Newbie - North of Dover

[mud4x4]

I am new to the world of geocaching and gps.
I have been a member of the other geocaching site for 2 weeks and have now registered on this site as well.
I use the same user name on the other site.
I will be spending more time on the other site than this one but will try to check this one at times as well.
I am located North of Dover.

[BSA534]

Good to have you here. The ArkGeo forums are a great place to meet other cachers from Arkansas, probably some from your area too. I'm from Conway. You are in a great area for caching. I've cached in Russellville & Clarksville several times and always have a great time up there. You'll find many of the cache hiders from that area on these forums, so if you have any questions or comments, post them on here and I'll bet you get an answer (or 2!).

Tim

[jclaudii]

Welcome to the better of the two websites :) Naa, I really don't know that, but welcome from just around the corner in Russellville. We have been caching several times up north of dover and hector as there are dozens of caches in some beautiful areas!

[GeoJeepers]

Welcome mud4x4! I like the name! What do you drive? Tell us and jclaudii and I might tell you what we've got :lol: :lol:

[edieo]

Good to meet you.. Happy Caching :D

[mud4x4]

Thank you all for the welcoming.
Maybe I'll run into some of you guys one day :)



As far as vehicles...my list includes:
- 1987 AMC Eagle Limited 4x4
- 1996 Chevy Silverado 4x4
- 1982 AMC Eagle 4x4
- 1956 VW dunebuggy
- 2005 PT Cruiser
also fixing to get a small 4x4 farm truck.
As you can tell I love vehicles and definitely 4x4's.

What do y'all have?

[jclaudii]

Well, we did have the white jeep in my avatar until we finally had to sell it a couple of months ago (we still have the kayaks). There was just no way we were going to fit two carseats in a two door wrangler. So we have a family ride that is a 99 grand cherokee with the 4.0 with a 4" lift and 33 all terrains with custom front tow points and rock rails. The only problem with this ride is it is wider and taller than the wrangler and we have not went down some of the trails YET that we did in the wrangler. I am a bit more scared about the higher center of gravity with the WJ, but I guess I'll just have to pick better lines.

There is a very fun loop with several geocaches on it that saddlebags put out up close to the dover lights overlook. Sounds like you got quite the parking lot with all those 4x4's. Hope to see you out there on the trail soon. We got to get a new gps as our is broke.

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i201/jclaudii/Big%20Jeep/100_2737.jpg

[marksar]

Well, I just have a 2/wheel drive Dodge Dakota, but is sounds like you are loaded for bear! If you get around NE arkansas, you need to try Treasure Trove # 1 (GCRWEN) and Sand Creek Cache #2 (GCMWT0). 4 wheeler a big plus.

[mud4x4]

jclaudii - That's a nice Jeep Cherokee....I would love to have a Wrangler.
Where do you get your GPS's? What kind do you use? I've noticed Russellville doesn't give a good selection on GPS's...unless I looked in all the wrong places.
Yeah gotta have 4 wheel drive if you live past Booger Hollow...if it ices, it won't melt for days, sometimes weeks. The Chevy I inherited when my dad passed away...I won't even off-road it. My Eagle probably could use a lift if it was going to do much off-roading.

[jclaudii]

Your probably looking in the right places, there just is not many places with "hands on" models to fiddle with. We used a garmin gpsmap 60c and we'll probably replace it with a garmin gpsmap 60c or a 60csx if we can find one or talk garmin into a replacement. Garmin now has the new touchscreens out that is making a big entrance because of the ability to do paperless caching (the new models load pretty much all the info you see on the webpage into the gps like hints, logs, description, attributes, etc).

It was sad to see our little 60c die, but garmin has a decent replacement program and if we don't find a deal on ebay, we'll just get a replacement through garmin at a very discounted rate.

Your best bet if you are in the market for a gps is to hit up one of the meet and greet events and look at everyones. They range from the simple but effective etrexes to the high dollar Colorados with brands in between like delorme and even a bushnel I saw once. We folks are pretty nice and we'll tell you all about the pros and cons of the units we use to geocache with. You got a couple of events coming up in December and January you can hit up.

I hope to one day make all the offroad caches and even put some out myself. We need/want 4x4 for the piece of mind, if we want to go somewhere, we want to make sure we have the best advantage when mother nature is not being so nice. Sounds like you got a nice truck if you won't take it out. I figure if we ever get a new 4 door wrangler, we'll keep it like that for a few months before we get the overwhelming urge to take it to some forgotten cache!

[GeoJeepers]

My wife has a 02 Liberty with a 2.5" lift and tires that are a little too big for the fenderwells. I've got an 84 CJ money pit...if I listed everything I've done to it at one time or another I would overload this website! But I love it...a little to much for my own good!

jclaudii, that is one sweet WJ! You don't see very many of those that look like that!

mud4x4, jclaudii has a great suggestion. Cachers are the friendliest bunch of people you'll meet and if you hit an event you could get some great feedback.

[mud4x4]

I have a Magellan Triton 400...seems to work well. I haven't tried "paperless" mode on it yet. Mainly because of all the glitches I've heard they have. Seems like I got the "unpopular" brand of GPS on the geocaching community :roll:

[GeoJeepers]

A MAGELLAN??? 8O 8O

It really doesn't matter what kind you have. You can play this game and have a great time at it no matter what you use, and that's all that matters! Hope to see you out there...come to Searcy some time for a caching trip. (we have a few around)

[mud4x4]

"A MAGELLAN??? Shocked Shocked"

Yeah, a Magellan :oops: [hangs head low]...
I am NOT in the popular cliches, I guess!
Couldn't find any Garmins or Delormes here in Russellville.
It's almost impossible to find many handheld gpsr's around here.
My choice was between a $600 Bushnell or Magellan models from $130 to $300... and since I was new to Geocaching AND the world of GPS's, I didn't know any better.
Now I do know better and maybe I'll end up with a better gpsr sometime.

[GeoJeepers]

Our first GPSr was a Magellan; we found our first 200 or so and had a blast doing it. Whatever you're holding only gets you so close anyway...the rest is up to you! Good luck! :D

[BSA534]

I remember when I started looking for a gpsr I had no luck at the stores in Conway or even in Little Rock. The only place that even had one I could try out was Academy Sports & Outdoor. And after looking at what they had I was even more confused. I finally did some research online and found the unit I wanted (Garmin 60csx). I really got lucky and ended up with one of the best models for geocaching.

That was a couple of years ago, now I see units at Best Buy, Gander Mountain and even Wal-Mart. Not saying they offer the best models, but at least they have something out there for potential cachers to get started with.