Reviving my lost Trackables.

 Reviving my lost Trackables.
BaytownBert 3-15-24

Over the last 20 years, I’ve purchased and in many cases released somewhere short of 150 Trackables (travel bugs). Believe it or not, I still record them at events or when I find them in a cache and feel compelled to move them along. I treat them like hot potatoes, as I don’t own them and am eager to place them. This can be a challenge in itself, as there are now many very small containers.

Recently I decided to see what state they are in and to my shock; I saw I had less than 10 that were still in circulation. What started this is the sad fact that these days I rarely get notified one of them has moved. I decided to recall them and create proxy tags. Seeing this is an arduous task, I compounded the project by evaluating what was on each trackable page and modifying and standardizing them to better represent what I want to present. After all, just like you, I sent many of these out in my Geocaching infancy.

First, I needed dog tags and I got them from Amazon. To keep from posting a long URL, I’ll leave a brief description (Ferraycle Blank Dog Tags Aluminum Tags). I got 100 for .22 each, which is far cheaper than buying new trackables. I then printed out a short description, the trackable code, and the word Proxy on 3 lines and printed them.

Each dog tag came in a small baggie and I used boxing tape to attach the small rectangle of paper on each dog tag. Now all I needed was a small enough hitchhiker to go inside the baggy to make an easy-to-place (MW5E61) trackable. Seeing I oversee the Baytown GeoTour (GT7A), I have a generous supply of wooden “nickels” coins and they easily fit inside the baggie. I then taped the baggie shut and Walla!, I have a cool proxy!
 
I am a slow-mo long-time cacher not interested in padding my find count, so I will take a few of these with me every time I go caching and drop them off, maybe under an LPC or any place they will fit(!). This is why my hitchhiker has to be very small. You may want to contact your tourism department to get a small token of some kind that will work.
I guess the biggest challenge to doing this is the amount of computer time it took to compile all of this info and for many, find a suitable hitchhiker, but if you are not jaded over the whole missing trackable issue, it is a way to relaunch your trackables and contribute to the game.

The Future of Geocaching?

 

The Future of Geocaching?
BaytownBert (Bert Marshall) 1-23-24

I am no expert on the game for starters, regardless of how I am perceived, but I have been playing it off and on going back to 2003. Back when I started, it was a wild adventure game of unknown containers, cryptic tips, tricky GPS devices and sketchy coordinates, and descriptions that often told a story. It was a danged challenge to find one and quite often, you would burn a gallon of gas between caches.

Each ‘cacher’ had a signature way of hiding caches and in the case of one aaronbarbee, you were fairly certain to get injured trying to sign the log (GC25N1B). There were no children that I remember and the game was dominated by computer geeks, math nerds, rocket scientists, geologists, lab techs and school teachers. I was a chemical Plant worker and a computer dude and was attracted to the technical side of the game.

My mentor was Sam Morrow, one of the three founders of the educational Texas Geocaching Association, which I informally joined in 2004. Sam was the lab superintendent at the Plant where we worked and my first few caches were around the San Jacinto monument. It was very common back in those days to be questioned by police and most veterans had numerous encounters. Before I go further, let me establish this is strictly an opinion piece and not intended to malign anyone. Geocaching is just a game and is fun however you play it and I am fine with that.

By 2010 there were a lot more caches, but nothing like there is now. I met my second mentor at the ten year anniversary of Geocaching – Houston Control. Larry Houston hosted an event at the Baytown Nature Center (GC25FVH ) and to me he was a rock god. HC owned a lot of very interesting and challenging caches and still hides them that way in 2024 (GCAJFM0 ). My brother tjbustem and I were in awe of him as he had maybe 200 caches under his belt and I, maybe half that. These were earned one at a time, often on solo expeditions and this was common. Back in the day, finding five or ten in a week was a successful achievement.

I decided I would try an astounding a thousand caches a year and some years I made it, but most I did not. Now mind you, numbers were important, but not my motivating factor. A few years passed and all of a sudden I started noticing some people were bumping their numbers up a thousand in a few days. I couldn’t believe it. How in the world? Before I knew it there came the proliferation of low-quality hides. These were caches that required no skill or effort or apparently forethought and the introduction of cell phone GPS capability further diluted the quality of the game. Now any casual interested person with a phone began hiding caches that more often than not registered a negative number on quality. They soon lost interest and their containers needed maintenance only to be archived by the reviewer after a few months.

