Why Did You Start Geocaching?

[Geoark1]

We found out about Geocaching in late 2000, at a time when we knew we should start doing something with retirement time on our hands. Got our GPS by January 01. Went shopping for items to leave in caches and/or to trade, had a truck load of goodies. 8)

We were a FTF on one and did not even know what a FTF was or what to do with it! It took 2 trips to make it count. We did not realize that No Trespassing Signs really did not mean what they said. Next day got a hub cap hamburger and went to bon voyage. WE WERE HOOKED! 8O

The next day way up north to get the other 2 and to place our 1st on the return home. We were on a roll, did all 3 in the State in one week end in February, the only time we have been caught up, and placed our first one on the return home.

We began to plan 2 and 3 day outings...had to go to the Memphis area, then to Eastern OK, Southern MO to get our numbers up, by that time Arkansas began to make a showing, we could almost :( keep up for the remainder of the year with the State number of hides, but close only counts in horseshoes and handgernades.

Every road trip for business, vacation, or emergency always includes a geocache find and sometimes more than one.

Investment in Geocaching:( All are approximate estimates but close) 2 GPS instruments $300 :D ; computer mapping for lap top $39 :P ; battery for truck in area where Triple AAA won't come and get you $100 8O ; broken shoulder and subsequent therapy $3500 :cry: ; broken tail pipe on truck $300(don't ask) :? ; walking sticks from each area $300(we collect them); $$$$$s gas, motels, meals :); tailgate picnics and meeting all the Geocachers we have met.....PRICELESS :D

[Phantom_491]

A couple years ago, I saw a link to Geocaching.com on another web site. I checked it out and thought it looked interesting, since I liked hiking, computers, and being outdoors.

I then forgot about it until recently. Then one week a few months back I was trying to figure out what to do with my kids for the weekend, and a co-worker & friend of mine suggested that we go to Pinnacle Mt. That reminded me about the site. I quickly logged on and signed up. I didn't have a GPS so I asked my friend if I could borrow his GPS for the weekend. He said no problem and told me a few basics about it. I didn't know how to program it, so I just watched the numbers until they got closer and closer. My son (Squirrel21309) was the one who actually spotted the cache. Of course he had the GPS and was going a lot faster, considering I had to wait for his sister (Lil Angel). We only did one cache that day (Pinnacle of a Hunt), but I was hooked and the kids had fun.

That was back in Feb. On the evening of April 1st, my friend that suggested the outing, and loaned me his GPS passed on, due to an undiagnosed heart condition. He was only 27 & married with 3 kids (8, 7, 1). That next day after my commander passed the news, my other co-worker and I were in the office, when some of my unit leadership came by and told us to take the rest of the day off. I didn't want to sit around the house, so I figured I go and find a cache, and dedicate that find in his honor. I found Pattern's of Force, that day.

Since then I've found more caches, learned a lot more about this state, and met a lot of cool, and interesting people. I've enjoyed every minute of it, and look forward to more fun & interesting times.

[LadyEngineer]

In November of 2002, I was picked to be one member of a four member training team for our new Garmin GPS backpack units. I had worked with the Trimble survey grade unites since January of 1997 but had not keep up with the civil technology very much. Other then buying my husband a Magellen 315 for hunting.

In January of 2003, I was sent to Fort Worth for a 5 day intense train the trainer course. The instructor briefly touched on the fact that a "new" sport had been started since the military had stopped spuffin the signal and I believe he even told us of the website.

