Spring Cleaning, and Memory Lane.

Spring is here (in the northern hemisphere), and it is time to start cleaning up the caches that are found under snow. I have begun to go through mine and get them ready for spring.

There are always complaints in the spring that have to be addressed, soggy logs, cracked containers, stolen.  All of them have to be addressed to keep things rolling.

On my drive home I pass one of my first caches.  Limits  A few days ago I drove my and saw its uncamouflaged lime green lid as I drove by sitting under the tree.  I have it some thought over the next day.  someone is building a home on the property and is making a entrance way for their driveway.  Thought this is on the property line they decided to clean up all the dead-fall that was around it. Exposing the cache.  It was not taken, but just laying there on the ground.

I decided that it was time to let it go. I did not want to let it go, however someone is building a driveway to their house, and having it exposed would mean reworking the cache.  I could have moved it up the road 50 feet, but that would defeat the purpose.  It was placed exactly at the city limits between Springville and Spanish Fork.  If I put it out it will be  a new one.

The cache was a roll back in time for me.  In 2008 when I started caching it was new and exiting.  My kids were 7 and 4.  I decided to place my first cache on 5/5/2008, I put out two.  Neither were that great, one was a micro in a pile of rocks, the other was in a fake sprinkler.  The micro in a pile of rocks was horrible.  I archived it a bit later, the sprinkler was at my house, and even thought i told people to stay away from the roses they searched their and were getting cut.  So I later archived that one.

So the next day I went out with my daughters to hide a few.  We did not know what to put it something that was not a micro, so my daughter grabbed a bunch of erasers shaped like octopi (is that the plural form).  Well some of them were still in the cache.  Along with the original log, dry, and the container was still in good shape.  I plan on rehiding it somewhere.  I will paint it this time.  I have started paining all my containers.  The plastic stuff lasts longer, tape just comes apart.

It did make me think of my little kids when we were hiding, the fun we had waiting for DrJays first log, and Baad Daata following it.

Well back to my note.  I have been going through my caches now.  I adopted all the Boy Scout Utah National Parks Council caches.  So I could keep track of them better.  A few emails when out, and a few will be archived.  Going through mine a number need to be archived as well.  I have done that.  Some of my favorites went away.  I have a list of caches that need logs, containers, or a little move. So they are on my list. 

Happy Spring everyone.

Geocaching update, Febuary 1

Today was the date of some new updates for those that were interested.

Maps

You can see below some of the filter options:

There are plenty of map options.  I really like the topo option.

The two shots show some of the difference if you sit down and use the filters that are available. 

The upper map is everything on. I then turned off the caches that I had found and that I own... then shut off puzzles and events.  That leaves me with a good list of what I can go after, tonight on the way home.

Favorites

You can also now click on the blue favorites ribbon in a search or on the cache page.  It will tell you what percentage of premium members that have found the cache have listed it as a favorite.   I would personally like that a sortable column, but  this is an improvement.

It does make a bit of a difference  The top ten and their %

48 - 8%

Bryce Canyon National Park- Inspiration Point by Team Family Affair (GCHQMX)

45

- 10%

Tour of Duty (TBs) by CoolCache (GCR206)

34 - 17%

Angel's Landing by Iskander De Toquerville, Pipeline & Percible (GCG2ZP)

32 - 12%

Delicate Arch by Lord Mot, Baby Girl and Littlefoot (GC177KB)

31 - 4%

Arches National Park- Balanced Rock by Team Family Affair (GCHQFJ)

25 - 12%

Zion Narrows by Coach Steve (GCZ5YD)

24 - 9%

Avalanche on Wall Street- Bryce Canyon NPS by LuvWahoo (GCZCME)

23 - 9%

Arches National Park - Delicate Arch by GunniGirl (GCJG49)

22 - 10%

Golden Spike by Seth! (GC6FD7)

21

- 8%

Temple Square Virtual Cache Tour by Scout Master (GCHZZ1)

In fact.. the highest % with those over 10 votes

22%a three way tie

Galileo 400 by lesdubois and son (GC1TYC9)

EYE'S OF A UTAH GEOCACHER by MomtheCook,cashnhubby & Rubberpaws, ArticScarab (GC1FAM4)

Fat Man's Misery by Heidi, Jared, Autin (GCFE7E)

The most popular % wise (with those 7 votes or higher)  In fact this was the only one over 30% with over seven votes.

78% - 7 votes

Pining for Evergreens by MOCKBA (GCJVJY)

Statistics

You can list out your milestones.  You can have the website generate them, or you can correct them yourself.

Needs maintenance

I think this is new.  Now when you do a search, or go to someones profile there is an info column.  In the past that column mentioned if it had geocoins, or travel bugs in it.  Now it will also show the premium member icon, and an Icon for Needs Maintenance.  So you will be able to see before you go if it needs maintenance.  If I look for one that needs maintenance, I may take a few things (logs, container), or not go at all.

Enjoy

Why maintain now?

    Someone asked me why I was doing a push for maintenance right now.  It is pretty simple really.  We have Geocoinfest coming up, we don't want to have a ton of empty/lost caches around for them to deal with, and second there is winter coming on.  Once October/November hits, there will be no ability to reach some of the caches, and the desire to go out in the cold keeps others from being checked.
The result is bombing you now, rather then in the middle of winter when we can do nothing about them.  So expect to be hit with a quick note if you have a cache that is under  the weather, or missing for some time.  I am trying to sort out the Difficulty 5 caches, so that they don't get flagged.  Many times people look for a few minutes and leave and say they looked.  That is the purpose of those caches.  You may get a note, please respond, or just to a quick check to see if it is still there.  People like to know they are looking for something, and that it has not fallen out of the tree and rolled into the storm drain.