Events at one time were real gatherings with lots of attendees and everyone walked away feeling like they had witnessed something and learned from it. Now, again more times than not, they are meets and eats (BYO$). Trackables fell in value to veterans and (FMK5BM) are viewed as extra baggage and there are so many, most of us don’t even grab one or record it.

Souvenirs were big deals and were cherished, but took the same inflationary path to the point veterans basically ignore them. IMO Groundspeak has fomented this tactic to feed instant gratification and should cease this practise. The same goes with Cash in Trash Out (CITO) at cache locations. I’ve personally observed litter all over a cache area after veteran cachers had just visited it.

What has happened to our game and how do we correct it on an individual basis?  Do we simply say times have changed and let it go the route of Munzee’s where you can hit the 28^th level in four hours? Let’s get the game back into the woods and out from under lamp posts.

I suggest archiving low quality hides, placed mainly to boost numbers (which mean nothing now). If a person has umpteen thousands of finds, what does it actually mean? Fourteen bazillion of them were LPC’s or ET Highway 1/10 of a mile power trail hides most likely or were group finds where one person jumped out of a van while everyone yelled, “Sign my name!”. To me this is silly and forsakes what we all started the game to do. The game has hybridized into a joke in many ways, making veterans look like a Banana Republic general with 650 medals on their uniform.

Let’s put the adventure back into the game. Do a little homework and locate a cool place to hunt or find one. Along the way, stage an event worth attending and do it in a park. Try to mentor newbies and teach them how much fun the game can be. Like I said, times have changed and no one is impressed with how many caches we’ve found, so why not step back, take a deep breath and start over fresh? Become a mentor.

 

Upgrading Geocache Containers 101

Geocaching Primer: Cache Owners: Upgrading Geocache Containers 101

 How many times have you gone out caching with a full swag bag and a handful of trackables only to find nothing but micros, nanos, bison tubes, and DNA caches? Too many? Me too. Rightly call me a grumpy old searcher if you like, but I am at the point where it is time to do something about it. How you ask? Well, by writing primers, teaching Geocaching 101 events (PCP8AB), and setting an example by hiding larger containers; that’s how.

 At the risk of sounding preachy, aren’t you also weary of how little thought has been put into not only the container, but the location of so many caches these days? Every time I see the description on a cache page that reads, “This corner was just screaming for a cache, so I put one out!” I cringe. Arriving at the precious location I read it is a muggle-heavy micro in a bush, with no hint and possibly shaky coords. What? Again? The pharmacy parking lot is crowded with cars and now I find myself on my hands and knees in front of some car’s grill and the first thing I see is empty soda/pop bottles and McD’s wrappers that are aged to nutty perfection. My thought is always, “Are no cachers doing CITO these days” as the container has been published for six months with forty-nine recent finds and many are veterans.

 I check the D/T rating and it is a solid 1.5/1.5. After 20 minutes I leave and feel like I’ve been cache-whipped. Checking the past logs I see someone with 18 finds praising the CO for hiding the smallest thing they’ve ever seen that will hold a log. 18 finds? I shake my head and wonder if I will be back. The newbie swears it is an “evil hide”, but I think it is a “stupid, needle in a haystack” hide as I post yet another bush DNF.

 The only upside was the full sack of trash I picked up, as is my commitment to giving back to the community. I carry a large container behind the seat of my Jeep and a roll of trash bags and don’t feel bad about preaching CITO every chance I get. CITO is the only beneficial thing we do for the community and so many veterans appear to forget this, as evidenced by the many trash strewn cache locations I witness. Preachy, or dead accurate?

 The solution is twofold. Replace your existing tiny containers with the largest container possible to facilitate trackables and swag.  You may have to actually get creative so muggles don’t spot it, but cachers can make quicker work of logging it and find the experience far superior to looking for a nano forgettable container.

 I want to fool muggles, but unless I am deliberately trying to make it difficult, I want cachers to find my hide. Give good hints. Cachers who don’t want hints, won’t read it anyway, but a family with kids and us old folks will appreciate it. Reserve evil hides for unique containers folks won’t recognize rather than a nano glued to the bottom of a pebble in a rock pile by a gas station. Come on! That is not evil folks; it is mean and most of us groan when we witness it.

 Second, archive that old LPC or micro that everyone has found (and has few, if any favorite points) and place a new, better, and larger container. Do the homework and make it something cool and awesome and folks will come and maybe give up that precious favorite point. 

