[Az-Geocaching] Clueless Newbie

[Scott Wood]

At 05:14 PM 8/9/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>Many thanks for the warm welcome. With the thunderboomers hovering over the
>park that was going to be my first exploration, I think I'll have to put off
>my first search effort.

Yeah, it is looking pretty dark out there this afternoon.


>I've been doing some looking around on the web, but there really isn't that
>much there for the completely clueless newbie. For example, what kind of
>goodies does one leave? I make hand-dyed scarves, for example. Would these
>be a good goodie?

You can leave just about anything you want.  I have left everything from 
hot wheel cars to baseball cards.  Within a week, we should have our new 
"Team My Blue Heaven" custom signature items, but you don't have to do 
anything like that, and that is another story.  Hand made things are really 
nice in caches.  We found some small stained glass in a cache in California 
that we really liked.  I really like finding "signature" items at a 
cache.  I have one of Team Sand Dollars sand dollars on my desk at 
home.  Just use your imagination, there is no really wrong answer.

>I haven't found anyplace that has photos of caches. I read about Tupperware,
>but I have no clue how they may be hidden. Or not hidden. Do I have to climb
>trees? Wade swamps? Do a dance and chant? Turn my dogs into retrievers?

There is no real answer to that.  Caches can be just about anything from 
Altoid cans to ammo cans.  We have found some that you have to look up for, 
some you have to look under things for, and one that you have to take an 
elevator to.  I haven't had to dance or chant yet, and my dog is already a 
Golden Retriever.  :-)  At 14 years old though, he is a little too old to 
geocache with us. :-(

>I got my GPS at Wal-Mart. I know they don't have any PC cables there (I
>looked). Any other place in Tucson that might have cables? Or does one have
>to order online for anything other than the basic units? What about paper
>maps? And what about mapping software? When I need a map I go to one of the
>online sites so I don't have anything that is new. Recommendations?

Depends on what model you got.  We found a good share of our caches long 
before I ever bought a data cable.  I just entered them by hand.  As for 
software, I am a big fan of a program called ExpertGPS.  You can find it at 
www.expertgps.com.  For road/street mapping I use Microsoft Mappoint.  It 
seems to work very well.  The online map sites also work very well, and 
have used them in the past with no trouble.

Best suggestion I can make is get out and look for a cache or two.  Once 
you have a few finds, you will start to get the feel for the game, and I 
suspect that you will have a lot of fun.


In liberty,

Scott

wood@myblueheaven.com
www.myblueheaven.com