A Geocaching Treatise

Geocaching is silly simple. Few things in life are as good, clean out-and-about fun like this is. Well, clean except for the foxtails.

I enjoy the sense of virtual community we experience. Props to you Bakersfield cachers - you add a dimension to the fun.

Caches are fragile things - only takes one muggle or one bad cacher to ruin it for us all - but it amazingly infrequently happens that way. Geocaching is proof that there's hope for
American society.

I love those caches that are brazenly hidden in plain sight - where only those who are seeking will find 'em. If a thousand people look right at it but never see it, but anyone with
a GPSr in hand can walk right up and grab it, that's an awesome cache in my book.

I think anyone who can place one thoughtfully located, challenging but findable cache is worth more than the guy with 1000 finds but no cache hides. Creating a world class cache is a work of
art, and there's darn few out there who can do it. To those who put up the caches that inspire us to hunt, I salute you.

I believe that we're hiding caches from muggles first, and geocachers second.

You should be able to find any of my hides from the description and coords - the hint is there as a spoiler safety-net only.

I used to say here that I don't want anyone to go home with a DNF. But I realize that making sure-find caches is going to be the sure-death of geocaching. If not today, then tomorrow. They're boring. They're derivative. They're not worth the gas to get there. So I promise to make caches that either take ppl to a remarkable location, or challenge on the find, or batter your brainpan with the puzzle, or any combination of the above, or do something of another nature. Who knows?
I don't, yet. I just know that I don't want to place another monkeyseemonkeydo hide and add to the cache and dash disease destroying our hobby. And I here-and-now promise never to toss a cammo'ed film canister into a dusty, spider-infested poisonous bush and call it a cache. As a hedge lover, heh, I beg you - do the same! I have enough marriage troubles without justifying leaving my own yard work to go dig through a random bush somewhere, only to sign a logsheet.

I think if you log a cache as a find when you didn't actually find the cache, well, karma says that you're gonna get your overdue IRS audit this year.

I believe that Travel Bugs should travel. Seems obvious, but most TBs seem to languish in TB jails. Travel Bug caches that attempt to impose limits on the number of bugs that may come and go are really prisons. “Take a bug, leave a bug” is a nice suggestion, but if it’s a demand, then the bugs are incarcerated. Bugs should be free to do what their owners intended for them to do, travel.
Keep 'em moving, I say!

Hey, you. Yeah, You, the one skanking geocoins from caches into your private collection. May the fleas of a 1000 camels infest your crotch, and may the sun never set on your scratching.

I believe that Happy Meal toys are most happy when cached. They transmute there, in the darkness and quiet, into treasure. Cache with a kid and you'll never feel bad about trading
toys into a cache again.

What we need is a user-compiled rating system for all caches. That way the cream can rise and the stank can sink. The problem isn't micros, it's not knowing which micros suck before
wasting an hour on them. If the FTF can say, "this one's really great" and give it five stars, or a thumbs-up rating, or, conversely, a 1-star/thumbs down instead of the abiguous notation "thanks for placing the cache, SL, yawn", those of us who follow after can concretely figure out which are worth the trip - especially at however-many bucks+ a gallon.

But yes, the premium membership, for those of you who aren't and wondering, is worth the gallon a month.

Finally,
Please, for Pete's sake, don't place micros unless you have a reason.
Trade up!
Replace 'em better than you found 'em.
Give other hiders positive feedback.
Add some TBs and Geocoins to the pool.
and
Thanks for hiding one! Without you, there's no geocache to find, and no geocaching!