Geocaching and Pokemon Go!

So the new craze has hit and now that we're a few weeks into Pokemon Go, I find that I'm opening my geocaching apps while "Go-ing"!  It's fun to be killing two birds with one stone!  While Go-ing in a local park about a week ago, we found that an old cache we had previously gotten was archived and another that we had tried to find years ago was now in an accessible location since the entire park was redone.  Looking shady, as we geocachers sometimes do, I was behind a log fence poking around among blackberry bushes, (yes, blood was drawn,) and a man walking his dog walked past and asked if we were playing Pokemon.  I said no, we're geocaching.  I don't think he had a clue what I was talking about!  The park was swarming with Go-ers, as are so many parks and Pokemon rich areas.  My thought is that it will become easier to find a cache at a muggle infested coordinate.  What do you think?

Success on our last cache hunt,

logged our 191st find!

Trinity Racers

On another note...

           

The next previous generation playing Pokemon Go!
This was in a church parking lot where there is a Pokemon Gym!

Dad playing with his kids at the playground
Pokemon Go on TOP of the playground!

Back in the saddle!

September 2010?  How did that happen?!

It's been that long since I posted anything here.  Our caching slowed over the years, though we would stop here and there when our spidey-senses kicked in, and I had to look to see if there was indeed a cache nearby.

How times have changed!  No longer do we have to print out cache sheets, or usb coordinates (or worse, manually enter them!) into our gps, or even use a gps at all.  Now, anyone with a smartphone has everything at his or her fingertips.

Although we've used c:geo since the transition to phone-caching began, I see that the Groundspeak folks have made their app free!  If I recall correctly, it used to be $9.99.  Maybe I'm delusional, but that was the reason we originally went with c:geo.  It has served its purpose, but now that I have the Groundspeak app installed, we'll just have to play with it to see which one we prefer.

       

By looking at it for just a couple minutes, the Groundspeak app is much easier on the eyes, whereas c:geo has a black background.  Hmm...looks like you have to upgrade to Premium in order to access some of the caches.  Anything above a 1.5 difficulty or terrain requires Premium.  Still worth using since the format seems a lot better than c:geo.  I'll keep both installed until I get to the point of coughing up the cash to buy it.  (I'm so frugal cheap.)  Oh, well wouldya look at that.  It's not a flat purchase anymore, it's a subscription.  (And it's an auto-renewal which is kind of a pain if you forget to turn it off.)

c:geo

FREE

Groundspeak Premium App

$5.99/mo or $29.99/yr

Yes, I am too cheap to pay for a subscription when I can use c:geo for nada.  I will absolutely use it as my primary app, and if there's a cache that's grayed out because I don't have Premium, I'll switch over to c:geo and get what I need there.  (Because why?  Oh yeah, I'm CHEAP.)

Time to go play!

Cache Types, Sizes, Trade Suggestions

Caches come in all kinds of containers ranging from nano-caches to ammo boxes. You will be amazed at the creativity people have put into their caches!

Some caches, such as the nano size, don't have room for anything but a tiny log that you sign.

A nano is a tiny, magnetic button with a rolled up scroll to sign. You need your own pen for these.

You can learn about the different types of caches here.


Trades

The general rule is to leave something of equal or greater value when trading an item in the cache. Here are some items in our trade bag right now:

marbles
sticker sheets
Happy Meal toys
mini play-doh
rubber squeaky frogs and ducks
Silly Putty
mini slinky


The Dollar Store is a good place to find things, but I am more careful now with all the lead being found in those types of toys. Walmart always has good prices for fun stuff.

Some of the neatest things we have gotten were -

foreign coins
dollar bills
a very cool medal from Germany
Geocoins and Travel Bugs from all over the world!