We finished training but had to wait until the 77 units we were to do train on were delivered. They didn't arrive in the state until the first of Novemeber 2003. Our state engineer does a training for all state engineers every December and ask me and one of the other trainers to do a presentation on the new units. I wanted to make it fun, not just a boring training session so, remembering the fact about the "new" sport of treasure hunting I got the idea to do just that. The training was in Atkins, Arkansas :lol: at one of our construction sites that we were going to tour. Using the construction headquarters a the epicenter, I went out 2 miles in all directions and hid a note and a candy cane for each player on a two man team at 10 different spots. At 1 mile out I hid a note for each team and one candy bar and a coke for each player of the first team to reach one of 5 locations. Two team were given the coorindates of one of the 5 locations place and they had to race to that point. When a team reach that location they would get the coordinates to the last location. The first team to the last location (the epicenter where they started) received a gift certificate to dinner at Applebee's. The second place team got dinner at McDonald's and the third place team received two dollars a piece to buy a coke and candy bar of their choice. We had 10 teams of two and it was so funny watching these guys. :lol: I love treasure hunts!! 8) :D

After that I became a member of Geocaching.com. I was hooked. However, the new units had just came in and training had to be provided to 77 people, plus my husband changed jobs and is now working every other weekend. :roll: That took until April. My best friend and her family moved in May to Alaska, so now we have the time. Every other weekend we are camping and caching, but on the weekends that he works we try and find ones around Little Rock.

Hopefully we can get up to Searcy soon. I think Woodwalker9 has some very interesting sounding ones that I'm really interested in finding. :D

Our biggest problem is the girls. Do not finds are not very enjoyable to them and Cinderella_00 really doesn't like the tall grass. :( We are working on that. The more we find the better we will get on figuring out hiding techniques and Cinderella_00 is now required to wear jeans, no matter what.

But our numbers are still low. :( It may take us a while to reach a 100 and more but don't rule us out. We'll get there, just not as fast as everyone else. :)

Call us the tortoise family. :D

[Geezer_Veazey]

In November of 2002, I was picked to be one member of a four member training team for our new Garmin GPS backpack units. I had worked with the Trimble survey grade unites since January of 1997 but had not keep up with the civil technology very much. Other then buying my husband a Magellen 315 for hunting.

In January of 2003, I was sent to Fort Worth for a 5 day intense train the trainer course. The instructor briefly touched on the fact that a "new" sport had been started since the military had stopped spuffin the signal and I believe he even told us of the website.

We finished training but had to wait until the 77 units we were to do train on were delivered. They didn't arrive in the state until the first of Novemeber 2003. Our state engineer does a training for all state engineers every December and ask me and one of the other trainers to do a presentation on the new units. I wanted to make it fun, not just a boring training session so, remembering the fact about the "new" sport of treasure hunting I got the idea to do just that. The training was in Atkins, Arkansas :lol: at one of our construction sites that we were going to tour. Using the construction headquarters a the epicenter, I went out 2 miles in all directions and hid a note and a candy cane for each player on a two man team at 10 different spots. At 1 mile out I hid a note for each team and one candy bar and a coke for each player of the first team to reach one of 5 locations. Two team were given the coorindates of one of the 5 locations place and they had to race to that point. When a team reach that location they would get the coordinates to the last location. The first team to the last location (the epicenter where they started) received a gift certificate to dinner at Applebee's. The second place team got dinner at McDonald's and the third place team received two dollars a piece to buy a coke and candy bar of their choice. We had 10 teams of two and it was so funny watching these guys. :lol: I love treasure hunts!! 8) :D

After that I became a member of Geocaching.com. I was hooked. However, the new units had just came in and training had to be provided to 77 people, plus my husband changed jobs and is now working every other weekend. :roll: That took until April. My best friend and her family moved in May to Alaska, so now we have the time. Every other weekend we are camping and caching, but on the weekends that he works we try and find ones around Little Rock.

Hopefully we can get up to Searcy soon. I think Woodwalker9 has some very interesting sounding ones that I'm really interested in finding. :D

Our biggest problem is the girls. Do not finds are not very enjoyable to them and Cinderella_00 really doesn't like the tall grass. :( We are working on that. The more we find the better we will get on figuring out hiding techniques and Cinderella_00 is now required to wear jeans, no matter what.

But our numbers are still low. :( It may take us a while to reach a 100 and more but don't rule us out. We'll get there, just not as fast as everyone else. :)

Call us the tortoise family. :D

Sorry, LadyEngineer. I couldn't read your post so I quoted it and removed the color.

Geezer Weak Eyes.

