New Year's Resolutions: More Caches

That was the theme of the Geo Meeting I hosted Saturday night in Myrtle Beach (GC2K29A).  For some time, I had toyed with the idea of a "make and take" workshop for geocachers. After much consideration,  I decided to have a meeting and just ask everyone to bring a cache for the door prize table.  Geocachers LOVE door prizes.. and new caches to put out!  More caches to hide and more caches to be found.

I began scouring hardware stores and flea markets for cache containers weeks before the meeting.  My daughter came home for a visit and was enlisted to make a stencil for my ammo cans.  I must say, I assembled an impressive amount of caches.  Ammo cans, magnetic key holders, electrical plates, pinecones with attached bison tubes, and a bird house with the hole plugged with a pill bottle.  I also pulled some of my unactivated geocoins for the prize table... one of my personals, a TNLN, a Signal, and a Travel Bug Tag. I was ready!

My sense of readiness hit a wall, though, when I got an email from the South Carolina Reviewer that he would be in town and would like to come to my meeting.  Really?  I mean, REALLY???   Our Reviewer is the man behind the mirror, a mythical person everyone knows but few have met.  I don't know of any meetings in my caching area (Columbia, Camden, Florence, Charleston and Myrtle Beach) that he has attended. I was more than happy to honor his request to not tell anyone he would be there.  But, the pressure was on.  The bar had just been raised on my event.

Monday before the meeting, I had 40 people signed up for the meeting.  The banquet room at Sticky Fingers only held 25.  "No problem", my laid back restaurant manager said.  "You can have the whole left side of the restaurant."  I pulled a few more coins and a few more lock n locks, and a couple of flare tubes for the prize table.  A gift for our honored guest sounded in order.  I grabbed a stenciled ammo can and began stuffing it with coins, pathtags, and a Starbucks gift card.  Now, I was ready. 

Camo Gift Can

The day before the meeting, I was up to 55 people planning on attending.  A rare coastal snow storm was being called for.  I baked a pan of baklava to add to the prize table, pulled even more coins from my collection and wrote my "speech" to the crowd.  What was I going to do with 55 people?  Secretly, I hoped that the snow would keep most of the people away.  Friday night, my reviewer noted on my event page that he would be there.  Eight more people responded that they would attend.  Don't they know it's going to snow?

Snow flurries and bitterly cold weather didn't stop 63 cachers from coming.  My first cachers, a group of friends from Florence, arrived an hour ahead of time.  We filled up one side of the restaurant and were a routy, happy group.  Cachers caught up with friends they had not seen in awhile, made new friends and swapped stories.  We applauded one another and sang Happy Birthday at the top of our lungs. Our SC Reviewer was greeted warmly and enthusiastically.  Everyone left with a door prize, a full belly and a smile.  My meeting was a success!

Cachers From Near and Far Attended

In Defense of Park and Grabs

In the Geocaching world, we have Park and Grabs.  It's a geocache wherein you can pull your car up close, step out, grab the cache, sign the log and replace the cache in a matter of minutes.  Some people just don't like them.  I'm hearing a lot of grumbling (or is it whining?) about park and grabs.  Somehow they "diminish the game."  It's almost as if they shouldn't count because they are so easy, people imply.   I disagree.  They happen to be my favorite type of geocache!

I live 20 minutes away from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina... the land of geocaches.  People come here to do a "numbers run."  That is, they can find a lot of geocaches in a small area quickly and boost their geo stats.  For people living in the frozen White North or big cities, it's a great thing.  For those trying to reach a milestone, like 1000 finds, it's also a good thing.  A good number of the caches in  Myrtle Beach AKA the Grand Strand area are park and grabs.  There are also a lot of creative hides in the area.  There are hides in parks, the back of golf courses and on nature trails.  If you want to spend 20 minutes walking to a cache, you can. 

Not Under the Skirt  This Time!

Park and Grabs follow a predictable format, making them an easy cache to find.  They aren't meant to be difficult.  Most are magnetic keyholders hidden under lampskirts (lovingly called, "skirtlifters").  There are a series of these in North Carolina called Anti-Micros and the CO (cache owner) has used all tins (Altoids, Sucretes & holiday gift card tins) for the cache containers.  I've hidden a series of magnetic keyholders in my area called, "Caching Through the Holidays."  Pill bottles and 35 MM film containers are other popular Park and Grab cache containers.  Palm trees (I dread these) seem to be popular hiding spots for these caches, as are billboards, electric boxes and the rare Southern Belle telephone kiosk.  On a recent trip to Charleston, I found two P&G's that were different from any that I had previously found.  So, yes! , you can even have a creative Park and Grab that will leave the geocacher scratching her head.  


When I go caching, I like to plan my day with a number of "walking caches" balanced with some sweet park and grabs.  In 104* heat, there's only so much time I can spend walking through the woods, fighting mosquitoes, and frisking wax myrtles all while keeping an eye out for snakes.  When I emerge from the woods with sticks in my hair, leaves down the back of my pants, and legs scratched and bleeding... then, I'm ready for my glass of sweet tea and some easy finds.  If I couldn't find the cache in the woods.. well then, not only am I in a state of disrepair, but I'm really frustrated AND doubting my skills as a cacher. To you Park and Grab haters out there I say this....  let us have our P&G's.. you just don't know what kind of a day we are having.  In teaching, we say that you need to make sure the student "meets with success" on occasion, or they get frustrated with learning and give up.  So, my skirt lifters are my "meet with success" moment.   If it's near a McDonald's or Starbucks.. all the sweeter.

Another Creative Park and Grab

Geocaching and Wee Folk

Geocaching is a hobby that my daughter, Laura, introduced me to.  Boy, did she create a monster.  Geocachers use handheld GPS units to find things hidden in the woods, in parking lots, on billboards...  basically everywhere.  You will hear a lot about geocaching through my blogs as it consumes me.  Ha!  So, I won't dwell on the basics at this time.

I've learned that geocachers are a creative group of people.  This creativity shines through in different aspects of the hobby.  Some cachers mint beautiful coins, others host over the top gatherings and then some go all out with their hides (the caches they hide).  It's the discovery of a unique cache that keeps me, and most cachers, on the trail looking for the next cache.

Last week, I went in search of a cache on a back road in Conway, South Carolina that had been on my list for 2 years.  The delay was in part to the remote location of the cache.  Now, I wish I had gone sooner.  Moreover, I wish this cache were more readily accessible so I could visit more often.