Saturday, March 1, 2008

Geocaching Karma

Recently, The Boy and I went to Michaels to score some geocaching cammo. We were looking for things to help disguise some new caching I've been thinking about. I found several types of fake vegetation that may do quite nicely.

As usual, I had the GPSr loaded with geocaches in the area. We nabbed a couple on the way. There was one called Another Parking Lot Micro just outside the store. I know, I know, even the name goes against my recent needs for the wolderness, but I'll never reach a bizillion finds if I don't grab these.

We walked over to ground zero in the outer corner of the parking lot. I had not read about this geocache, it was just in the GPS. I did have the hint. "Not magnetic" There was a large tree right there which was nice because it helped conceal our search. I looked on the ground and saw a sprinkler head next to the tree. There was a corner of plastic back sticking out of the top. A gentle tug removed the sprinkler from the ground and revealed the log. How nice to find a descent hide in a parking lot! there were a couple of tiny trade item which we left for the next geocacher.

When I got home to log my finds I read the logs on this one. The owner had posted a maintenance log stating that contrary to popular belief this was not a sprinkler geocache. He said he had checked out the area, was able to locate said sprinkler and the real geocache was just fine. WHAT? My geocaching ethics would not allow me to claim the find. I told my story in my did not find log. The owner of the geocache contacted me and said I did not have to log a DNF as he had not deleted the logs of the other sprinkler finders.

I chose to leave the DNF until I could get back over there and find the real cache. The owner did say he would swing by and pick up the decoy geocache. I think my decision to leave it is going to pay off in dividends. I'm sure the geocaching gods are smiling on me for my behavior. I shall be rewarded with some easy finds on some difficult geocaches.

8 comments:

tonka_boy said...

That's bizarre! How can you have two geocaches right next to each other? Only in California...

The Northwoods Geocats

Tinman105 said...

I thought in California you had to move 3 caches to get to the one you are looking for

Josh said...

I was actually resting my GPSr on a terracache while signing the log on the geocache while standing on an NGS benchmark at an event cache to log miles on my geocoin. That's how I roll.

P.J. said...

Ethical and everything! Interesting story. I've just begun with this hobby and haven't seen micros yet, but know there are a few near me.

Paul Myers said...

I've been geocaching since 2001. Yep, I joined within the first year the sport/hobby started. I had the ethic that I wouldn't go find micros, preferring the "walk in the woods" mentality.

Unfortunately, if you don't hunt micros, you don't get out caching very often, so I've relaxed that part of my finding. However, I choose not to hide micros. If others would take that attitude, we'd have more quality caches. Anybody can hide an LPC. The trick is to hide a larger container that will hold some swag or at least a geocoin, near the lamp post.

Good story.

cosmiccowgirl said...

That is so strange that there would happen to be a sprinkler cache right there, and then the owner checking it out....very odd. What about cache density? Maybe someone hid it without realizing there was a cache already there within 0.1 and just never went out to remove it when they realized it couldn't get published?

RoadRunner said...

love the pictures. Looks like you have beautiful geocaching terrain.

RoxieMama said...

Find "My Secret"

Great cache! This was creative and lots of fun. You had all of us local cachers rushing to find the TB once you released it in hopes of claiming the FTF. Hope to see more - maybe put all of the listed coordinates in either Lake Skinner or Vail Lake. It'll fill up the list of caches close to me that I need to find until I get the chance to find them.

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