Winter is for caching

Our heat wave allowed us to take an urban caching walk -- with a three for three success rate! "I" of GAIN was impressed by the container. I think this cache happens to be successful because it is on an easement, which is public, but cared for by private. I've found similar containers on public park land, and they almost always get cleared out after a time.

Some pictures from our trip --

Dealing with the Neighbors

Here I am at an unnamed cache. Story below.

I recently had 3/4 of GAIN Academy and a friend of theirs out and about. Midafternoon, weekday. We hit a couple urban geocaches and had an encounter with a neighbor. I've been thinking about the incident for a while, and since this woman did not share her thoughts, I really do not know what her purpose was in approaching us. The situation was like this:

The kids and I are walking along a ridge, which was the top of a berm planted with trees. On one side of the berm is a building and parking lot. On the other side is wooden fencing. The fence separates the building from the backyards of a neighborhood. Some yards had gates in the fence.

We're tootling along in the hot sun, finding a shady spot to sit and sign the log book, when a gal comes out from behind a fence.

Staccato voice. "What are you doing here?" Her voice is not friendly at all. I think we were clearly not casing the neighborhood with the intent of burglarizing. We were looking in the trees. I answered, "We are geocaching."

Her voice remained unchanged. "What's that?"

"It's a game. You get coordinates for a treasure hunt, then go to the coordinates and find it."

"Where do they come from?"

"The location with the coordinates come from the geocaching website. This cache has been here (I look at the top of the logbook)....since last March."

Longer pause than in the past. "Are other people coming?"

"Well, anyone can play the game. It's self-regulating, so people finding the cache report and let everyone know if the container is still here to find, if it's missing, logbook is wet, etc."

"N" inserts that some people are nutty about the finding caches, and names a player as an example. I respond to him loudly (so that the neighbor and the friend could hear) that the player in question was third person to find the cache. "N" of GAIN and I were sincerely as friendly as we could be -- friendly between ourselves, friendly to her. She wasn't warming up to us or the hobby. This continued for two more minutes, ending with her abruptly leaving, no good byes. And she never got physically close to us to see the container or log book, despite our attempts to engage her.

Did we convert her to the sport? I doubt it. Is she concerned about her safety? Probably, but now she has an idea of what to expect -- that we aren't coming after her, her property, or her family. Should we use more stealth with urban caches? The answer will always be yes, but it leads to: Should the hiders design different caches or choose different hiding places? Again, the answer will probably always be yes, but what about the lovable cache quality of "the unknown." The variety of hiding spots and situations make the sport (hobby?) awesome. I don't think anything should change.

We did the best we could and that's all we can do.

Urban caching

PhotoV5 told me that she didn't search for geocaches much in the summer. She also asked for some urban caches that didn't require a long hike in the summer heat. Here is my list of good ones (no poison ivy or itch weed, no long hikes) for summer in the Des Moines area. No particular order. By no means exhaustive.

1. BB Player
2. GCZQAT Mr. Schwab -- one of the best camo jobs. Whenever I drive by it, I feel compelled to ask everyone in the car, "Did you see it?" My husband still has no idea what he is looking for.
3. Happy Birthday, Johnny Cash
4. Man in Black #1 and #3
5. GCWBGD My Name is Merle -- Des Moines history buffs should check this out
6. Pepperoni Cache -- great if you're out running errands
7. Traveling Tracks 1 and 2 -- more history
8. GC12TB Waterbury Gardens
9. Geek Seek
10. GC133B Wise Guys
11. Ode to Everybody Loves Ray
12. Lights Out!
13. Needle and Thread
14. GC14PD4 St. Charles Place
15. GC1398Z Best Bridge in Des Moines
16. GC14BRV Historic Valley Junction -- you need to time this one just right
17. GC129QW Drip, Drip, Drip
18. GC13XXE Drop, Drop, Drop
19. Hope U Stop Ripoff
20. Batter Up!
21. GCVZ1K What the Hail Is It? -- for art lovers
22. all the Camelot's Quest caches by Accounting Goddess (hyperlinked to just one)
23. GCZORB If You Can't Lift It, Fork It!
24. GC12D9A If I Were A Carpenter
25. Enabling Gardens Cache

There are plenty more. I will edit for geographical diversity and add hyperlinks and details later. Happy Caching!