A Couple FTFs

Photo by Lawrence of Berkley

Last night, after our Virtual Caching Run, we had just settled in for the evening when the iPhone went off with several new cache publishes. The closest was within two miles of the apartment, six more within five miles all in the same direction. How could we pass that up? We could not, but we were less successful than we'd like. First, the Oregon 300 has developed a new problem of ignoring some of the GPX files loaded onto it directly from the Geocaching.com files (either using the Communicator Plug-in or copy from the e-mailed files). Only three of the seven caches were accessible from the Oregon, so we ended up using the iPhone and the Geocaching App to successfully find the first two caches, both an FTF. The third cache we attempted was in a park (closed) where we saw a probable caching vehicle. So on to the third where we got an STF. We drove to the fifth and discovered that it too was in a park. The remaining caches looked inaccessible at that time of night so we called the hunt. Final count: 2 FTFs, 1 STF, 2 Unattempted.

This is a great example of why it is that I like having more than one device for my caching. The Oregon was malfunctioning (the caches appeared in the device's directories as loaded by the "Send to GPS" option from Geocaching.com, but would not display on the Oregon in any way) so we used the iPhone with the Geocaching App to avoid heading back to the apartment and reload the caches. Previously we would have used two GPSes of different models (the 60CSx and Legend Cx had been our longest lasting combo) which served us well. Not only did that give us two differing opinions as to where the cache was located, but a back-up should one fail. Even if I had all the features I've been asking for in a single app on the iPhone (or other connected device), I would still want to carry a back-up GPS. Especially with though connected devices there's more room for failures. I'll write more about that tomorrow though.