 Our landscape here in the Houston area is littered with tiny insignificant hides and aren’t worth remembering for any reason except to get a point. Some of the CO’s aren’t active or simply don't do maintenance on their caches and in my opinion simply need to archive their broken hides. Open the area back up for new better containers and let’s give this game a makeover. If you hide caches, protect your user name by doing prompt maintenance. The last thing you want to hear is your name dragged through the mud. As usual, YMMV. Happy caching!

 Bert Marshall (BaytownBert)

Texas Geocaching Association 2018 Hall of Fame inductee

Is it time to overturn the wagon?

 I love to geocache. I fell in love with the idea of “treasure hunting” from my dad who loved to read Argosy Magazines in the 1960’s. They were full of adventure and pirate loot stories. He regularly had the Herter’s catalog delivered and I studied the hand-made fishing lures and the possibility of going into the wild just made the pictures that much more exciting.

In November of 2003 I was introduced to the “new” game of Geocaching by Sam Morrow (USMorrows). Sam was the superintendent of the Lab at the Chemical Plant we both worked for and we both recognized each other as computer nerds, something that was fairly odd at the time. In a Plant with 225 people, there were only a few of us that fit this distinction and Sam introduced me to the game. Sam was also one of the 5 original authors of the Texas Geocaching Association that is still active 18 years later. I served on the board for 2.5 years as the SETX Rep. HKK8W1


I want to build a little history here so folks who read my proposal won’t think I’m nuts or are attempting to pervert the game somehow. I will propose some changes Groundspeak could implement and another idea for those of us that actually hide and maintain our caches and I say this with kindness and much deliberation. I’m not particularly happy about the evolution of the game and feel some changes and restrictions would benefit those who play and improve the quality of the game.

Over the last 10 years I’ve either hosted an event, workshop, geocaching 101 class, or hid geocaches to the tune of over 650 caches/events. I’ve released possibly a hundred trackables also. A few months ago I archived the bulk of my caches, leaving only 42 active caches. I went from over 300 active to less than 50 - and NO one noticed. The reason is the huge majority of cachers had already found them. The second reason I believe is few were under a light pole skirt or easy to grab by newbies.

The advent of the Smartphone has caused this directly. Am I bashing technology? Nope, but it is what it is. Little invested, little returned and with a rash of newbies hiding low quality caches and then abandoning them has become almost a geocaching contagion. I cheered our reviewer (Vertighost) when I read a note on a cache they archived and it sated that because of abandonment and no maintenance, the ache was ineligible to be unarchived. Hoorah! Finally some sense.

Back in the day, it was the same message as the Bible in that we needed to populate the earth (with geocaches this time) and anyone could and still can publish a cache without finding one or becoming a premium member. What I am proposing is Groundspeak create a rule that only premium members can hide caches. We no longer need to seed the earth with caches. For the longest time I have advocated hiding a cache only after finding their first 50. I have suggested this many times in geocaching 101 classes and at events. Although most will deny it, but we as a whole have become number greedy to the point that if we don’t find about 30 in a few hours, we feel like we didn’t do so well. This is why many of us do not cache alone. I well remember the excitement of the old days when finding ONE was exciting and yes, being an alpha and not really too concerned, I cached alone. Trust me when I say this cuts way down on your finds and the amount of time at each cache.

I still cache alone for the most part and the old magic is still active.

Proof of number-running is in the multi’s and actual difficult T/D logs. They are dismal when these should be awesome challenges to cachers. Cachers for the most part pass them by (in my own cache experience) in favor of gaining more numbers. Geocaching has either become a social event or a power trail run and this is due to the mass spreading of weak low T/D rated caches.

As I’ve stated in the past, I think the geotours and the Adventure Labs have been ruinous to local geocachers who have many hides. Local cachers have found all my caches and new cachers walk past my caches to go directly to a GT or AL cache, log it, and then walk right past my cache and leave. This is why I archived so many of my caches (I actually check on them and maintain). I also shut down my Adventure Lab series. I am putting my money where my mouth is.

I wanted to see the impact archiving would have and it had - none. The good thing was I began hiding some new ones and sure enough, the veteran cachers responded.
So, my proposal is those of us that see the need to add new life into the game, archive many of our caches. It used to be a big deal to find a cache that was 10 years old. Now? Not so much, so archive them and open the area for new caches/cachers. Wait a few months and if no one takes up the calling, begin adding new improved and better caches. You will be rewarded. http://ourbaytown.com/baytownbert/geocache.htm

How do you explain why you do not follow the rules

How do you explain why you do not follow the rules

By Bert Marshall (BaytownBert)
Geocaching Instructor - Baytown, Texas

This game has morphed many times in how many of us play it and aside from some old faithful's who follow the letter of the law, many of us have modified our approach to the geocaching game. Am I saying we break rules?  Nope. What I am saying is many of us now play the game instead of the game playing us. I'll be honest and admit, I bend the rules occasionally - well, maybe too often. HoustonControl is my mentor and he attempts to keep me out of Groundspeak jail, as does our reviewers Vertighost and Reviewer Revan, who are my geo-friends.

