Archive for August, 2011

The first International Geocaching Day was celebrated on Saturday August 20, 2011. Geocaching.com says that this will be an annual affaire held on the third Saturday of August each year.

If you found a cache or attended an event on 8/20/11 you will get a special souvenir on your profile on geocaching.com. (Souvenirs will be awarded soon but as of today, nothing has appeared yet!)

jeananjoe's EVIL NASTY micro cache is actually hidden in my hand in this photo.

Not only did I drag ESP Boss and The Queen Mother out for a “quick” cache on Saturday, I also celebrated my 100th find. I had been “saving” lucky number 100 for a special occasion…

Okay, not really. I tried to get to 100 two weeks ago when I was caching with Sandy but struck out.

Anyway, not only did I get my 100th find on a very neat day in geocaching history but it was also the first ever micro placed by local caching couple jeananjoe that the EatStayPlay.com “Royal” Family successfully found.

Very cool!

I know every caching area as “THAT ONE” cache hider who is so mean, ruthless, and nigh impossible to find their caches. Well, the micros of jeananjoe are my cache-placing nemesis.

And we found it!

Readers Weigh In:

• Did you participate in International Geocaching Day? What did you do/find?

In preparation for my big upcoming geocaching event in September, I’ve been going through all my drawers looking for good swag as “seed swag” for the caches I’ll be placing. But, I’d pretty much already done that when I started caching and have placed or traded most of it.

Last weekend I was doing some shopping and decided to look into just BUYING swag. Of course, the toy department at my local Walmart had a ton of selection: for a ton of money! And the toys at the dollar store, while priced better, were just too cheap and boring looking.

This is the swag in just two and a half bags. We ended up with 7 bags of swag so 70 trade items!

Then, I hit upon it: Goodwill!

Now, I don’t know if every Goodwill store offers toys. Of the two here in Prescott, I think only one does. But it was still worth the trip!

There were about twenty bins attached to a back wall, each filled with a selection of plastic toys. And the sign above the bins:

10 for $1.49
4 for $0.99

ESP Boss & I spent about thirty minutes carefully going through each and every bin. The next result: 7 bags of toys (70 items) for $10.43. It turned out to be a lot less than anywhere else. Plus, I really liked it that I wasn’t driving all over to hit yard sales, the money goes for a good cause, and all the items were in good condition. (They’ll get a bath, though since some were a bit dirty or sticky!)

And, if I had gone in on Saturday (it was Friday) it was a 50% off Saturday. Our Goodwill stores offer specials that every-other Saturday are 50% off everything in the store.

We picked up a large selection of plastic snakes, toys from a variety of fast-food kid’s menus, “army” men that are PIRATES, and a lot of exciting random toys including a bendy Oreo figurine, M&M characters, dinosaurs, and bugs.

So the next time you need seed swag for a cache, think about stocking up at your local Goodwill or other re-sale store.

At these prices, I think that it’s a good idea for ALL cachers to carry a bag of trade with them when they’re caching. Too often the “adult” cachers forget that just because they don’t trade doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t make sure that the caches they visit aren’t full of great trade items.

After all, geocaching is a family activity and kids always enjoy trading for swag. As geocachers we take care to remove any trash, food, or inappropriate items from the cache, but how often do we ensure that the cache is filled with fun trade items?

I know that even after my event, I’ll carry a bag or two of Goodwill goodies to replenish and refresh any caches I visit!

Readers Weigh In:

• Do you trade for swag?
• What toys or kid-friendly items do you leave?
• Do you make it a point to refresh any caches that are in need of swag?

Last week I wrote about planning the big geocaching adventure for Sandy. It was her very first time ever geocaching but she’d been hearing about it from me all summer long.

Sandy's First Cache Find!

I decided that we should head to nearby Willow Lake. I chose Willow Lake for three reasons:

1. There was a high concentration of not-too-difficult caches around the lake. I wanted an area where we would have multiple caches to go after so if we couldn’t find some Sandy wouldn’t get discouraged.
2. Heritage Park is pretty busy every day of the week. Two women out alone — well I wanted to be someplace where we wouldn’t be isolated.
3. It a GORGEOUS area! So I knew that even if caching was a bust there would be plenty of scenery for us to enjoy.

And my bonus reason was that I hadn’t looked for any of the caches there!

We left right after work and of the 7 caches we looked for, we found 6! That’s not too bad for an early evening of caching and especially great for Sandy’s first caching adventure.

By the end of the trip, she was already asking me how much my Garmin cost! Prices have come down quite a bit since I got mine: Garmin Venture HC. That’s a link to Amazon.com

Readers Weigh In:

• What was your first geocaching adventure
• How long did it take before you were hooked?

ESP Boss has had a great girl working for him this summer. Sandy is a local girl who has been attending ASU pursing a degree in accounting. So, this summer we’ve hired her at the tax office to help out.

In addition to working on a MASSIVE project for a client, she’s also been doing some back-fill for EatStayPlay.com. Mainly, Sandy has been researching the state parks in Utah.

She’ll be heading back to school in a couple of weeks but before she goes back to Tempe, she asked me if I would take her geocaching. Yeah! I love nothing more than introducing a new person to the great game of geocaching.

We’re planning on heading out tomorrow evening, after work, to find some local caches. I’ll be planning the outing tonight (hence the shorter post). Here are some things I’m taking into consideration as I plan this:

1. Size of the cache
Let’s face it, the exciting part of getting started in geocaching is the swag. Every new geocacher is convinced they’re going to find something super cool in a cache. So for Sandy’s first caches, I want them to be large enough to have some good swag.

2. Difficulty
When you’re introducing a new sport or game to somebody you want them to “win”, right? Well for a lot of geocachers, the “win” is the find. I’ll be concentrating on caches that aren’t too difficult to find so she can start to build up her geosense.

3. Letting her do it
When I was camping with my friend Nicole last August, we went after a geocache. And I made a BIG mistake when I was introducing her to the game: I didn’t let her do it. It was a cache I had hid and I was in “maintenance mode” not “encouraging a new geocacher mode. I didn’t let Nicole hold the GPS or make the find. Tomorrow, I’ll be sure to let Sandy do it herself.

Some other things I’m planning are to have the caches pre-loaded into the GPS and the cache pages pre-printed. I know a lot of people do paper-less caching, but I’m not one of them. Also, before we head out, I’ll have her register for a free account on geocaching.com.

Readers Weigh In:

• What are your tips when you’re taking somebody geocaching for the first time?