Hidden messages?

I'm beginning to think someone is trying to tell me something. There was a time when I didn't purposely go out to find micros. I had a couple of reasons for this. One, micros represented something that I felt took geocaching in the wrong direction. Two, I have no patience when I'm looking for something that had been hidden so evilly that I get the feeling that the hider doesn't want me to find it in the first place.

When it became apparent that micros were here to stay, I started looking for them, mainly because if I didn't, I probably wouldn't go caching very often due to lack of nice hiking trails in my general area. So I compromised. There were times when I found a few, and there were times when I found a lot and there were times when I didn't find any. Today, I fell into the last category.

Let me describe my day. I went out to get some socks, gas up the car and get the car washed. Where I was headed was an area near my work that I'd avoided caching in for awhile, so there was a buildup of new caches in that area. I figured as long as I was out there, I could pick up a couple of caches. My first stop was a gas station, where the placement of the cache was such that unless you could grab the parking spot next to where it was hidden, you'd look pretty out of place. The place was packed, there were muggles everywhere and as I've noted before, I don't have a lot of patience, so after about five minutes of trying to look nonchalant, I decided that I needed to move on.

The next cache, I could see. The problem was, it was hidden only five feet away from a restaurant/bar that was open. I couldn't see in, but I knew people could see out. The other problem with this cache was it was hidden two feet over my head. I'm not the tallest person in the world, but unless I come with a friend that I can boost up, or bring a stool, that one's not going to be found. The establishment being open didn't help me either. I've contemplated getting one of those grabbers that I've seen our janitors using to pick up trash. This tool would have allowed me to get the cache, but everyone inside would have seen me grab it.

The next cache down the road I'd tried once before, with the help of a friend. We, obviously, hadn't found it so I was back again. The clue for the cache had been changed significantly that I'm sure I could have found it with little to no problem without a GPSr, but with a muggle sitting in her truck not two feel away from the cache site, it didn't help matters and so, once again, I walked away. Cache number 4 was hidden in a wall of ivy with serious signal bounce. After five minutes of getting nothing but dirtier, I decided that was it. I turned the GPSr off and came home since my errands were done.

Maybe someone is trying to tell me something. I usually don't have a problem finding caches when I'm out on a hike, but then again, I'm usually finding larger sized containers then. I also don't usually have a problem finding micros when I cache with friends. So, do I give up on micros all together? Or do I only go caching with friends? There are times when I want to wash my hands of micros all together, Perhaps this is the push that I need to start thinking in that direction. I'm going to hope that it's just my attitude of a frustrating day leaking out in to the photons of my computer at the moment. Who knows? Maybe there really are some hidden messages that are being sent my way.

There's a balance out there

I have some down time over the next couple of weeks, so I’m thinking about hiding a couple of caches. With surgery scheduled tomorrow morning (outpatient – nothing too major, just something that needs to get fixed), I won’t be doing much of anything for a couple of days, but I figure once I’m walking again, I can start working on some containers and camo. That would definitely necessitate a trip to the local big box hardware store to get some paint. I have a couple of cans of primer and texture, but I need a couple more colors to work on the camo.

I actually went to our local surplus store today to check on the prices of ammo cans. $5.97 to $7.97 isn’t bad. Now that I think about it, why didn’t I buy a couple while I was there? Oh yes, by not buying them, it means I have to go back there again and look around more. I guess there’s some method to my madness.

Once I get the camo done on the containers, it will be just a short trip out to one site anyway, a quick hike in, place and take the coordinates and then I’m out. But I will have to work on the page because this one’s going to be a mystery/puzzle cache. I have one other mystery hide, the Cobol Canyon Trail, which is a math substitution puzzle. This new one is going to be a little bit more of the “think outside of the box” type of puzzle. It’s not going to be anything elaborate, just something similar to what I’ve already seen on-line. It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out once I’m done with it.

In the past, I’ve been accused of being wordy on my cache pages. Who me? Wordy? Yeah, well, I guess I am wordy, but in my opinion, cache pages that don’t tell a little story about the cache are pretty boring. Usually that means that it’s probably a lamp post or newspaper rack hide. Yep. Those are a dime a dozen, and so I’ve vowed not to hide any like that. I’m trying to take the tack, that if you can’t at least hide a geocoin in it, it’s not going to be hidden by me.

I also like to have my caches be a little bit of a walk from the parking area, so mine are not “park and grabs.” There are a lot of those out there, and I feel they don’t take a whole lot of thought or effort to place them. Slap a slip of paper in an Altoids tin and plop it under a lamp post. I heard one person in the forum call this “microspew” and I tend to agree with him. There’s very little cost involved, so there doesn’t seem to be as much ownership of the cache, because if it gets muggled, the person can always slap another one out there.

That’s one of the reasons why I don’t have as many hides as other people do. My basic strategy has been to hide one for every 100 that I find. That’s a 1% hide to find ratio, which is very low compared to others who have been caching as long as I have, and it’s also lower than many who have been caching less than I have, but that’s the ratio that I’ve decided to maintain. I can’t imagine having 100 hides. I think all I would be doing would be maintaining caches with no time to find any. Thanks but no thanks. With the ratio I’ve chosen, I get a nice balance. With 1861 hides, I have 19 finds, so I’m slightly above my average and if I hide this next one, I’ll really be above it.

With most of my cache hides, I usually post some pictures as well, so obviously, these pictures are all from my cache hides. I would say that all the pictures on the cache page help tell the story of the cache. I’ll post more about my next hide after I’ve recuperated a little and after I've hidden it.

Pictures and graphics are from the following caches:
Hotel Devore
The Cats Made Me Do It
Today, I Saw a Lizard
7 Miles Away and a Half Mile Hike