I've written a good number of primers on how I see the best way to play the game and with a few minor exceptions, I play by the rules. My fellow geocachers for instance know I mostly do not sign the log on a nano. The reason is I figure I am doing the CO a favor by not filling up his small slip of paper and second, it's a danged hassle. I'll create a field note (sorry, I mean a DRAFT!) and write something like black nano in pipe (to post in personal notes) and then I'll place the magnetic pencil eraser-size container in between my eyes on my glasses and post a photo. If they want to erase my log, so be it, but I am probably not going to sign the log.

 Now mind you, I have literally risked my life on a cliff or up in a tree to sign a log, as I believe in that aspect.  You must sign the log to get credit for finding it. Now, after saying that, I will not erase a log if the person says they didn't sign it, because this invokes another law of geocaching physics - truth in logging. I believe in telling the truth and this has brought about a bit of controversy amongst veterans down here in Houston, Texasland. This is a game of integrity, right?

Let's talk DNF's. What I see and I admit, I may be wrong, some geocachers will "forget" to post a DNF. For reasons only they can justify, they simply forget 100% of the time. Another item is posting that you used a PAF (Phone a friend) or god forbid, you called the cache owner and got the down low on placement. the log is mysteriously absent of these details. "This one took a few minutes, but I got it!  TFTC!"

Some cachers are adamant: "If I don't sign the log, I won't post it as found!" and I give them a high five.  Me? If I'm in the middle of a bayou or creek and there are 20 of us kayaking, I log it, even though I was explaining the fine points of logging to a fellow enthusiast 50 meters away. We sign as a group and off we go on a geocaching adventure.

Now I've never participated in one of the famous power trails where a group of geocachers can log a 1000 caches in one day, so the vast majority of the time, I am solo and going full legit. I'm good with both.  I carry a lot of geocaching supplies in my Jeep (Tha Choppa - 9Z1HCA) and I repair cache containers and logs as I go. I do this because I want to contribute to the game, rather than leach off it. I say "leach" as I believe some veterans have become so number conscious that they have little time to post corrected coordinates or slap a new baggie and log inside a container. YMMV and this may really rankle your bones, but I am simply saying what I have observed. "Found cache 86 feet from coords" is a poor excuse for posting better coords. At least say it was west, for golly's sake.

Let's take a look at cache maintenance. As I write this, I have 230 active caches I maintain. Because I have all but wiped out all available caches out to 20 miles, I do a pocket query for new caches, archived caches, and cache maintenance out to 40 miles. In the Houston area, this is easily a lot of caches. The rules state that you should perform cache maintenance in a timely manner. If 6 geocachers can't find your 2.5/2.0 cache in 7 months, don't you think it might be a good idea to check on it? You did when you first started hiding caches, so why not now? Some veterans actually get testy if you post a needs maint attribute on their cache! Really?

How about this rule: Cache owners who do not maintain their existing caches in a timely manner may temporarily or permanently lose the right to list new caches on Geocaching.com? Is it enforced?  Not that I can tell, but it is in the rule book.

In summation, the three top rules in my book are tell truth in logging, cache maintenance in a timely manner, and sign the log (unless its a nano!).

.

Geocaching attire for Summer primer

Geocaching attire for Summer primer
By Bert Marshall (BaytownBert)
Ex- Southeast Texas Representative Texas Geocaching Association

Years ago when geocaching was relatively an unknown hobby, I was convinced that the best clothing I could wear was something that made me nearly invisible to the casual observer. I’ve changed my mind on that approach about ten times and finally arrived at what I now believe is the best choice.

First, let’s start with footwear. I am on my third or fourth pair of hiking boots and they are comfortable enough to run a 5K race and not get blisters. I wear Timberland White Ledge waterproof boots and although they wear out much quicker than, say, a $200 pair, I will continue to buy a new pair every couple of years because they are so comfortable and fairly light weight.