[Gaddiel]

LadyEngineer, if there's ever been a tortoise family, it's gotta be us. We've been caching since June of 2002 and only have 100 finds! Oh well, it's not a race, right? :) We don't travel very much, so we are dependant on local cachers to give us caches to boost our numbers.

I believe that we first found out about geocaching on BookCrossing.com. "Wild & Woolly (http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=74a7c4e2-1846-46ee-bc1c-cf595fbb6734)" was our first cache hide, and on retrospect, it was probably a little premature. We made several mistakes: 1) We didn't even own a GPSr at the time, 2) we hid it in an empty food container, 3) the container wasn't waterproof, etc... Four months later, we recorded our first find. :lol:

Our first find was cachecrazie's "Old Ferry Cache (http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=8fb1cb66-6a74-4d21-9817-addc8af84c2a)", followed closely that same day by "River View Cache Box (http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=21b6c906-5224-4231-a544-26d91e0d4354)". (This one was archived eventually and Rusty_da_dog has since put "Conway Coin Cache-CC.C. (http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=ed197b61-1256-4008-8073-c16f5aef47f0) at this location.)

There are aspects of geocaching that continue to draw us:

1) The whole family can participate. Our 3-year-old gets very excited when we find the cache and wants to help open it. There's almost always something for her inside.
2) It gets us off of the couch. :-)
3) It takes us to interesting places. Geocaching has taken us to a lot of Arkansas' waterfalls, mountains, and landscapes that we would never have otherwise known about!

We love all kinds of caches! Since Arkansas is still relatively "cache-poor" (at least for the moment), our attitude is that ANY CACHE IS A GOOD CACHE! That's one reason we also enjoy benchmarking on occasion.

The highlight of our geocaching "career" was probably in July of 2003, when we were interviewed for what turned out to be a front page article about geocaching! The article ran in the Sunday edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on July 20, 2003. We've posted this article in the Downloads section if you want to read it.

[GEO]

By the Way,The Tortise won the race.

Well to make a long story short ,
I heard about Geocaching from a friend,by the way is too busy to do much geocaching lately.

I lurked for quite a while being I had only had a computer for merely days then and did not want to do something foolish to start off with.
I had a GPS before I had a computer.

I read and learned and was since about 1995 working with the GPS with S/A turned on.
It was crazy and I had been working with my Uncle's(TOP SECRET GOV. WORK)help on the way that it worked(SA that is and how to correct for the random errors).
Finally figured that all out and then they turn it off..........Oh well good for us.

I had mentioned this activity(GPSING) to a few of my close friends (won't say where).But I have friends all over Oregon,Washington,California,and many other states.(City kids)
Well now I am the Country kid and have the country ways and need the City(techy kids help),

Guess what Geocaching appears,it is the answer to boths needs,get the country kid to the city and the city kid to the counry.

Well I said I would make a long story short.
You know the rest of the story.

[chili36]

Why did I start? Quite frankly, because backpacking in the summer is a real bummer.

Then I got hooked. Found number 200 today at lunch and have found myself geocaching either at lunch or on the way home almost every day.

[Rusty_da_dog]

Well, I found out about geocaching, after reading an article in the Democrat-Gazette back in I guess it was January 2002. It was kinda funny, my dad used to tell me I needed to do something to get out of the house. Since I was recently divorced, I didn't do much but eat,sleep,play games on the PC and go to work. After I read the article in the paper, I found a cheap GPSr on Ebay, and by the next weekend I was ready to go.

I took my g/f (now my wife) and my sister and brother-in-law and found several caches around Ft. Smith. Our very first cache was County's First Seat not too far from Greenwood. When we found it, the contents were scattered all over the place, as it seems the mowing crew had found the plastic container with one of the brush-hogs and destroyed most everything. While I was in Ft Smith that day I went to the Army Surplus store, bought a ammo can (which is the current container for that cache) and replaced the contents with some of the trade items I had, and threw in a new logbook.

