remember your first light pole cache?

[HikerRon]

Ahh, those were the days! my first LPC/skirtlifter was 'Hilton Briargate'
GCGKXX in Colorado Springs. it's been archived now. and i thought it was the coolest, most clever hide i would ever see:)
And it was my 28th find! woooeee! it makes me kind of nostalgic.....i remember the excitement of seeking/finding geocaches back then. at the time, i would never have thought i would still be geocaching 5 yrs later.
what a wonderful sport!

[cachemates]

Yea, I remember the first one we found. It was Rusty's Drive-By cache by The Griswolds. I thought that was so neat that you could hide a cache right out in a parking lot.
It was a fun cache for us. We enjoyed it.

[oenavigator]

After traveling to Poteau, OK. for a doctors appointment, I stopped by the local Wal-Mart to gather all the items on my honey-do list.

While waiting in the outdoors department, I spied a handheld GPSr which was on sale. I had been reading a lot about this game called "geocaching" and thought it might be fun. A quick phone call to the MRS. and permission was granted for the unexpected expenditure.

Retuning home early afternoon I quickly poured over the owners manual and, after creating an account on geocaching.com, soon had the coordinates in hand for two caches in our town!

The boys and I jumped into the car and made our way to the local park. I parked a few hundred feet from the cache so we could walk and watch the distance slowly count down. We searched and searched. And then searched some more. We read the hint and combed over everything in the area and still came up empty handed. Sadness. But as Yoda said, "There is another."

I followed the GPSr arrow through our little hamlet wondering where it would lead us. As we entered the parking lot I was beginning to think that my unit was broken. I parked in the back of the lot and we walked in circles as the arrow settled down to give us a direction.

Huddled together so we could watch the distance gradually get smaller, we made a beeline for the cache. At 150ft I looked up and spied a tree on the edge of the parking lot and thought "A-HA!"

As we made our way toward the tree however, my GPSr suddenly told us to go left. Confused, we obediently followed only to be confronted with a huge light pole. We looked around and around the pole. Kicking gravel, moving litter, anything!

My sons looked at me awaiting the answer to our dilemma. After all, doesn't Dad know everything? Meanwhile, my mind is quickly filling with images of the inevitable questions from my spouse after retuning home without finding anything and spending money on nonsense. Maybe I could take the GPSr back! Yeah, that would work.

As I told the boys that in truth maybe there really weren't these containers hidden everywhere and that we had been had by some elaborate online joke, my then seven year old Seth placed his hand on the base of the pole. I heard the now familiar sound of thin metal sliding against concrete.

"I wonder if that will lift up?" says I. We all knew the answer as the boys together lifted the base and there it was. A small container wrapped in electrical tape. A curiosity to anyone else but we knew immediately that what we were looking at was a cache! You see, we officially were no longer muggles.

We quickly snatched the container and after a few minutes of high fives and a disturbing display of the happy dance, we opened it and awed over the signatures on the logsheet. I ceremoniously added our own and then returned home to recount our tale of finding a geocache. I logged our find on GCW45Z Tram Law Waldron (http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=7cd4a016-86fb-4054-b11d-d587dbdddcda&log=y&decrypt=) and an addiction was born.

The newness of finding caches hidden in that manner has worn off but we still enjoy them. Testing our skills in stealth or watching the kids wonder in circles as they hold the GPSr. The grin on a child's face when they proclaim they have found it is wonderful.

:D I LOVE THIS GAME!! :D

[searcykid]

What a great story Chris.
My story of my first LPC is not so interesting so I will just tell it like it is.

The light pole cache was at our local Wal Mart as was OENavigator's but it was titled, "Just Another LPC".
Being new at geocaching I did not know what an LPC was. But I assumed it was something that was common in the game as it was {Just another one).
So I entered the coordinates into the GPSr that I had recently purchased on the Internet from Ebay and headed out following the arrow as best I could. Not understanding very much about the handheld unit I was being led as the crow flies to dead end streets, up to obstacles that i could not fly over, and to a point that said .25 mi to the cache but a freeway was in the direction the arrow was pointing and there was no street going through at that point.
I went home and looked at Geocaching.com and the page for the LPC cache and found the map and realized then that the cache was at WalMart.
Upon entering the Wal Mart parking lot the arrow pointed to the light pole and I too did not know that the little metal skirt around the bottom was loose and that I could lift it. That's when I learned about stealth. Trying to retrieve that cache in such a busy traffic area without drawing attention to myself was an experience in itself. I still hesitate before lifting the Light pole skirt as I know the noise will attract any muggles in hearing distance.
My log on that cache just says, "Now I know what an LPC is"

[Howlingmoon]

My first LPC was also my first DNF and second Find. It was Saw in Fayetteville. I had to get a hint from another local cacher. I didn't know the skirts lifted up. The first time I tried looking for it, I didn't know what I was supposed to be looking for, much less where. I hadn't read the description on the cache listing page, which clearly said you were looking for a film can. lol And I wasn't paperless 'til after my first 20-40 finds.

And I just realized that cache was Ninjaguy's. lol I've since met him, and found a few more of his. Awesome guy! :D

[idratherbehiking]

My first LPC was also Rusty's Drive By way back in January of '04. I honestly could not remeber which one was first so I had to go back and look at my finds from way back then to be sure.