I wear them almost exclusively whether I am in the Grand Canyon or a parking lot looking for a skirt lifter. Footwear is under-rated by many cachers and I’ve seen Crocs and tennis shoes on the trail. The hiking boots offer arch and ankle support and to be honest, just look cool too. They look like you mean business and set you apart from muggles in some instances.

Next, let us move on to what sort of britches we need. I like shorts with side pockets. It’s hot here on the 29^th parallel North most of the year. We hit 110 degrees F. (real feel temp) the early part of June and that is hot by any standard. Our humidity on the Gulf Coast of Texas exacerbates everything and for about 6 months of the year, shorts are a logical choice.

Now, Columbia Sportswear (and other companies) offer a rip-stop nylon pair of fishing pants with zippers at the knees to turn them into shorts. They have swimsuit inner crotch lining that wick moisture away from the body and are gaining popularity. They do not help you one iota in thorns though and the only remedy is denim or Kevlar chaps. For winter caching, wool is a great choice as it is warm wet or dry, but blue jeans are good also. However, for my primer, I am basically going to cover geocaching clothing for summer.

For headwear, nothing beats a Tilley hat in my experience. I can put my head down and push through the meanest brush and if it blows off my head when I’m kayaking – it floats. It’s guaranteed for life or they will replace it - and when you see people on Safari in Africa, that is hat they are wearing.

Occasionally I will bring a pair of gloves and a large Boy Scout-sized bandana. The material can be used for a number of life-saving techniques and a wonderful rag to wipe the sweat away. Like my shirts, the bandannas are colorful.

Note: Wear and orange, green, or yellow vest to be invisible.

Now, what about a shirt? Like I said before, I once believed in being invisible. I now wear the brightest, loudest, and most visible Geocaching t-shirt I can muster. When I am approached by a home or land owner, I want them to not only see me, but have evidence by my shirt that I am playing the game; times two for police officers. Dressed as I do, I look like the opposite of someone about to commit a crime – unless it’s being cited as a fashion terrorist! When I offered this suggestion on social media for research and I had submissions of everything from sunscreen and bug spray to what have you. Many had no real long term experience, but those who did, pretty much parroted my own observations.

Add a bright orange or green safety vest and you are good to go!  So, that is my recommendations.  Let’s see what you think. Write back for others to learn from your experience. 

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Geocachers, The New Outdoorsmen

Geocachers on the Lone Star Trail

When I was a kid living in Michigan, my dad always had a copy of Herter’s catalog.  Inside it was every kind of outdoor gear you can imagine.  If you fished, there was every kind of lure made and components to build your own.  I looked at as much as I looked at the Sears & Roebuck catalog.

By the way, as a young farm boy, the Sears catalog was of special interest due to the fact that it had grown women posing in under clothes, but it also had a huge Christmas section at the end of the year.  I can’t really recall which was more interesting, but I digress.

My dad was in my eyes a true hunter who was woods savvy.  I saw him shoot a flying crow with a .22 rifle one time and he was at home when in the woods.  He never got lost and would often trick my brothers and I by quizzing us about where we were or what we were looking at.  I’ve written about this before, so I will not weary you by repeating.

Suffice it to say, my whole family grew up doing outdoorsy things most people only see on TV or in movies.  We learned more by doing than by actual teaching.  My dad was an awesome man with a lot of book and real life experience, but he was definitely not a teacher in the conventional sense.  He taught by doing and we learned without realizing we were being taught.

Maybe this is the reason I am so passionate about explaining things and this brings me to the subject.  I, as many of my readers know, am a geocacher.  Not to take away from any other hobby especially fishing and hunting, but geocachers are the new outdoors people.  To prove my point, we spend more time in the woods and trails than the other groups combined.  I don’t have hard facts on that, but I’m pretty sure I’m dead on.

Geocachers on Cedar Bayou

The purpose of this argument is not to place one group over the other or to compete, but to make a point.  We have reached an evolution where kids pay more attention to electronic devices than they do the great outdoors.  No wonder so many are overweight and out of shape, right?  Well, guess what?  Geocachers use electronic devices to find hidden geocaches located in city parks, wooded areas, old cemeteries, and hiking trails.

I have a web page set up to explain how it works.  It might be a good idea to stop reading right now and see what this geocaching thingy is before you read further.  I am on the board of the Texas Geocaching Association and represent our area.  I teach free geocaching 101 classes at either the EddieV Gray Wetlands Center or the Baytown Nature Center twice a year.  Everyone is invited to attend and bring your kids. 

It might just save them and you.  You see, there are probably more seniors playing this game than young people and it’s a great way to walk off those holiday pounds.

