Caching Whether

"Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." - attributed to Mark Twain

I'll admit I'm a fair weather cacher. I'm quite happy to be out from dawn until dark on a sunny day, geocaching with a friend. If I'm caching by myself, I'm more motivated to spend a fair amount of time geocaching in nice weather than I am to even leave my house on dark, dreary, cold, damp days. Heck, I don't even want to walk outside on days like that. Today is one of those unpleasant days, and the kind of day I might devote to puzzle solving, except I'm committed to a certain level of physical activity each day which isn't achieved by staring at the latest kablooey puzzle, or diverting myself playing Treasure Madness.

So, at some point, I'll get off this chair, grab my Garmin Map60 CSx and my trusty Palm, pray the old Chevy starts, and go find a cache or two. Walking and hiking in this ugly weather is not my idea of fun, but finding a cache takes my mind off the discomfort.

Are you a fair weather cacher? Are you the gung-ho cacher who defies the weather and will go caching whether or not there is weather to be weathered? What motivates you to brave your particular weather extreme, whether it's extreme sun and heat or extreme damp and cold? Do you have any weather related adventure caching stories? I'd love to hear about it!

TFTC

Happy Trails!

DNFs at Three Bucks a Gallon

So, here's the problem with DNFs. They're expensive.

When I first started geocaching, I told myself not to spend a lot of money that I didn't have or couldn't justify on this new hobby of mine. I was pretty good about that for a couple of years. Both of my Garmin units were gifts, as was my Palm Tungsten E2. I shelled out the money to be a premium member, but other than that, the only money I spent was on gas. Even then, I usually only stopped to grab caches along a route I was taking for work, anyway. I didn't go out of my way more than a half mile or so to grab a cache, so I wasn't using up a lot of excess gas driving around. So, when I had to log a DNF, there was a good chance I'd be back to try again without making a special trip.

After four years, I've pretty much found all the caches along the routes I routinely travel for my work. I've also learned to be picky about which caches I even want to bother with. I really, really, REALLY hate looking for caches in smelly bushes, especially when combined with a large amount of trash or in a "shady" part of town. Also, I've gotten so much better at hiking, and in most parks don't mind hiking alone, that my drive by caching was starting to become limited to solved puzzles and their nearby traditionals.

As always happens after the holiday season, a whole bunch of new cachers have emerged lately, and many of them have already gotten started at hiding caches of their own. This has increased the amount of urban caches in the area, some of them good quality hides, some not so much. For me, the one thing they all have in common is that I have to go out of my way to get them, and that means making a plan to go to a specific area and find several in that area in order to justify spending the gas to get there, and I do not always know what type of cache I may find or not find when I get there. I may regret going out of my way for one cache that I find if I waste too much time on a cache that I can't find, and run out of time to look for any more. To me, that's a waste of gas and a waste of my precious little cash!

So, for all the newer cachers out there who want to hide clever caches in a tough location, do me a favor. Post a hint. Your cache is too far from my home to get to on foot.

TFTC

Happy Trails!