Great comment: **I’m from the government I’m here to kill all human joy and tax it.**
I’m not gonna call the cops.
Geocaching is a great way to get kids outside, but we only go for caches that are a few miles’ hike; the low-hanging fruit isn’t worth it. If you live in an area with history, geocachers will find some nice hidden areas and direct you to them.
Prvate property rights are paramount, though; there is a screening process for placing geocaches. Even parks often require permits.
It a great hobby, get some good exercise, burn lots of gas, see parts of your county you never knew existed The Caching Crew (2600 finds)
Another example of local politicians overreaching.
It sounds to me (story could be reported wrong) like the concern was brought up by local council members, not a resident. The article cites a possible altercation if someone looks suspicious.
However, no actual incident to that effect is mentioned in the article.
So my guess is that there’s a council member who heard about this, and didn’t like something about it which prompted them to want to regulate it.
My advice to the community is, find out who this council member(s) is (are) and get them off the council as fast as you can.
I really enjoyed it. I traveled internationally. Would always try to find a geocache on the weekend. Loved the travel bugs. I would drop them over there with a note to point them home to my own cache. They returned from Singapore, Melborne, Tokyo, Belgium, S Africa, Mexico, Spain, Brasil and Argentina. Passing through hundreds of hands that passed them forward. I still have them...nice treasures. One is still out there. It is a dog tag hooked to a rubber snake. You don’t put it in the cache but very near it. It is to teach the children to BE SAFE geocaching. I has been in circulation for almost 11 years.
Error Number One: "A geocache is most often a trinket like a deck of cards, a keyring or a poem."
No A geocache is a hidden container that has a log book. It MIGHT contain treasure (A.K.A. SWAG in Geocache speak) but many geocaches are so small they can only contain the log. Especially urban caches.
Error Number Two: "It’s buried in a waterproof container of varying sizes."
Very few Geocaches are buried and If they are they are buried under loose rocks or piles of wood. In fact the guidelines for placing a cache absolutely forbid placing a cache wherein one needs to use a shovel to retrieve it. The Geocache sites don't want people running around with shovels digging holes especially when you consider that GPS units are only accurate to within 20 feet and that is under optimal conditions at sites with no large structures or trees nearby.
Error Number Three: "Geocaching begins with a piece of equipment — a handheld GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) unit, which costs anywhere from about $25 to $100, that you buy at a sporting-goods store."
GPS Units vary way more in price with very few under 75 dollars and most well over 100 Bucks. The more expensive ones have all manner of nifty features including a paperless Geocache logging system which is very handy!
Oh yeah. THIS is something the government should regulate! Good heavens ...
What’s Reagan’s famous quote? “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”
The funny thing is, someone reported not finding the cache, but instead found somebody's stash of drugs.
That's the problem around here. There are some hidden pot farms in the hills around here. People have been killed for accidentally stumbling onto them.
-PJ
I’ve done this with my son, it’s fun. It figures the nannystatists would want to regulate it.