Note from the President of IGO

Lots of changes going on recently at IGO. Foremost, you may have noticed in the last couple of weeks that IGO's web site has moved! Oh no...where did it go?

Well, the new internet home of the IGO is at http://igo-web.net. You can access it using this URL but you don't have to. Now that our update is complete (we hope) your old links to http://www.iowageocachers.org should also work properly.

Along the way we may have lost a few e-mails to addresses ending in @iowageocachers.org. All (we hope) of these addresses have also been restored but if you sent us something important between October 27 and October 30 you might consider sending it again or following up just to be sure we got it.

Why did we move? Our orignial IowaGeocachers.org was hosted in some free web space acquired by one of the founding members of the Eastern Iowa Geocachers Assoc. (EIGA) a couple of years ago. Rooboy, Daniel K., was kind enough to let us lurk in his free space but Daniel has moved east and that free package is due to expire in a couple of months. Also, our domain name, IowaGeocachers.org, was graciously supplied (and paid for) by former IGO board member AmesCacher, Matt W.

To give us time to make the move and to get AmesCacher out from under his gracious donation to IGO, we elected to jump on an offer from the same internet host and move to a discounted but "more permanent" package. In a nutshell that's the reason why we have a new address (and the old one too!) and a new internet home. You might notice that our new package is a little faster than our old one too. Hopefully nothing is broken at the new site but if you find something that does not work as it used to please let me know by writing to "webmaster at iowageocachers.org". Be as specific as you can please.

The other big change at IGO is in regard to the Board of Directors. Two of our original BOD members, AmesCacher and SaidCache, have recently resigned their posts on the Board. These gentlemen have served IGO well and we expect continued involvement from them...but commitments to family and work have limited their geocaching time of late so we've accepted their resignations. Thanks gentlemen.

Look for an interim nomination period and online election to begin in early to mid-November so that we can fill these two open seats.

Second Annual Vinton Event Two-For

GeoEvent-wise, Oct 28th was a big day for the little town of Vinton. For the second year the IGO was holding a geocaching class at the Kirkwood center. And for the second year Muffkin42x2 hosted a pot-luck event on the same day.

The pot-luck event, called "LAST HOORAH of the Season #2" was held at Rogers Park in the morning. Ron and Carol (Muffkin42x2) reserved the shelter house so we had a nice place to get inside out of the wind. With a fire in the stove, and good food on the tables some folks decided to skip the seven (including two brand new ones) caches in the park and just hang out. The table with travel bugs and geocoins was a popular spot.

In addition to a handful of event regulars, there were a couple of new-to-the-area faces: HumanLoofa recently relocated to Iowa from Arizona and SomewhereInND recently relocated to Iowa from North Dakota. I enjoyed meeting both and hope to see them at another event some time.

As an aside, if you like challenging puzzles SomewhereInND has created quite a stir in the Cedar Rapids area with his new caches. Check out his profile for the SomewhereInIA caches.

The Kirkwood class was planned for the afternoon, but was canceled a few days before the event because of low registrations. The caches were already in place so we announced that folks could still come for the field portion of the event. After about half an hour, welch was the only one who showed up so he helped me collect the caches and we called it a day. And not a bad day, I met several new people, logged 4 brand new caches, logged 2 caches from my TODO list, visited 2 caches for maintenance and collected the 6 caches from the class. Way better than sitting in front of the computer (or TV) all day :)

GC.Com Username: juliecache

Number of Finds/Hides: 63 / 3

Occupation? Stay at home, home school mom, contracting professional modern dance and acting talent occasionally

How you got your username? I thought juliecache sounded snappy. Kind of like Johnny Cash. I always remember his name. My kids often are with me, and their initials spell the word GAIN, thus naming our home school, GAIN Academy.

How you got your username? I have no signature item. I have considered having the acorn as my personal symbol, though. Not that I would leave acorns in a container, but I would make or buy an acorn stamp for the logbooks. Alice in "On the Far Side of the Mountain", by Jean Craighead George, used an acorn as her symbol/signature. I think I have some Alice in me. If you have not read "My Side of the Mountain" or "On the Far Side of the Mountain", you ought to. Very inspiring.

