[LMcGisme]

There’s the National Mississippi River Aquarium and Museum in Dubuque that is pretty interesting. Also, just north of Maquoketa along HWY 61, is The Kilns of Hurstville cache. The cache itself wasn’t anything special, but we really enjoyed reading about the history of the lime kilns.

[LMcGisme]

Are you sure it wasn’t Wisconsin’s Dogman, featured recently on History Channel’s Monster Quest? Dogman

[LMcGisme]

The Weather Channel map is the one I prefer – Snow Cover Map

The others seem to show the amount of snow fallen in the last 24 or 48 hours, where this one shows the current snow cover.

[LMcGisme]

Thanks for all the time and effort that you put into caching in Wisconsin. It was much appreciated.

[LMcGisme]

@gotta run wrote:

I’ve got a nice little park in mind for a mutli-cache. There’s about 20 trees with knotholes just perfect to hold filmstrip cans and, wouldn’t you know it, I have 20 cans right here. I’ll put a log scroll in each one and record them as 20 different waypoints in the cache listing. Most are just a few yards apart and, since I want people to find all the waypoints, I’ll keep the coords viewable on the cache page just to be sure. Since each can has a log I’ll allow people to log each waypoint as a find, whether they find 1 or 20.

The difference to the purists–besides permanence–is that this is published as a multi-cache and not an event. Of course, I could always archive my multi at any time…

I don’t see the difference here – the “purists” still see it as one gc.com id = one found it (or attended). The multi-cache = one id = one smiley – regardless of the number of waypoints or if they each have a log book.

There’s a multi-cache like that near me – 9 waypoints, each an ammo can, each with its own log book, over 5 miles walk to get them all. Of all the finders only one has logged a ‘found it’ for the separate waypoints, even though the owner allows it. The rest of the finders have logged it as one cache, one ‘found it’ smiley. I don’t think that multi-logging events/multi-caches is as nearly as prevalent as it appears from reading these forums.

I fall more into the purist camps for my own logging, and don’t really care how others log their finds. But I do find it ironic that those who say the numbers don’t matter and they aren’t just pumping up the find count seem to be the same ones saying that an ‘Awards Event’ would be a great idea, and posting in the milestones/congrats threads. Obviously the numbers matter, even if only for bragging rights, or the milestone threads and events wouldn’t happen.

All MHO, of course

[LMcGisme]

@vtwinspin wrote:

what would you rather find a easy cache or one that take some real looking to find

I like the cache hunt to balance out. If its a long or hard hike then I like an easier find at the end. If its a short, easy walk then I prefer a more challenging hide. When it comes to challenging hides I prefer ones that are hard because of the camo or unique hiding spot, not one that’s hard because its a micro hidden in an area with a bazillion places you could stick a micro. But as others have said, hide what you like to hunt.

[LMcGisme]

Some ice breaking activities that get cachers to mingle and meet others would be nice, like that bingo game where you need find people that meet a specific criteria to fill in the square (cacher that has done a 5/5 cache, cacher who drove more that 100 miles to the event, etc.). Otherwise cachers who know each other will naturally group together to chat and new comers will find it harder to break into the group.

[LMcGisme]

@seldom|seen wrote:

For me its about opportunity. An opportunity to learn about a place, a thing, a person. It is sometimes not enough to take someone to a destination, sometimes you have to nudge them into reading about it as well, or they will opt to move on to the next cache without a full appreciation of what they are walking away from.

If driving around the state trying to log as many caches as you can to get your numbers up forces you to bypass some very fun, informative and rewarding puzzles that teach you a thing or two about the people and places you are seeing, isn’t a waste of gas and a huge waste of the potential of this sport to be more that finding tuperware containers with multi-billion dollar satellites, than I don’t know what is.

Most of the caches I’ve seen that push someone to learn about a place, a thing, or a person have been multi caches, not puzzles. Those are really interesting and a lot of fun – one of my favorite types. I think the issue is more about the proliferation of puzzles that are just there to make it difficult to determine the coordinates just for difficulties sake, not to try to teach anything about the area.

What I see around here are mostly puzzles that have absolutely nothing to do with any interesting facts about the location. They consist of looking at the source code to find hidden coordinates, or a hidden link on the cache page, or decoding a picture or code. Nothing interesting to learn about the area. I also consider it a waste of my limited caching time to try to solve these puzzles when I could be outside getting exercise hunting a cache.

Some people really like these puzzle caches, but just because some people don’t like them doesn’t mean they’re wasting a huge potential in the sport – IMO. They may be missing an excellent opportunity to become a master cryptologist, though. 🙂

[LMcGisme]

Oh, oh, Another question –

Have you ever been locked into a parking lot while caching? 😳

[LMcGisme]

It sounds like it could be a lot of fun if some other categories were used and find counts were avoided.

Along with other category suggestions already mentioned for individual caches/logs, you could kind of award the more active cachers with awards like “most WI counties cached in during the last year”, or most states, or farthest away from home coordinates.

It was just the idea of compiling statistics and awarding most finds that made me question the event.

[LMcGisme]

A dissenting opinion here –

There’s already enough controversy about multi-logging “attended” on events to get credit for finding temporary caches, and IMHO an awards event will just add fuel to the fire.

What do you define as a find?

If event temp caches are allowed, then those who believe that event caches are basically the same as stages in a multi-cache (all part of one bigger cache and shouldn’t be counted individually) and they are just beat out of #1 cacher by a multi-logger, then bad feelings could result.

If event temp caches not are allowed, then those who believe that event caches are real caches and should be counted individually, and are just beat out of #1 because only unique finds are counted, then bad feelings could result.

A way around this would be to have an “any finds” award winner and a “unique finds” award winner – but do you really want to go there and stir the pot?

IMHO its better to keep geocaching a non-competitive activity rather than have an awards event.

[LMcGisme]

Lostby7 got the granite question – Montello has the hardest granite.

Who used the half way tree, and what was it half way between?

[LMcGisme]

@lonesumdove wrote:

Okay, so why is WI known as the Badger state? 😯

What is the town of Willows, Wisconsin known for?

Husband going to Vegas in March, he will have to do that virtual of Liberace. Grandma Walton is buried in CA.

Can I play too?

Willows Wisconsin is where Barbie (the doll) grew up and went to school.

What town in Wisconsin has the hardest granite in the world?

[LMcGisme]

Since you have the eXplorist 500 you don’t need Easy GPS or GSAK, because the 500 comes with geocaching manager software. You do need to download and save the file (gpx or loc) to disk, then use the geocaching manager that came with the 500 to load it to the gps.

HTH,
Lisa

[LMcGisme]

@JohnnyFive wrote:

I generally like caches that take a while to get to and take me someplace interesting. I did The Rock and Tunnel of Terror last week. Both were excellent. LightningBugs Mum, Tunnel of Terror is definitely worthy of a milestone.

Given the type of caches you like, and that you liked the Tunnel of Terror and the Rock, I’d move Dane County Mountain Climbing to the top of the list, followed by either suggestion in Magnolia Bluff, then any of the Leopold series that you haven’t found yet.

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