puzzles are brilliant and his hides are AMAZING. Many who find his caches ( and I’m referring to those with over 1,000 finds) will state in their logs that they’ve never seen a hide like that one. Again. His caches are often found by groups of several people or more to increase one’s chance of success. 85 hides and only 17 are traditionals. His top 20 caches all have about 15 or more favorites. Even his multis are usually a combination of multi & mind-blowing field puzzles. He’s been caching for over 10 years and is still very active, cranking out many new excellent caches.

Whenever a new cache comes out from Froggerz it’s a must-do for us. Their traditionals all are clever with props, and they are (in my opinion) some of the best puzzle cachers in the state. We enjoy their puzzle caches, when we eventually figure them out! Every one of their active caches has at least one or more favorite votes. Although most of their hides are in Milwaukee county, they’re pretty much all in secluded wooded areas that look as if they’re hundreds of miles away from the city. Nice.

Chevyole has 62 caches. His top ten caches all have double digit favorite votes. We’ve only found about 70% of his caches so far but all of them have been great. He doesn’t hide boring caches. All we have found so far have been creative, or at scenic locations, or great topics/cache pages, and/or downright clever. We look forward to finding all of his, little by little.

Doctor Dolittle has over 400 hides, and especially in the past few years they usually could be described as “wow.” Great themes and props. In fact perhaps he is the props master. He has put an incredible amount of work into his custom caches the past few years, building some incredible stuff. Creative themes & cache pages too. His top ten all have over 40 favorites, including the #1 cache in WI (Take a deep breath) with favorites percentage.

The Goldie Diggers and Mister Greenthumb & Sunshine are two of my favorite cache hiders and have well over 700 hides between them, not to mention hundreds of favorite votes. With that many hidden, some of theirs are micros, but the good stuff is really really good. We have found all but one of Goldies (still have to get his newest one) and hope to eventually find all of MGT & SS’s. If and when that happens I don’t know what we’re going to do!

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Here’s our top ten. Five traditionals, four multis, and one puzzle. All of our caches have favorites except one; the one without is a puzzle cache with a view of a golf course. Similar to what Froggerz mentioned, we try to place caches that others will like and potentially mark as favorites.

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@Lacknothing wrote:

@Team Deejay wrote:

I just checked and we have given out 72% of our available points. Basically, if we like a cache, it gets a favorite point. We really use favorites to decide what caches to seek on trips, so I appreciate you all being serious about awarding them. Based on some of the caches I found in Vegas, I think people out there award points based on how drunk they are when the find the cache.

I am guessing there is a lot of drunkedness….so that could be interesting…

Dave we noticed the same thing in Las Vegas. When we were there we mainly went after caches with 50 to 250 favorites, and many were lame P&G’s or virtuals of little significance.

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We’ve given out 420 of 437 favorite votes available. We’ll give them out for nice walks/adventures, creative/unique containers, beautiful scenery, well-written cache pages, great puzzles, or just exceptionally fun experiences. I remember someone (maybe Goldie Diggers?) saying “if you can’t find a cache you like at least 10% of the time, why are you even bothering to go caching?” We like to give positive reinforcement to those who put forth the effort for nicely done caches.

We don’t usually do park & grabs and haven’t ever done a big power trail so that might make our % of awarded fav votes higher than the norm.

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There’s no use denying it – August you rock! Congrats buddy!

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Here’s my two favorite for this year. One of them has great sentimental value and has been my favorite for years. It’s from Kim’s grandmother’s tree. Her grandmother had a little person ornament for each member of the family. The one pictured has the barely readable name “KIMMY” on it, from about 1960.

The other one relates to our practice of putting a travel bug on our tree each year (well, for the last three years anyway). Do you recognize it?

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Hmmm, maybe I should mention in my logs when I don’t post a picture. It would save time. 8)

That’s a good idea to mention in the log when I’m posting a picture, since I take a picture (a spoiler & a non-spoiler) of almost every one. The spoiler doesn’t get posted.

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Thanks Bill & Vicki; it’s always a treat to go caching with you (with or without costumes) and we’re so glad for your friendship!

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Good idea. 🙂

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Sadly, when the address is posted to this guy’s FB page, it’s being promoted for better or worse, and more people will probably flock to it. It’s a shame that he gives blatant coordinates rather than only providing hints and nudges.
🙁

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@Mister Greenthumb wrote:

@sandlanders wrote:

But do they know your GC password so that they can adopt those caches themselves, or adopt them out? Or even archive them in a timely manner and post cache rescue missions for all of them?

They’re all smarter than me, I’m sure they’ll crack the code.

Oh no, Bill please tell me your password isn’t “password.”

Wait, don’t tell me – it’s better that I don’t know!

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@WhiteEagle wrote:

Thanks for the information..
I just found that I can get a new Garmin Oregon 550T for approx $290 …. supposedly regularly $499….
For the $290, would that be about the best deal around ?

Yes that’s a very good deal. Go get it. Now! I’ll wait…

The “T” in the model number means you get preloaded topo maps (the maps cost something like $99 if purchased separately), and the 550 (unlike the 450) has a built in camera. You can even take a picture (which would have the coordinates geotagged to it) and then navigate to that exact spot at a later time by viewing and then selecting that picture.

I like having a camera built into the GPS (the 550 & 650 models), but most Oregon owners I know of have the 450, without a camera, which I sort of view as the gold standard of touchscreen GPS units. The 450 is typically $299 but like others have said it’s sometimes on sale for ~$200.

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@Team Deejay wrote:

I would also add that when using a cell phone for real urban caching (say downtown Chicago or Manhattan), your phone will be next to useless due to cover from the tall buildings. Even the Etrex’s will struggle in this scenario, but the higher end Garmin’s do ok.

Dave there’s a way to make a smartphone pretty useful in “real” urban caching. I agree with you that the signal will bounce around because of the tall buildings etc. But when in concrete jungle situations like downtown Milwaukee or Chicago I switch to satellite view, zoom in, and see the location of the cache next to the nearest identifiable landmark (bus stop, sculpture, light post, etc.). That has worked out really really well for me, assuming that the cache owner gave accurate coordinates. But one has to have a smartphone with an app that shows you the satellite view if they are going to use that method.

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