How long have you been caching and how did you get started? I began one year ago almost to the day. I got my start through my daughter and a gal at church.

Two summers ago, my daughter, "A" of GAIN Academy, attended a girl scout camp with the theme "camp survivor." Boa taught this group of kids all about geocaching. It sounded nice.

Then I attended a retreat at church three months after Camp Survivor, about one year ago. A gal at my table told me about her first geocaching experience the weekend before at the ledges. I was instantly "into" it when she told about her kids hanging in there for a couple miles with her (they weren't old enough to be in school yet). I had been looking for ways to spark up our regular nature walks (which is one reason that I began home schooling, but another discussion altogether.) I asked how she found out where the caches were and she gave me the gc website. We found our first geocache six days later.

Side note: we have a gpsr from years ago, a gift. We used it for mapping chicago on our vacation in 2002. My husband had loaned it out previously to a guy at work. He kept it for months and months, so we have no manual for it (thankfully we can find one online). After three years of dust on a shelf, we finally use it, and often.

Favorite cache/why? My favorite is my first find, now gone, Feel Like a Rat in a M.... (GCP0QY), in Winterset, IA. I like it because the location is very unique. and I love that park anyway.

Least Favorite/why? Well, I did not find this one, but even if I had, it would still be FINGER LICKING TRAVEL BUG MOTEL (GCQXVY) in the armpit of Bakersfield, CA. This cache is now archived. Urban caches are common in the area, but how could you be sneaky and unseen here? The homeless guys and nearby auto smells are icky as well. The proximity to the highway is nice, but I draw the line with this cache.

Current caching goals? My goal was to find one cache each week. So I succeeded with my goal and would like to continue to find one cache/week. I would also like to increase my find rate for micros.

“CACHE SIZES & APPROPRIATENESS PART 3”

Every now and then I hear a comment from a fellow cacher like, “Bad cache for that area!” In short, that’s what’s known as a comment on geocache “appropriateness.” You’ve probably had the feeling yourself, but, hopefully, not with one of my hides, although I’ve taken the whip in some logs!

So, what are some examples of appropriate caches for their placement surroundings? Let’s cover each cache size, and look at typical hiding places for each. I won’t be using as many examples of actual caches as I usually do, because I don’t want to give away any hides – kind of like hearing the ending for a movie you haven’t seen from one of your friends!

The single most important element of appropriate cache placement in my mind is the immediate surroundings. Things like trees, objects like rocks, and the number of those particular things in that area. For instance, putting a larger cache in a hole in the only tree in a large field may make finding the cache too easy, and likewise a micro in a fake rock hidden somewhere in 100 feet of riprap on a river bank makes it way too difficult, if not impossible to make the find.

Looking at size-appropriateness for each size, let’s start with the Large cache, like a 5-gallon pail. It would properly be hidden in an upright position for stability, and in surroundings with lots of trees or large rocks around, so it won’t stand out by its size. Large openings either in rock walls or in the ground would help the hide, too. Uneven terrain would add a lot of visual distraction as well.

The Regular size, usually a metal ammo box or large Tupperware container, seems to be preferred by a lot of hiders, and by almost all finders. It also seems to offer a lot of possibilities. Appropriate placements would be inside fallen trees or in the “Keebler Elf” type openings in bases of standing trees, or inside large roots when the tree is near the edge of a riverbank or the top of a sloping trail in the woods. Sometimes in wooded areas prone to flooding, you’ll see them off the ground 6 feet or so in between tree branches. I’ve recently seen some hanging from ropes over tree branches, too, which reminds us not to just look on the ground or too low!

Last April, while on the Big Island of Hawaii for vacation, I found an ammo box in a puka (hole) in a small lava tube in a huge lava field. The cache description reveals all of that information for Foxy Roxy (GC4AF3), so I’m not ruining this hide for anyone.

