Too Cold
To geocache.
And it’s making me cross!
Happy Birthday Arizona!
I had planned on having a “Ringing In Statehood” flashmob event, but tax season just beat me up.
How To Mint Geocoins
So you’ve decided that you want to have your own geocoin minted? Congratulations! Here’s some things to think about before you click “Pay” and put it on your credit card.
1. Why are you minting coins?
Are you looking for a signature item? To promote or commemorate an event? Unfortunately, you really do need to think about this!
For example, when I minted the EatStayPlay.com geocoins for a business promotion, I never expected to have to produce so many. And the cost really crept up. But, when I had a limited run of 50 Arizona Centennial Geocoins made it was for a specific purpose of commemorating that event.
However, an additional 1,000 collectable “medallions” were made that were not trackable and were sold at events across Yavapai County. (The county lawyers wouldn’t let them be called “coins” because they have no monetary value or “tokens” because they cannot be exchanged for anything. Geez!)
Holding A Poker Run Event
Updated February 2017
Back when I was organizing my big multi-day geocaching event, I decided that one of the games I would offer would be a poker run. It seemed easy and straightforward. I based it off the AJACS event we attended in 2010.
Here’s a link if you’re wondering What is a geocaching poker run?
Overall, the event went well, but I have some additional ideas and suggestions if you’re thinking of hosting a poker run event of your own.
1. Decide on the ante
I did a 50/50 pot with a $5 per player ante. The overall winner got 50% of the pot. The other 50% went to offset event costs. We had about 40 people at the event but not everyone participated. Some people were turned off that it would “cost” money but I just kept stressing that the event itself was free and the poker run was optional.
2. Decide how many decks
We played with 5 decks and every time a geocacher would ante up, I would assign them to a deck A-E. I went in order figuring that it would be more fair to have 3 players per deck than to have 5 players on Deck A, 5 on Deck B, and 2 on Deck C.
There are 52 cards in a deck and 5 caches of cards placed. So that means 10 choices per cache or a maximum of 10 players per deck.
International Geocaching Day
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…
Buying Geocaching Swag
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
Sandy’s First Geocaching Adventure
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:
Planning A Geocaching Adventure
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.
100 Years of Statehood: Arizona’s Centennial Event
I finally have my geocaching event, “100 Years of Statehood: Arizona’s Centennial Event” published on geocaching.com. You can find it at GC30K47
I’m still working out a few details like what type of geocaching games we’ll play, but I was at a point where I could post it to geocaching.com and start getting registrations!
The event is being held in Memory Park in Chino Valley. In fact, I’m off to the Town Council meeting in just a few minutes to ask the council to refund the fees we paid to rent the park for the three days. Chino Valley Parks & Rec have been hugely helpful in planning this. They’re letting us camp (not something they usually do) and are arranging so the restrooms at the park will be available throughout the weekend for cachers.
Guest Author: The Top Geocaching Apps of 2012
Geocaching is a great way to discover hidden gems right in the wall of your city. It’s also a great excuse to get outside and explore the terrain. A Geocaching challenge is similar to a real-world treasure hunt, where teams or individuals use GPS tracking to locate “caches” or trinkets that contain lists of who has found them as well as details about the find—including notes about the terrain, hiding spot, and trinkets found within the cache. There are literally thousands of hidden caches all over the world, so you can geocache in any city you visit. Simply, access the official database of caches at geocaching.com, and use your iPhone or Android to locate caches in any area that offers T-Mobile wireless internet or Wi-Fi coverage.
There are thousands of geocaching applications to choose from. However, veteran geocachers will tell you that these apps offer the best quality for the price you pay…
1. Geocaching by Groundspeak Inc. ($9.99 – for Android & iPhone)
The official geocaching (GC) app from Groundspeak offers direct access to the official and ever-growing cache database that I listed above so it makes sense that this app would be first on the list! This app allows users to find nearby caches by address or by GC code, and you can choose specifically where you want your street, topographic, and/or satellite maps to come from. The friendly user interface offers four tabs for caches— search, saved, logs, and trackables—as well as an export button for instant login to geocaching.com so you can sync your saved caches to the master database.
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11 years ago • Guest Author • Tags: geocaching apps