There are a lot of things vying for our attention and much of it is bad. I can’t think of anything better in the secular world than this game to introduce people to the great big wonderful world out there. I also have a confession here and it’s embarrassing a bit. Geocachers almost to the person are nerdish. I know.  Like I said, it’s embarrassing. We tend to like to read, do math, study statistics, love learning new things – all the things most people hate.  But… there is a treasure hunt here and who doesn’t like to find treasure? 

I know I do and it drives me to go on this geocaching adventure like a person looking for gold.  The gold is nothing more than a piece of paper inside the container that I will sign the date and my geocaching name.  It’s crazy.  Then I will go online to geocaching.com and write a story about the adventure called “a log”. This records my visit and verifies I’ve been to the container. I often post a funny selfie too. 

Register a free account at geocaching.com and download a free App for your phone and you are ready to begin the adventure.  If you get a group together, I will be happy to conduct a free class in how to play the game.

 .

So you want to hide a geocache

So you want to hide a geocache

By Bert Marshall (BaytownBert)
Southeast Texas Representative Texas Geocaching Association

I think it is safe to say that after you’ve found a few geocaches you decide it would be awesome to hide one and then watch the thousands of people look for your evil hide.  Of course it will be evil – possibly the most evil geocache ever!  So you grab a thin taco soup plastic container, wrap some expensive camo duct tape you bought for this purpose and bury it under a pile of leaves by a rose bush in front of a super busy business.

You decide it will be a real challenge because the place is open 24 hours a day, so you give it a difficulty rating of 4 and a terrain of 3.5 because the bushes have demonic  thorns.  Figuring out what all is required on the submission page is a hassle, so you leave anything nonessential off and presto, it publishes 2 days later.

However, the day after you hid it the maintenance crews half-destroy your flimsy container and then comes a frog-strangling rain storm.  The FTF geocacher writes a less than flattering needs maintenance log, as the container was not only in terrible shape, the contents were unsignable, and the coordinates were off by 82.5 feet.  Your Smartphone provided the coordinates.

You are floored and seeing that your experience level is so low, you have no idea how to adjust the coordinates on the page or how to post an owner maintenance log.  Your hours at work suddenly keep you from trying to focus on repairing the cache and before you know it, the Reviewer disables and then archives your geocache, as 2TF claims the owner of the business complained. 

This sad scenario happens quite frequently.

I teach geocaching classes and recommend a newbie cacher find a minimum of 50 geocaches before attempting to hide one.  This gives them a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn’t as far as containers, locations, and camo go.  Geocaching.com has very good instructions on their page about requirements located here: https://www.geocaching.com/guide/  and it is not my intent to cover them in this primer.

I also have a 101 page located here:  http://ourbaytown.com/baytownbert/geocache.htm

What I do suggest is contacting an experienced geocacher in your area through their GC.com profile page and asking for help.  You can also attend a local geocaching event and meet other cachers who will gladly assist you.  I’ve been a geocacher since 2003 and own over 300 hides and I have a mentor.  I learn new stuff about the game all the time.

As far as containers go, let me give a couple of pointers.  Hide as large of a container as you can, avoiding nano and micro containers as much as possible.  Forget being sneaky and evil on your first few hides and remember, whatever you hide – you MUST maintain.  The large pill bottles that hold a 90 day supply are awesome free containers that will hold a travel bug or geocoin and can be listed as a SMALL container.  Attach a monofilament fishing line or a wire to the container and then wrap duct tape around it and spray paint it.

After creating the container, you will have to find a place a minimum of 529 feet away from another geocache.  There is a place for this on the submission page and if it passes this test, you are ready to go to step two and make sure you have permission to place it if it is not public land.  Try to pick a cool place for people to visit.  Spend a lot of time figuring this out.  Avoid trashy ugly areas just because they are open.

Next, remember that you must maintain it, so make sure this is not going to be a problem.  That’s another reason to not make the container too elaborate or spend a lot of money on it.  Now let’s say you live down a dirt road and you hide one at the end pretty close to your house.  There are no caches for 10 miles in any direction.  Don’t be disappointed when no one shows up to find it.  Instead hide one every 529 feet and suddenly you have visitors and it’s just as easy to maintain 10 as it is that lone cache.

Pill bottles are also fairly water-proof, so there is no real reason to put the log (you printed off the Internet) in a baggie.  The tether is to keep the container from walking off.  Follow the old acronym K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid) for a number of your first caches and as your experience level increases, you will have the confidence to make them more elaborate.