The first cache I placed was at Cadron Settlement Park right outside of Conway, That cache RP & KG 1 was placed by me, and my wife, who was my g/f at the time as I mentioned above. She was a lifelong resident of Conway and told me of the perfect spot. That was back in April of '02.

To date, I have found over 300 caches. Some good, some ok, and some crap (personal opinion of course, but when all thats in the cache is junk with no log, thats crap) anyway......I get to travel some, and I never leave home without a GPSr and at least a few caches loaded in. My wife gives me a hard time and says we can never get to where we are going because I always have to stop and stretch my legs. My dad now says I can't go anywhere without looking for a cache, and he has even been with me a few times and gets a kick out of it himself. He has went from why don't you find something to do to get out of the house, to why do you always have to go geocaching.
It's great I have seen country both in and out of the state I would have NEVER seen without geocaching, its great exercise and it is some clean fun that can be done with the entire family,me, my wife, and my step son Justin, all really enjoy getting outdoors. My wife, Kellie, gets a kick out of finding the cache before I do, which she usually does.
As for my name Rusty_da_dog. Rusty is one of my two dachshunds, he can be seen on my geocaching.com profile, and he is named after my favorite nascar driver Rusty Wallace.
Cya on the trails,
Rusty

[idratherbehiking]

I just kind of stumbled into geocaching. In October of 2003 I was hiking the trail from Redding campground on the Mulberry to Spy Rock. While I was at Spy Rock I sat down and ate lunch. After eating I did some looking around for a good spot for some photos and found a geocahe by accident. I read the sheet and signed the log. After finishing my hike that day I went home and signed up on the website and logged my find. After looking around the website for a few days I decided that this was something I would like to do. I had to wait until Christmas to get a GPS and because of a family vacation I did not get to use it until January the 8th, which I count as my official starting date for geocaching and I am now addicted.

[demonicangel]

A very close family friend of ours (Beerhog) got given a gpsr for Christmas back in 2003 and tried to figure out what to do with it. He stumbled across the website geocaching.com and decided to give it a try. He liked it, but didn't like doing it by himself so he brought my husband (Angel) along with him on one of his adventures. After giving it a try, Angel decided to try to get me out of the house some and conned me into going with him. I gave it a try, grumbling the whole way about how I needed to get back home to my computer, and after just one find I was hooked for life. Now every nice day that I don't have something planned I'm dragging him out of the house to go after more.

[kevnjenn]

First post. I saw an article in the Air Force Times newspaper about Geocaching. I was kind of looking for something to do with the kids, and it sounded interesting. I logged onto Geocaching.com and got even more interested. My family and I were planning on going home to Missouri that weekend (Thanksgiving), and so I checked the maps on GC.com, and surprisingly, there was a cache just a couple of miles from my parents house, which is out in the sticks in SE Missouri. On Thanksgiving Day, after stuffing ourselves silly, Jenn and I told the rest of the family what we were going to do, and my brother and sister and their spouses asked to join us. It was a lot of fun, THE BIG POND, in Bloomfield, MO. Beautiful little area. I was hooked. The next day I took our two older kids and found two more in the area. Since then we have done a few around Cabot, and I plan to do some more over the Christmas holidays. It really is a good family hobby, always just enough adventure and fun for everyone.

KEVNJENN

[Spice]

My wife (ddkds) and I started geocaching earlier this year.

I had never heard of geocaching before March of 2006.

The lodge was about to open at Mount Magazine State park (which is near where I live) and I was looking at their web site to see what kind of activities they had there. I saw a link that was titled "Geocaching". My first thought was of geology and thought surely they were not allowing people to dig in the rocks on Mt. Magazine 8O . I clicked on the link and soon began to read all about geocaching.

I thought I had an idea what it was all about and just had to call my wife at work and tell her about it. She then went to the GC.com web site and read all about it too and said it sounded like fun.

Before geocaching we really never had anything that we were both interested in. We had begun walking more at the beginning of the year and were trying to eat right to get our body weight where it should be. We thought walking some trails and looking for caches would be a great thing to do as a couple and at times as a family.

We bought a GPS (Garmin etrex Legend) and began planning on going geocaching one day.