My first true skirtlifter was Marion Five (#1) which I found one morning when we found 10 caches in 3 states in under 3 hours and 2 were FTF's 280 miles from home.

Thanks for starting this thread. It has made me go back and look at some of the first caches I ever found. It's amazing how many of those early caches are still around.

[scoutfrog]

Well, being as I'm in another state, I bet most reader have never even heard of my first LP find. It was " Looking Hi & Lo, Step 2" and was my #14 find. In the side parking lot of a local BI-LO store. I had been caching a little less than a month and hunted this one a couple times with no luck. Me and my sons (Spooky Zack & Pokecacher96) headed out on the morning of Sept 2, 2007 for our first real caching run. I was using a megelian explorist400 that I got from a pawn shop for $40 with no instructions, so I could not figure how to load cords into it. I had not gone paperless yet so I had a stack of about 100 cache pages seperated by what part of town they were in, With cross streets written on top for reference as a starting point. Our plan was to drive to the starting point and compair the GPS reading to the listed cords. and move accordingly. Not wanting to get real far from home and find our system was not going to work, we headed to Looking Hi&LO, about 1 1/2 blocks from the house. after parking beside the store to get all set to start looking. I look at the cache page and ask Zack what the last 3 #'s were on the first line. I compaired them and said that those were close. I ask about the bottom 3 and those were even closer. I got out of the van, walked about 20 feet stopped and said" it should be somewhere around here." The boys jump out and start looking as I move around to adjust the cords. After about 2 min. of finding nothing, I leaned up against the LP and said " according to this, It should be right here"? The boys were all over that thing, and then one of them bumped the skirtand the other pulled it up. And there it was. the was the first of 28 finds ( out of about 50 we looked for) that day, our best day ever. The whole rest of the day when we could not find one,Josh my youngest,would say "is there a LP near by?!" To this day when we go out caching if we get close to ground "0" and there is a light pole close, one of the will jump out and say "I'll check the skirt!".

[flannelman]

ummmmm......no. :P I'll have to look it up. I have had some fun looking for some of them though!! :D

[kittzle]

My first LPC was The Big Donut in Bentonville.

I remember we searched all over for it, and I had just gotten into geocaching so I had been reading a lot about different kinds of hides.

We were about to give up when I made the comment that I'd read somewhere people like to hide them under the skirt of light poles and teasingly lifted it up. And by golly, that's where it was!! hehe

[majii]

I'm pretty sure that "just another LPC" in Searcy was my first as well. I guess I had about 30 finds at the time, and I was with JJED who had already found it. I think she just wanted to see how long it would take me to figure it out and then laugh if it took too long, but I think I figured it out pretty quickly. You'd have to ask her if she remembers differently... Good times.

[BSA534]

It was one of the "PNG" that are in the north Wal-Mart in Conway. We had not found many caches at that point and me and the kids were out caching when we saw it on the screen. We drove near the lamppost and started zeroing in on the right one when we realized there was a car parked just a space or 2 from the light.

We parked next to the post and I sent theboyscout out to retrieve it when we realized there was someone in the nearby car! The kids discussed it and decided he was either sleeping or dead, so we should go for the cache. Theboyscout jumped out of the car and made the grab, we signed the log and replaced it without disturbing the man in the car.

Later that day the kids made me drive back by to see if the guy was still there... Guess he was just sleeping because he was gone!

[Spice]

We drove near the lamppost and started zeroing in on the right one when we realized there was a car parked just a space or 2 from the light.

We parked next to the post and I sent theboyscout out to retrieve it when we realized there was someone in the nearby car! The kids discussed it and decided he was either sleeping or dead, so we should go for the cache. Theboyscout jumped out of the car and made the grab, we signed the log and replaced it without disturbing the man in the car.

Later that day the kids made me drive back by to see if the guy was still there... Guess he was just sleeping because he was gone!

A week ago when ddkds and I did some caching in Conway it seemed like everywhere we went someone was sleeping in a car near a cache!

[cfd29]

Oh yes, I think we were in Tulsa for either a gun show or a farm show, we had not been caching long and had not found many different types, when we got to ground zero, we both thought, huh?? what the....?
the coords must be off, we are right here in the middle of a parking lot, then , no way one could be here, trying the hiding spot, and we were both thrilled, wow, what and idea, only to come back home and see a lot more and have seen a lot since then, even found one today!!
Now, the game is guessing which one as you pull into the parking lot!!

Still fun though.. :D

[LuckyoneinAR]

I remember my first. It's humbling to realize how little I know about light poles. It was a "Tram Law" near Benton, AR. I didn't know the skirt thing lifted (I thought it was welded down) and I didn't know what a tram law was. Thank goodness for my brother who gave me a lesson on both or I might still be out there circling the wagons and not seeing the geocaching light!!

I love geocaching!!

[bluesybreeze]

My first was "Eau de Arby's" in Clarksville. When I first drove up I thought I was going to have to dumpster dive, I was such a noob! When I finally realized those things lifted. I was so excited! It was like knowing a great big secret that no one else knew. I still get a kick out of them. Especially the ones that are velcroed to the INSIDE of the skirt :D