Joshua's Land Trust

About two weeks ago we hid seven caches on the David Storrs Chapin Coney Rock Preserve in Mansfield, CT. To our dismay Pofe, the local reviewer at Geocaching.com, sent us an email saying these caches could not be approved because Joshua's Land Trust properties are considered to be private property. The local reviewer always plays by the rules, but hey that is the responsibility of these volunteers who devote lots of their time, and who can argue with playing by the rules. We were also told that if we could get permission that the review process would go forward, so we still had hope that we wouldn't have to go back and remove the caches. The first task at hand was to research and collect information about the Joshua's Land Trust before making a decision as to how to move forward. We were able to find that the President is Madge Manfred, then found her phone number and email address and some information about her background and duties as President. Our next step was to both email and call Madge to find out how best to proceed. It turned out that Madge is very personable, is always looking for new ways to promote the Trust Properties and she is a great asset to the organization. After the first contact she was in favor of having geocaches on the property, but as a formality wanted to put it to a vote with the Board of Directors. We agreed to put a link to Joshua's Land Trust on this blog and sent her information to present to the board including a brief explanation about geocaching, CITO (including a link about a local CITO event in Vernon on this blog and a copy of an article of the event in a local news publication), and the possible benefits to the Joshua's Land Trust. Probably the toughest part was waiting on pins and needles for ten days until the next Board meeting. The board voted in favor of geocaching on Trust Properties. The overall experience was very rewarding. We learned alot about this great organization and feel good that we were able to promote geocaching to the community.

The mission of the Trust is to supplement local, state and federal government efforts in preserving open space in Eastern Connecticut. Properties The Trust owns or protects by easements, over 3000 acres of open space land. It is a non-profit organization that operates on donated money, sales of the Joshua's Trust Walkbook, donated land and volunteers that not only administer the properties, but also maintain them. The membership fee is only $10 for an individual or $20 for a family and there are higher levels for donors, patrons, benefactors and corporate/lifetime contributions. Becoming a member is easy. Just go to the Join Joshua's Trust web page, print out the form and send it in to the address on the form. You can also contribute to the Trust in the name of someone else by going to the Joshua's Trust Gift web page.

We would like the thank: Pofe for being patient with us and giving us time to work on a presentation to the Trust, Madge for all her help in telling how best to get permission from the board, AND a BIG THANK YOU from the Joshua's Land Trust Board Members for allowing us hide caches on this scenic property.

Logging a micro

Found a micro? What should you put in your log? The best thing is just your name and the date. Micros have limited room for logs. Recently a finder of one our caches alerted us to the fact that the log was getting full. We would like to thank them for letting us know that the cache needed maintenance. We drove the 20 miles to replace it. To our amazement a geocacher visited the cache today and took up room for about 5 names and completely filled in the remaining space with a sticker acclaiming their find. It is a good thing that we had planned to replace the log today or others would not have been able to claim their find. We also found that numerous others have stamps that they use instead of signing the log. Each of the stamps took up room for about 5-7 names. Although we think that stamps and stickers are creative and fine for regular caches they might not be appropriate for micros.

One other thought about micros is that usually the owner places them to bring you to a spot and they do not expect that people trade or leave items for future finders. Even tiny trade items make it difficult to get the log in and out. This is especially true for micros that are in high muggle areas. Finders need to be able to retrieve, jot in their name and date and replace quickly.

Okay call me a hypocrite

I know that a while back I wrote that the best GPS for finding geocaches was the one you own. When we first started geocaching I bought a Garmin Vista. It got us close enough to find over 1900 geocaches. Calculating that out per cache it ends up that the Vista cost about 13 cents per cache. Now here is why you can call me a hypocrite. I caved in and bought a new GPS. I have wanted a Garmin 60CS since it was introduced. Because it is now a discontinued model due to the new 60CSX I was able to get a great deal on one at Amazon. It ended up costing about $290, shipping included, after a $50 mail in rebate. Barb will now be using the Vista. An upgrade for her too from a Yellow Garmin E-Trex.

The true reason for buying the 60CS was not for finding geocaches as much as for getting to the general vicinity by road. It has auto-routing to get you from point to point. Of course I pretty much always had auto-routing because Barb has become an expert navigator using Delorme topo paper maps. Now she might be able to take in more of the sights instead of figuring what roads to take. It also has a directory of businesses that makes it easy to find gas stations and food while out in the boonies. The auto-routing and services info requires City Navigator that cost another $115, but hey with the price of gas it might just pay for itself over time if I take a few less wrong turns. I was able to load all the map info for Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island using 44MB of the 56MB of the internal memory so I don't really think I needed to pay double for the 60CSX that allows you expand the memory using smart cards.

The new GPS will also come in handy for hiding caches. It has averaging that allows you to collect 100's of waypoint coordinates and automatically calculate the average. This is a usefull tool when hiding a geocache and trying to get the best possible coordinates for the future finders.

I was hoping that the 60CS might have a little better antenna. I am not sure that is the case. It seemed to break lock as often as the Vista did in heavy tree cover. I must admit the cheap Yellow E-Trex was better than the Vista in tree cover. I guess I need to be patient and do some more comparisons before coming to a final conclusion on this topic.