On April 13th, 2006 we went for our first day of geocaching. My wife and I had worked all day the day before doing some work cleaning out our storage building and decided to treat ourselves to a day away with each other and trying out geocaching.

We were hooked. Since we have begun we have gone places we would have never gone and done things we would have never done. My wife has a fear of heights but she has gone with me to find caches in some places that required her to battle her fear, and she did. I took photos of her at Stout's Point on Petit Jean and at Way Up on the Mountain on Mt. Magazine that would have never happened if it weren’t for geocaching.

I haven't even mentioned the many great geocachers we have already met. I could tell a story for each and every one.

My wife and I have now cached in Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas.

We look forward to what the New Year brings us in geocaching. In January we will be hosting our first event (This 1Time in Paris...) (http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=a0e04ae1-ec93-4474-9310-038685f765a2). We look forward to meeting even more great people in the caching community. We will also be traveling to more states and hope to cache there too.

Needless to say we love geocaching.


p1t

[jacksonb]

I found out about geocaching completely by accident. I attended a Paragould City Council in April 2006 for an issue related to my work. At the meeting, someone from Main Street Paragould talked about geocaching and how there was a cache hidden at the organization's office, an old caboose. It sounded interesting and I checked out the web site when I got home that night. I bought a GPS a few weeks later and went to look for that caboose cache. The rest is history.

[hbmacom]

I'm confused. Ifound this "cache" i guess and i'm not really sure what to do with it but i want to learn.... someone help please :?: :(

[Gaddiel]

I'm confused. Ifound this "cache" i guess and i'm not really sure what to do with it but i want to learn.... someone help please :?: :(

Congratulations on finding a cache! Whether you found it by accident or not, I would just sign the log book that should be inside the cache and then replace the cache for the next person to find.

If the cache was not hidden properly, I'm sure the owner would want to know about it. Where did you find this cache?

By the way, welcome to our web site! If you want to learn more about geocaching, you can visit the official web site at http://www.geocaching.com or just ask your questions here. There are lots of helpful and knowledgeable folks on this site that would love to get you started!

Wayne

[southerngirl]

My husband, jcluadii, was a Computer Science major at ATU. I was a Parks and Recreation major with an emphasis in Natural Resource Managment. We spend all of our spare time hiking, kayaking, camping, or jeepin' - and he spends any extra time playing with computers.

So when we found out about geocaching, we had to give it a shot. I bought him a Garmin GPS for Christmas this year and the next weekend he was in the woods up around Hector trying it out. He came home that day with his first find under his belt and told me all about it. It sounded fun... I would get to hike and play in the woods like I always do and hunt for treasures while I was out there.

The following weekend, we went up above Dover and I got my first find at Ties That Bind by Saddlebags. Well, needless to say, I was hooked. We have been caching together every weekend since.

[RugerPilot345]

It's kinda funny.....I have lived in Arkansas most of my life and have been Geocaching for almost a year but have no Arkansas finds, how can this be you may ask, yes I still live in Arkansas (temporarily the desert of the Middle East).

Hmmmmm I was in the military stationed at Camp Shelby, MS preparing to deploy overseas and had a weekend off and was bored.....I had been surfing the web some and had bumped into the Geocaching website and it sounded right up my alley......so I headed out and WOW another person hooked on geocaching, and that is why I only have finds in MS, AL and Kuwait.

I am so ready to get home and get back to my friends and family and start knocking down the Arkansas Caches as I tour around our beautiful state......so there you have it!!

8)

Cool!!

[HikerRon]

i saw an article on geocaching in Backpacker Magazine, got online , punched in my zip code, and there were 5 caches within 2 miles of my house! since already had a GPSr, i headed out. of course once i found one, i was hooked. that was back in sept 2003. it's an amazing hobby.

