I registered at geocaching.com on 4th of October 2003 and we found our first cache on 10th of October (I missed the correct day by one while posting this
Bob the Builder was our first ever geocache. I really can’t remember why we decided to take that as our first one.
Sometimes it has been fun, sometimes difficult. Winter is not exactly designed for me so I prefer caching when it’s warm outside. One of the best caching tours was during summer 2005 when we drove to Saariselkä and stayed there few nights. During that trip we found something like 60 caches. Not too tight schedule and one cache now and then broke the long driving into small pieces. Even kids didn’t complain
The positive thing has been that we have seen many new places where we wouldn’t have visited without caches. We have also met lots of new people. Many times its a “weird” experience when you have created someone’s picture in your mind by reading cache logs, and/or discussing via e-mail or in IRC and you finally meet him/her “live”.
The negative side has been the dirty places where we have visited: broken bottles, shit, drug needles and so on. This is something that you really don’t want to look at, especially with kids. But this also reminds you about the “reality” of the world. Everything is not so nice and clean as one might think while living in own house, shopping, and working.
Our saldo is currently:
784 logged caches in gc.com (including events etc.)
115 trackables moved / discovered (trackables are something that we are not too interested in, so we don’t usually “discover” these when we see them.)
19 own caches, of which one is adopted and one disabled (yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ll put a new box soon).
We have released eleven trackables, of which at least one has disappeared.
3 different GPS devices: Garmin eTrex (old), Garmin 60Cx (current), and TomTom ONE in the car.
4 different geocars, 2 different home locations.
Methods of caching: walking, running, cycling, rowing, swimming, using a “taxi boat”, using own and rental car, and using a taxi. Also aeroplane, bus, and train have been used, but not directly for caching. We have also a kick-bike at home. Maybe I should use that some day.
Countries: Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Spain, Greece, France, USA, Canada, and Mauritius.
Samppa and Mimmi-pupu have their own accounts, but they haven’t logged all their finds. Partly my fault, but it’s usually enough to log our own finds after a trip. Inventing stories (multiple times
is not so easy, especially when the cache has been “a standard one” without anything special.
I have been talking about geocaching at work and four co-workers have started (more or less actively) to go geocaching.
I planned to list some good and not-so-good caches that we have found, but it seems to take too much time so I’ll skip that. It is enough to say that there are some good caches and there are some not-so-good caches, but one must remember that the good ones do not feel so good unless there are also those not-so-good ones.
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