Why do finders prefer the ammo box? My own thoughts are that you’re working at best with about 16 feet of accuracy on your GPSr, which means a circle with a diameter of 36 feet. In an area with lots of trees, rocks, vegetation, etc., it helps to have something of size to look for, plus you are able to automatically rule out some spots as too small. We’d all like to think that anyone (or at least us) can find something that big! Inappropriate placement would be on the ground next to a tree trunk where the find is too easy, 20 or 30 feet off the ground in a tree (don’t get me started on cache-hiders who like to climb!), or in any area where it just doesn’t blend in for reasons of color, shape or stability. Take seasons into account, too. That great weed and thorn-covered space will leave your cache pretty exposed in late fall or winter when most of that vegetation has died back.

So, how about the Small cache? The army surplus decontamination kit (decon) or the camo-colored peanut butter jar cache are very typical, with the decon cache usually hanging from an evergreen tree branch or in an open space in a tree, standing or fallen. The jars allow for placement in trees and in some ground spaces under evergreens, in the crotch of trees at various levels, in high grass along fence lines, or in spaces in structures like bridges or buildings. (In Iowa, the Admin frowns on bridge placements in some cases; more on that and other placements like electrical boxes in a future column.) Inappropriate placement would be where the cache could be easily dislodged, because these smaller caches are more likely to be moved by wind or rain due to their lightness and the material they’re made of. The same note on changing seasons above also goes for this one.

Finally, the size dear to my heart, the Micro! This is the size most prone to criticism on appropriateness to surrounding, and in some cases that criticism is well-founded (probably because the cache is “not found-ed!”)

The uncamoflaged micro would be things like small pill bottles, magnetic key cases, and travel-size pill containers. Again, appropriateness goes with the answer to the question “how much stuff looking the same is around my hide?” For example, your regular-sized pharmacy pill bottle hanging from an evergreen branch in a clump of three or four trees is “challenging,” but can be found with tempers intact in most cases. A travel-pill container like the kind used to carry nitroglycerine tablets (real small) that is hidden in a quarter-acre of pines is open to argument on appropriateness, because part of the idea of caching is that you can actually find the cache in a reasonable amount of time.

Magnetic key cases are used a lot on or under metal bridge rails – if the bridge is of the 20-60 feet length, that’s cool; Golden Gate-size bridge, not cool. Again, the warning about placement of magnetic key cases or other “sticky” caches on electrical equipment applies, due to obvious safety concerns for both kids and adults.

The camo Micro is the one that lends itself to what I call the “Where’s Waldo?” problem. I recently spent some time in Iowa City going through a rock bed on a stream bank. I got lots of exercise, but no find, until I realized it wasn’t in the rocks! However, it makes the point not to hide it there – at least where I might go. Thank you.

Speaking of rocks, it’s the size of the actual container holding the log that determines the classification size. The first time I put out a fake rock cache, I labeled it a small cache, but was promptly told by more-experienced cachers that this was a micro, because it only held a rolled-up log in it. In southeastern Iowa, I was on a hillside a couple months back looking for a “small” geocache. It was in a 12-inch long, 3-inch diameter PVC pipe inserted into a rock way too large to lift. Because there were not too many rocks on that hillside and they were far apart, this was an appropriate placement. It was so heavy that I had to roll it over to look at it, and it took off down the hillside about 20 feet, meaning this one’s a bit off coordinates now. Oops.

Recently, I was in Peoria, Illinois, on business, and in the remaining afternoon I got to knock off 8 caches in a couple of hours before the sun started to set. (No, I’m not a night-cacher; I don’t even like night hiking. I believe it has something to do with hitting my shins on logs and falling down.) In one park, I spent about 15 minutes going through every crack and cranny of a multi-trunked tree looking for a micro that contained only a log. After my initial efforts failed, I decided to try a logical search, and worked my way around the base of the tree. No go, just a big old wood-ear type of fungus in my sights. Does it move? Hmm, hole drilled in it, small baggy with log in hole, bingo! Way cool, in my opinion, and classified as a micro despite the wood ear being 12 inches long. Very natural and appropriate placement.

Hopefully, this gives you some guidance. Opinions will vary, always, so just develop your own judgment along the way on appropriateness, and remember you can’t please everyone.

Next time, I’ll give examples of what I feel are some “perfect” caches for their size and appropriateness, and, oddly enough, some that seem to break the rules, but make sense!