Anyone here do any Geocaching?

[The Unknown Gomer]

Just thought I'd start yet another thread that is most likely destined to die a quick death. :( ;)

So, anyone Geocache (http://www.geocaching.com/faq/) around here?

My uncle from New Mexico got me started on it two years ago when he stuck a GPSr and a Travel Bug (a rubber ducky named Goober the West Texas Duck, who was trying to get to Florida :p ) in my hands for the first time, and while I tend to run hot and cold on how often I go hunting, I just discovered that Cary, where I work now, is a WEALTH of geocaching sites within walking distance.

So I've gone out three times this week at lunch time, armed with cache pages (http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=GCR GB2) and maps loaded into my PDA, the coordinates downloaded into my handy dandy GPSr. And have found two out of the three caches so far. Of course, the one that I CAN'T seem to find is located directly across the street from where I work, so it mocks me every time I pull into work, and every time I leave. :rolleyes: But not giving up on that one yet, it's GOT to be there someplace. :cool:

(GPSr)
http://www.mercadolibre.com.mx/org-img/preview/MLM/062005/8144285_7104.jpg


(Travel Bug)
http://img.groundspeak.com/track/display/27871_200.jpg

[mrsc]

my hubby got our family geocaching about a year ago. Great fun!! I could geocache or not-I'm there for the hiking and enjoying the scenery-but it gives my hubby a reason to get out and exercise. This is a very good thing. And it's so cute to watch him get excited about finding one! I hope you really enjoy it. There are some great caches in the southwest. Blessings, Melody

[The Unknown Gomer]

Wow! Someone else who knows about this! WooHOO! :D

I know what you mean about the exercise thing. I normally don't do it, just because I'm just not into it, but I've walked almost an extra 3 miles this week that I never would have walked had I not gone out looking for the local caches. :)

Just have to watch out for those muggles though. I was spotted today by a dentist that just happened to be standing on the back stairs of his dental office as I was meandering away from the cache site, and naturally he wanted to make small talk about it. I managed to remain vague about what I was doing there and make my escape, but in retrospect, since I'm actually between dentists right now, I should have asked him if he was taking new patients. :p

Great fun. Just wish I could find that one across the street though. That's going to bug me until I find it. :rolleyes:

~ Karen ~

Oooh, not that I keep track of this stuff, but just realized that I'm only 10 posts away from 2000! Yay!

[scbyd23]

I have thought about doing it if that counts for anything! There are tons here in Houston.

[The Unknown Gomer]

Just be careful, all it takes is looking for, and FINDING, your first hidden cache (especially if it's a cache with stuff in it that you can swap something out), and you're hooked. :) Great fun.

[mrsc]

my hubby asked me to ask you what your geocaching name is. We are Capt.Cook and the Crew. His favorite thing is the travel bugs- we 've seen some pretty clever ones. Our first TB was a ducky similar to the one you found. Enjoy and God bless. Melody:D

[Jumpychocofreak]

I geocache all the time, it is one of my favorite sports. I want to join a competition sometime soon. My name on the Geocache site is lil_angel_lover. Now I want to go out and Geocache again. Thanks. :) :p

[The Unknown Gomer]

my hubby asked me to ask you what your geocaching name is. We are Capt.Cook and the Crew.Unless I team up with a former co-worker of mine - when we tend to go by the name "Team Z3 N Me" (he's the one with the sporty little Beemer, and "Me" is, well, ME! :p ), it's the same as here, "sherwood01". :o Boring, I know, but if I get more than a couple of screen names going on, I tend to get confused over which one to use where, so I've been using the same one for my last 10+ years or so on the internet.

I do tend to run hot and cold (much like the weather, which either tends to be too hot and buggy or too cold), hence why I think I've only found about 7 or 8 caches so far. But hey, on a roll, found 3 last week, and just discovered that there are another 2 hidden not too far from my house, so I've already downloaded those to both my PDA and the GPS to hopefully find this weekend. Maybe I can actually break the 10 cache mark this week. :D

I geocache all the time, it is one of my favorite sports. I want to join a competition sometime soon. My name on the Geocache site is lil_angel_lover. Now I want to go out and Geocache again. Thanks. :) :p Oooh, MORE interest! Yay! *pauses to look up lil_angel_lover on the geocache site* Holy cow, looks like you've just about cleaned out the state of Missouri! :p

Anyone get RILLY irritated when they CAN'T find one? Grrrr. Hate that. I've got three of them out there, two that were the final stages of three part multi-caches (so close, and yet so FAR!), and that lousy micro where I work. I really need to find that one. Every time I get ready to pull into the parking lot, I sloooooow waaaaay doooown so I can look over to the left to see if anything jumps out at me that I might have missed the first two times I looked for it. :rolleyes: Nothing yet. Did read the rest of the logs last night, they keep saying how well it's "hidden", so I get this feeling that I've been looking too hard for it, that it's actually hidden in plain sight. I'll check again on Monday...

[The Unknown Gomer]

LOL. I know what you mean. That one across from where I work? After I went looking for it the first time, I switched the GPS from GoTo mode to Map mode, and it showed me the little trail from where I started from to where I was right at that moment. If I hadn't been so frustrated at the time, I might have laughed. :o I hadn't realized how much zigging and zagging I'd done in one small area over the course of about a half hour. :p That thing showed me going this way, that way, up, down, left, right, diagonally; it looked like someone had just taken the knobs of an Etch-a-Sketch and just scribbled them around every which way. Absolutely hilarious.

Another irritation? When you're closing in on a cache, getting closer, and closer, and it says 5 feet, 4 feet, 3 feet... then all of a sudden the arrow flips to the opposite direction and says that it's now 3 feet, 4 feet, 5 feet, away. :eek: :mad: Don'tcha just HATE it when THAT happens. :p

[The Unknown Gomer]

But what if you're right on top of it according to the GPS and still don't SEE it!? Grrrr. I figure I must have circled around that micro like a vulture looking for it, and still haven't spotted it. *sigh*

What GPS are you using? I don't go out all that often, so probably could have gotten away with one of the cheaper Geko models, but my uncle had one of those spiffy blue Legend models, and well, "monkey see, monkey do", :p that's what I ended up with too.

[jevvv]

What I do then is switch the gps to my actual co-ordinates only, and look at a written set of co-ords for the cache.

so if it says 174 35.67E and it should be 174 35.78E then I move a bit east of where I'm standing. It's worked the best that way if I'm really stumped.

Oh, and it helped the kiddos to actually understand more about what the co-ordinates actually represent.

We are PJAJ but you won't find any placed by us... yet, and if you want to look once we have placed our first you'll have to get a plane ticket first ;)