Add a hint to the cache page.  Something like “knee high” or “ground” to help newbies and those of us who just can’t seem to find it.  Leave the hint blank for your future evil hides.  By all means read everything you can on hiding geocaches before you hide one, but know this; you will soon find out what you did wrong.  Probably the first 20 caches I hid, I had to go back and repair them.  Any large heavy duty plastic container will make a good geocache, just insert a heavy-duty freezer bag inside it to water-proof the contents.

Avoid any vitamin bottle, as they neck down, making it difficult to retrieve the log.  Remember that your geo-name will be associated with your hide and protect it by maintaining your geocache.  When you find a trackable, drop it in your own cache and you will see more activity.  The last thing I want to cover is don’t forget that geocaching is a game and by all means have fun.

A Texas-Sized Adventure

Back last Memorial Day, when the city of Austin was being pounded with rain and Lake Travis rose 7 feet, we had reservations to do Texas’ longest zip-line.  We decided at the last minute that it might not be the best idea to drive up there and rescheduled. It wasn’t too many days and all that water that fell in the Hill country and the Fort Worth area began to make its way down here and then we were hit by Tropical Storm Bill.

One thing has led to another and we finally called and set last Monday as our high-flying date at Lake Travis Zipline Adventures, in Volente, Texas.  They call it of all things, a 3 hour tour and it takes that amount of time to complete and fortunately you are not stranded on an island with a couple sailors, a farmer’s daughter, a millionaire… well, lets just say you are not stranded.

My Bride is fearless.

My bride has an adventurer’s spirit and at 56 she can pretty much keep up with the folks in their 20’s.  I can too, but I may show up a bit later.  Like Chuck Norris once said, “I can still run 5 miles; it just takes me a bit longer.”  She also has a bucket list.  I just have a list of geocaches I want to find.  It turns out there are geocaches at Enchanted Rock State Park and we arrived a day early.  The tricky part is each one of them is a hike or a climb, or in one case, crawling 50 feet up a crevasse in the dark.

On top of Enchanted Rock

Now we have become gym-rats and exercise with giddy abandon, so walking to the top of Enchanted Rock was nothing more than accelerated breathing for the 2 of us, but the view?  Oh my goodness.  No wonder Native Americans felt like this was hallowed ground. The air is so clean and with the low humidity you can see for miles. The big plus was there are no skyscrapers or businesses on the horizon.

One geocache in particular was on my list and it is called, “To Boldly Go.....GC1BNMP”.  It had the highest difficulty rating and a near-highest terrain rating and we crawled over car sized boulders and trails for about 4 miles or so before finding an ingress trail – of sorts.  We were nearly out of water and the sun was taking a toll on us, but up, up, up we went until my bride simply sat down.

Now this is where things can get out of hand – but didn’t.  If you’ve seen movies where hikers chew their arm off, this is the kind of place it happens. We had a communication error due to us both being tired and me assuming she understood my intentions.  I told her to just sit there until she was ready and then come up and I pointed.  I meant for her to wait up there for my return and as soon as I crossed the granite summit, I headed off 1400 feet away toward ground zero.

Would you crawl under this crack?

It was steep and dangerous and I walked with great care, finally arriving at a sheer cliff face with narrow cracks running both vertical and horizontal.  I have a phobia about suffocating and it appears it is getting worse as I age and I got down on my hands and knees and peered up into the darkness in a couple of places hoping I could simply reach in and find what I knew to be an ammo can.  Looking at the notes, the cache owner plainly states that you can only get to within 20 feet of the container.  I walked along the wall until I was 20 feet away, but there was no crevasse.

It was 30 feet away behind me.  “That’s 50 feet under the rocks, Bert,” I said aloud and noticed I was sweating.  I went back to the crack and crawled in on my belly into the dark.  Never mind that neither my bride or I had brought our cell phones, or that she didn’t know where I was and was screaming my name in near panic.  I didn’t or couldn’t hear her.

The geocache was 50 feet into the rocks.
The light is back where I came in.

Never mind that rattlesnakes love places like this or that I have a claustrophobic fear of being buried alive. I wasn’t about to be denied after coming all this way and in the darkness I used my camera’s infrared light to look around and after going the 50 feet, I found the container and signed the log book.  Needless to say, my bride scolded me for 30 minutes when I returned.  That was enough adventure for the day, but we still had about an hour of strenuous hiking to go to get back to the Jeep. We crawled over boulders on that trail the size of Honda Civics.