[icetoad]

It was last summer when I first heard about geocaching. Didn't have a device, couldn't convince ma I needed one and didn't want the argument. I searched and found the website and used google to see where the caches were in Benton. I was supposed to be getting more exercise after they stuck hoseclamps in my chest. There's a cache in a park here and officially I was walking for exercise, but really was trying to figure out where the cache was. A couple came by and they were lookin for the same cache. Seeing the gps device I struck up a conversation about geocaching and pretended to know what I was talking about.

We put our heads together and they found the cache after I reminded them of the clue. I guess that might have been my first find, but I figured I cheated by using google earth. (if that's cheating, i'm really cheating now, mapquest, google, google earth, yahoo maps, delorme's topo software, garmin's mapsource, I'll use anything now. I honestly didn't realize how bad my eyes have gotten over the years.)

Fastforward to last weekend. My wife was in a workshop learning about search and rescue, and day 1 dealt a lot with compasses and maps. I needed no more excuse to buy her a present and figure it out right away so I can help her learn how to use it. (C'mon fellas, back me up on this. Don't tell my you've never justified like that.) A belated valentines gift, much more useful than that stupid giant teddy bear in her back seat. Found my first cache last Sunday and now I'm hooked. She got more important things to deal with right now, but I think she'll jump in pretty soon.

[chibongo]

I am a teacher. One day, while standing in the hallway for the change of classes, the teacher next door came over and started describing her new hobby. I stood there in silence as she explained all about Geocaching. When she finished, she said "You must think I'm the biggest geek." I told her that I was just thinking about when my first break would be that would give me the opportunity to look this up.

She made a map for me showing me where to find an easy cache. I didn't have a GPSr yet so I had to search quite a while. After that, I was hooked! I went immediately to the store to purchase my first GPSr. It has been an obsession ever since!! :D

[searcykid]

Just got into Geocaching a couple of months ago, basically to have a reason to get off the couch and get some walking exercise. I had been retired about 5 years and had become a couch potato. After having to have a stent placed in one of my heart arteries and being placed on cholesterol and high blood pressure medication my doctor advised more exercise and said walking was a very good form of exercise for my condition.

I had read an article in the newspaper about a geocaching adventure the reporter had experienced in NW Arkansas and I got onto the Geocaching website to check it out. After seeing the Map, I figured I could try it out before buying a GPSr. Sure enough the map gave me the location and the posts, hints, and pictures gave me enough information and spoilers to find my first three caches.

Then I just had to buy a GPSr to continue my new hobby. So off to Ebay I went and now I have my Garmin GPS unit. Now I find that really faithful cachers also have a PDA or Laptop computer and other fancy gadgets to make it more fun or easier. Think I'll just do it the hard way for a while.

But walking for exercise isn't all its cracked up to be, expecially when you are mobility challenged which I didn't know I was until I fell over my own feet on one of the local walking/bicycling trails here in town and broke my fibula bone in my right leg. But gimme another couple weeks and I'll be back to geocaching full speed ahead. But Full Speed might just be a little slower than before. With only 25 finds to date I still have a lot of local caches to find.

[ARWindstalker]

A couple of friends of mine told me on day about geocaching and what it was all about. So about 5 months later while I was in college (May 2004), I went out one day and found my first geocache. It was like doing a drug. I was hooked. I found 10 my first week.

After that first week I didn't geocache for about a year and a half. Then on a camping trip in October of 2005, the same couple that got me hooked, got me hooked again. After that I decided to start caching more and I don't go for long period where I don't cache....or at least I try not to.

The reasons I stay hooked is because of the hunt and the new twist it adds to hiking. It gives you purpose to be out in the outdoors. The urban caches are so "well hidden" sometimes that you just can't help but to go and find one more.....just one more!!!

I had heard about some new GPS game a few years back from a friend of mine. I really hadn't thought about it again until recently while trying to make plans for the summer. I thought it might take up a weekend or two :lol:

I purchased a GPS and took the two older boys with me to find a couple local caches. We were hopelessly hooked!!

We've always enjoyed being outdoors but had taken a little siesta since the twins were born. Geocaching allows us to visit places that we would never have discovered on our own. It has also helped me to lose over 68 pounds since January!

We really love the hobby and are even planning our first hide.