After using the Vista for over 3 years I was very used to the buttons and how to get to the screens I wanted. It will take some time before I am familiar with all the new buttons and functions. And I must say there a lot more functions!

All in all I happy with the new toy. What can I say. I am a geeky electronics junky!

But -

The best GPS to use is the one have!

Mike and Barb

Nanocaches

Nanocaches are becoming commonplace here in New England. They are tiny magnetic containers that can be very difficult to find. Keepin my eye on Geocaching news I came across cool news article. Seems that a couple of people in Greensboro North Carolina accidently noticed one of these containers and wondered what the heck it was. Interestingly they returned it to its hiding spot and checked to see when new geocachers visited the sight. The incident has been reported in The Greensboro News-Record.

Ticks

When we got back home from geocaching on Saturday I had a tick that was just starting to begin to dig into my arm for dinner. Your first thought is; "GET THIS THING OFF OF ME". Well, that is sound thinking, but it is far better to take your time and be somewhat cautious of the removal.



About a year ago we bought an inexpensive tool called the Tick Nipper hoping that we would never have to use it. The device is made to be able to get under the tick's body and pull it out. The PR description also talks about a magnifying glass for tick identification, but who cares. When you have a tick feasting on your arm, you really don't care what kind it is. One of the great things about the Nipper is that it doesn't squeeze the tick. This helps prevent the tick from expelling extra toxins into your blood stream. So I pulled the Tick Nipper out of the hiking vest I use and handed it to Barb for the extraction. I had to keep reminding her to just keep pulling gently with constant force and not to try and yank the tick out. It came off quite easily and no parts were left embedded so the tool did the job. You might want to carry one in your pack if you are in an area that might have ticks.

Here are some other helpful hints to minimize your chances of getting a tick.

1. Always wear long pants. Preferably light colored (we wear khakis) and keep them tucked into your socks. Even if a tick gets on your clothing it won't be able to find skin to bite into. The khakis allow you to see a tick more easily as you are hiking or getting ready to get into the car.

2. Keep your light colored shirt tucked in your pants too.

3. Spray deet on your shoes, socks, pants, on your shirt and on your hat.

4. Inspect for ticks often. Especially if you walk through grass.

5. One person we know gets undressed in the garage and leaves her caching clothes there. This will reduce the possibility of bringing a tick into the house.

6. ALWAYS inspect carefully from head to toe when you get home. This can be a lot more fun if you have a partner. The sooner you find a tick the easier it is to extract them and the less probability of any tick borne diseases.

These critters are part of nature so they are pretty much unavoidable, but a few precautions can make for a much more enjoyable geocaching experience.

Mike and Barb

Educating police officers about geocaching

I just read a great blog post written by altf4osu. He gave a presentation to local law enforcement officers about geocaching. He hopes that by educating them about the hobby and what a typical geocacher carries that fewer of us will be questioned about what might be considered suspicious behavior.

Thanx altf4osu!

Reading can help you in geocaching

Here is a tip on how to look for hidden clues when looking for a cache. First read the description carefully. Many times there is information there that if interpreted correctly will give you a clue.

Here is a good example. We recently hid a cache that is a rather difficult find. In the description we said that it is not necessary to disturb the nearby the flowers and plants. Although this was meant as a request to be environmentally friendly, it is also a clue. We know of at least one geocacher that did not read that carefully as somebody disturbed some daffodils. BTW - This person did not log a DNF.

On another geocache we hid some time ago we said that is located at the I-84 Westbound Connecticut Welcome Center Rest Area Tourist Information Center. Several people logged that they were on the wrong side of the river. Here they were following the arrow to try and save a few steps instead of doing a little reading to make things easier for them. We will admit that this did generate some humorous logs.

Additionally, if you are at the cache site and having problems, you should carefully read some of the recent logs. Sometimes without knowing it a finder will give just a small insight of what you are looking for.

So – rather than getting frustrated or feeling stupid – do a little extra reading and see if it makes your geocaching adventure just a little easier.

Mike and Barb

Your Favorite Place

Nature Valley has created a website that allows you to register and share your favorite place. You can put in the coordinates of the place so that pins can be displayed on a map. You can also include photos and comments about the place and categorize the place using tags. Unfortunately there is no tag for geocaching, we tagged ours as hiking/walking. There is also a contest for the best spots. I picked Campbell Falls. It is a place I used to visit as a kid and we placed a geocache there. Here is our link to my Favorite Place. Please let us know where your favorite place is.

Happy Birthday

On May 3rd, 2000, Dave Ulmer posted two new messages on the internet.

The first was that he proposed a way to celebrate the end of Selective Availablitiy by hiding a bucket in the woods for others to find.

The second message was that Dave had hidden the first geocache in Portland, OR.

Thanx Dave for inventing this great hobby!

AND

A BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO GEOCACHING

The Great Stash Game

On May 2nd, 2000 Dave Ulmer posted this to the Internet as a result of the announcement that Selective Availability was turned off:

The Great Stash Game!!

Anniversary of the end of Selective Availability

On May 1st, 2000 President Clinton announced the end of Selective Availability for GPS.

This momentous event made geocaching possible.

More history to come in the next few days.