To shorten up this tale, the next day we did all 5 “zip-lines” they had to offer and the first 2 are short and sweet and break you in to the idea of gliding by wire. Number 3 is a “Leap of faith” and takes you 1800 feet across the water to a deck.  Everyone seemed to mark this as their favorite.  Number 4 was 1600 feet and all of us went off backwards. The final is named double barrel shotgun and there are two zip lines side by side and it is 2800 feet long and also crosses water.  Our group was of 12 and intimate enough that everyone chatted. Our 2 guides Lizzy and Chris were a giant bonus and we tipped them both.

Baytown Bert screaming like a ninny!

You see, you don’t have to go to Cancun or Maui to have fun.  You can do it right here in good old Texas, but for goodness sake, don’t be stupid like I was.

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The seasons, they are a changin’

Bob Dylan - The times they are a changin'

It was 68 degrees outside this morning when I stepped out to let my doggies do their morning ablutions. I looked at the stars and breathed in the cool nostril pleasing air. I guess Summer is finally over and it’s been a hot one. Hunting season is right around the corner and in times past I would already have my license.

October is one of my favorite months here on the Gulf Coast. I love the sunny dry days where I can go outside and not be covered in sweat. Come Springtime, May is like that.  There is a correlation between the changing seasons and the social environment which has devolved. Yea, I said devolved, because that is the way I see it and I can safely say others feel the same. In many ways our social interaction with strangers has taken a step backwards.

Whereas I welcome the changing of the seasons and the cooler air, I don’t necessarily feel the same way about some trends in our country. One of them is the erroneous sense of privilege that seems to be cancerously growing. Rude manners or no manners at all are becoming so common; no one even expects anything else. When someone waits to hold a door, 15 strangers rush through like rabid linebackers. I witnessed this at El Toro’s, not too long ago. 

In fact, I was the one holding the door.

In my front yard are thousands of little pine cone chips scattered on the sidewalk and street. In case you haven’t noticed, we have a bumper crop of tree rats. Our only hope of keeping these litterbugs in control is their bizarre propensity to run under a moving car. At one time I would sit in the woods and try to harvest as many of these tasty animals as I could. Now, I only clean up after them. They don’t even notice the mess they are making or the work it takes to make the ground clean.

A month or so ago, I was parked on the side of Sjolander Road repairing a geocache I have there close to the historic marker. There is no road shoulder, so I was very close to the edge of the road at the back of my Jeep. A car came by slowly and stopped in front of my vehicle. Hanging out the window on a leash was a white pit-bull weighing about 40 pounds.

A man came around the front of the car and angrily threw the dog back inside, cursing in Spanish at the jaw-snapping carnivore. “Your dog jumped out the window?” I beckoned. He looked at me and said something that made my short hair stand up.

“No, he was jumping to get you!” He didn’t apologize, but drove off and I stood in shock.  I would have had no chance against this dog, as my handgun was in my Jeep. Never mind that the guy didn’t care about my safety. Never mind that he didn’t roll up the window. Never mind that I was that close to being mauled or killed. I doubt he even thought about it.

On a regular basis I pick up trash. As a geocacher, it is something most all of us do in this high-tech game. We visit a sight where a geocache is hidden and we pick up trash as we leave. Collectively, this is tens of thousands of tons of trash picked up all over the world. Yes, uncaring people throw stuff out the windows of their cars and trucks and it doesn’t matter to them who sees it. Prior to about 1970, this was a common practice. What has happened that people feel free to do it again?

I often wonder what their reaction would be if a couple bags of trash were scattered across their property on a weekly basis. It would probably be the same reaction a thief gets when someone steals from them, which of course is anger. I watch how people drive every time I get in my Jeep and my bride tells me I should simply ignore their poor driving habits. Maybe so, but it appears that anyone can get a license these days. The only people I see who have an excuse of sorts are the elderly.

I am looking forward to those cool nights when camping is enjoyable and plan to camp in about a week. Like last year, I’ll most likely deer hunt in the Hill Country and like last year, I’ll most likely watch many deer pass in front of me, aim, and not shoot. I’ve killed enough animals for a lifetime and I have enough money to buy processed food. I’ll leave these animals to those who still enjoy taking game.

The changing of the seasons is a good thing, but when it comes to society, we need to proceed with extreme caution. Unlike the predictability of our seasons, too many changes too quickly cannot possibly be a good thing. I’m fearful many of the changes we’ve experienced in the last 6-7 years will be our undoing.

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