Yeah, to be perfectly honest it was rather annoying to learn that I was trying to explain myself to the devil's advocate that has no first hand knowledge of the situation. You've seen some amazing places when out caching, I can only imagine how you would feel if you stopped doing that for a while and only did urban caches. Sometimes when it comes to urban caching you've gotta try to balance it out with a few rural caches to keep your sanity. By the way, I don't think we were all that far off. I have no problems with micros, in fact most of our hides are micros. Earlier I said I would rather find an easy micro in a park (even an LPC) than find a more difficult micro behind a dumpster. Now give me a difficult micro in a park and we're in real business! I like caches in parks because by now most cities have acknowledged caching in their parks and the Parks & Recreation guys are very aware as well. We've been approached by Parks & Recreation officers before but after telling
them we were geocaching they've just joined in the hunt. Everyday we hear of more and more people running into trouble (either the owner or the finder) because they were trespassing. This usually occur in parking lots, behind stores such as Home Depot, Wal-Mart, etc (my apologizes for using the stereotypical stores). And as more of these caches are found by newcomers their popularity and acceptance amongst the caching community grows. Unfortunately their acceptance amongst property owners and law enforcement do not grow and are leading to discussions of banning the activity in some areas. Whether finding a cache like this is a treasure for one cacher or not, when placed in situations like this it's very detrimental to the sport.
Maybe we need a different approach than posting negative or snobbish remarks, but I don't think we can just ignore the issue. Furthermore, we don't need to assume that all parking lot caches don't have permission. Case in point, there is a growing series of caches known as the Off Your Rocker series. They are caches placed at Cracker Barrel restaurants all around the US. Being a guy from the midwest that grew up on this kind of food I happen to have fond memories of making stops at Cracker Barrel's whenever we were on long trips. I decided to start a bookmark list so that it would be easier for cachers to locate these OYR caches while on a road trip. Something I found out right away was whether or not permission was allowed for these caches. As it turns out all caches placed at Cracker Barrels are pre-approved by the Head of Advertising at the Corporate Office (as long as the cache meets the other guidelines set forth by gc.com). Hiders are still encouraged to notify the
local store manager but atleast if something were to happen their is a name and contact information for each cache. I have included this persons full contact information in my bookmark list. The only unfortunate side to all of this is that even though approval has been given not many cache owners actually list this information in their cache descriptions. Maybe instead of leaving our negative remarks we could ask the cache owner to supply the name of the person(s) who gave permission for the cache.
There's actually a similar discussion going on in the forums right now where they are discussing whether or not permission should be a forced requirement for all caces located in parking lots (since someone does own the property). I can't find it right now or I'd post a link to it.
Jared
----- Original Message ----
From: noshdoo tsoh <
geocaching@deepsouthwest.com>
To:
listserv@azgeocaching.com
Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2007 11:20:38 AM
Subject: Re: [Az-Geocaching] Only an altoids tin!!
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In fairness to Jared and the rest of
the posters on this topic, I have no familiarity with actually going after
urban micros or the seeking issues that come with these. I dont doubt
these things that have been mentioned to be true. The 'sneaking around' aspect
of some of these caches sounds like no fun at all to me personally, and I would
give up on a cache that appeared to leading me to that kind of situation.
My point, and ShadowAce has heard my
rant more than once, ;-) is that if others enjoy a certain cache, or cache type,
and its within the law, then they should be allowed to play the game
their way without being harassed by cachers who dont like it. A negative
find log when you were mislead about what you were seeking seems a great way to
voice displeasure, but there are those whod love to go further.
Self-anointed cache cops are always waiting in the wings. How bout an
HOA-type organization to represent us and tell us about the proper way to
cache? Its been suggested.
From:
az-geocaching-bounces@listserv.azgeocaching.com [
mailto:az-geocaching-bounces@listserv.azgeocaching.com]
On Behalf Of AZcachemeister
Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2007
9:03 AM
To:
listserv@azgeocaching.com
Subject: Re: [Az-Geocaching] Only
an altoids tin!!
Perhaps we all should have a look at this site: The Geocacher's Creed
AZcachemeister wrote:
DWYT is good!
Here's another that has been used:
>From Prime Suspect's Geo-lexicon.
DPM
Including the letters DPM in a cache log was a once-secret way to
indicate the cache was of low quality. DPM is an abbreviation for des
palourdes mortes", which is French for the dead clams. The
entire French phrase is Les longs sanglots des palourdes mortes blessent
mon coeur avec un languor monotone pendant qu'ils dansent à minuit", which
translates to The long sobs of the dead clams wound my heart with a
monotonous languor as they dance at midnight. The idea was to include
this phrase in a cache log to clue in others that the cache was of low quality.
Rarely actually used, as the meaning of DPM quickly spread throughout the
geocaching community, and its secrecy was lost.
Jared Ross wrote:
Anyone else have any ideas or comments on how we can improve the caches in our
state? Maybe we need a special acronym. Instead of TFTC we could have DWYT
(Don't Waste Your Time). Of course we could always start using this website to
generate log entries for us:
http://loungingatwalden.googlepages.com/RandomLog.html
My favorite generated log entry: "This cache was ill-conceived and
ill-received. You should turn your GPS over to the nearest authorities! TNLN
and almost didn't bother signing the log!!"
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