Our Featured Geocacher this month is The Rappers, also known as Lloyd and Jennifer Rapp of Houston (pronounced House-tin according to Lloyd), but sometimes they just say they live close to Harrington. 

How would you introduce yourself?
Lloyd is a machinist in a tool and die shop and Jeni works for Bayhealth as a Phlebotomist.

Combined we have 4 Children.
·          Stephanie, A zoo keeper at the Philadelphia Zoo.

      ·          Joey, In the Navy and who’s whereabouts in the world we never know till he returns to Norfolk Va.

      ·          Ashlie, a Grad Student lives in Arlington Va. and will soon become a state trooper either in Maryland or here in De. Warning: When she pulls you over and after she stops laughing when you say you are geocaching she will still give you a ticket. and

        ·          Aaron, A high school student who sometime attends events with us. CITO events are good since he can get extra credit at school.

On Sundays, when we get our weekly phone calls from the children, the first question they ask is “What are you Nerd-Hunting”? 

We consider ourselves casual cachers, between working weekends when needed and the family spread out like it is, caching is what we do during “our time”. Caching has replaced our old activity of hiking around the local trails

How did you become involved with geocaching - and how long have you been doing it?
We received a plain Jane 2002 Garman Etrex as a promotional gift. We had no Idea what to do with it so after mapping out our yard and measuring the distance around the block it ended up in a drawer in the shed.

Two years later we found it again but could not find the book with it so we looked up GPS on the computer. During our search we came across several references about geocaching. Decided to give it a try and went to the nearest cache to our house, Hart612’s “Blair Pond Project” (GZJ0D2). We had no idea how to setup the GPS without the book so we printed out the cache page and watched the coordinates move up and down till we made our way to GZ. (If you think that’s funny go to that cache and try it). It was no fun at all and after several attempts at caching the next two years with the same aggravations said the heck with it.

One night while playing with the receiver we came across the setup page where you get the arrow and distance to GZ, this was a whole different game and we have been playing ever since. Even though our stats say we have been caching since Sept 2004 we really did not “get it”  (3 logged caches) till early 2006. We will never be power cachers but we don’t ever see the day where we go somewhere new and not try to find a couple.

How did you get your caching name?
Lack of imagination and our age. You all remember the song from the 60s

Do you always cache as a team? Who gets to hold the GPS unit? How to you decide who does what?
We almost always go together, This is our time. Lloyd has gone on missions with other cachers or for a local FTF but that’s rare.
When we cache he holds the GPS and goes first (to clear out the spider webs and pickers although he doesn’t realize this) Then I take it when we’re close and always find the cache first.   

How many caches have you found so far?
To date we have found 829 caches in 8 states.

 Attending 4^th Annual Fall Delaware Geoevent

How do the Delaware geocaches compare with those you found in the other states? Tell us a bit about your adventures in these states? .
We have noticed that terrain ratings change drastically.  What they called a 1 1/2 star terrain at Forest Drive Pipeline (GCGQ8M) in Seattle was actually a 80ft hike strait up the side of a hill,  so steep you needed both hands to pull yourself up using one tree to the next. It would be  a 6 star terrain here in Delaware.  But they won‘t get our 3 star salt marsh caches either. We also had a coin in a 2 star cache in Colorado that a cacher stated that he was skiing down the steep hill so fast that he could not stop in time to hunt for the cache.  Other then that, the caches are good and the cachers we have met are great.

I notice that you took a 200 mile trip to get NJ’s oldest cache, tell us about that trip.
While doing the C.A.C.H.E. Event we noticed it would not be hard to get the 10 oldest caches in Delaware at the same time. During that quest we found a listing of the oldest caches in each state.

gerbiL cacHe by cach=e_ninjA (GCC8) is the oldest cache in New Jersey and at that time was being honored with a commemorative coin for the next 100 cachers to find it. All you had to do is post your picture with the cache and mail in one of the coupons that were placed in the cache. We kept it on our watch list for over 3 months and did our best to count down how many were left. In March a lot of cachers started logging finds and the coupons were quickly dwindling.

On Saturday March 24^th we realized we had nothing important to do till Monday so we printed off a few cache pages and jumped in the car. We made it to the cache and found 2 more before sunset. Had a list for the next day but woke up to rain. The last coupon wasn’t taken until June 2^nd but we got ours. Our coin sits on the mantle above the fireplace. A 400 mile trip and only 6 caches, 2 in New York and 4 in New Jersey!  That’s where we came up with our Quality not Quantity forum title.

Which was the easiest?
We had the pleasure of going caching with Joey of the team debjoey over to Severn, MD to do the Solitaire series (GC1F3V9). Although we were all extremely impressed with how much time, thought, effort and money was put into putting this series together. The finds themselves were so easy only one of us bothered to get out of the jeep to get the caches. After getting 57 in one day, Jeni stayed home the following weekend while Joe and I went back to finish up the final 40 or so.

Tell us about your favorite caches?
Our favorite cache is “Getting around to it” (GCNFGT). A perfect combination of everything we love about caching. It was great weather, we timed the tide right and were in no hurry to be anywhere else. The next 3 ½ hours felt like we were in a world of our own a million miles away from everything. Once you get started you don’t even need to worry about the GPS, which gave us time to enjoy our surroundings and each others company. To this day no matter how bad the traffic is on 95 when we get to this section we look over and smile. We recommend this cache often to fellow cachers along with the advice to leave the boat at home. 

Have you had any memorable experiences while seeking a cache?
This is not pleasant story but we believe we are the only Delaware catchers who actually found a dead body while caching. During the DelaQuest event we went to Seahawks (GC10364) for our closest to Dover cache.  We pulled into the parking area and there was a car in the grass by the outhouse with the driver’s door open. 

Thinking it was someone who had to go real bad we thought nothing of it. While returning from getting the cache we noticed there was someone in the car slumped over with only the seat belt holding him in the car. Believing he was drunk we took a picture of him for the DelaQuest Photo contest for the strangest thing found near a cache.

Then a dog in the back seat of the car started barking and growling in a unfriendly tone and the man in the car never moved. We called 911 and after giving them the details we were asked to go to the entrance of the preserve and give directions. Within 10 minutes A fleet of 10 vehicles including a fire truck pulled in. 

We let them know where the man was and down the gravel road they went, so We decided to move on. Pretty much trashed the rest of our day and we decided to head home because we believed he was dead. Later we learned the death was from a drug overdose. Needless to say we never used the picture that we had taken! 

What advice would you give to a beginning geocacher?
First thing would be the same advice Rachalhead gave the first time we met but we didn’t listen to at the time:
                                     GO TO A EVENT!! Wished we listened. This is not Truman’s world and you are not alone.

Second would be:         MARK YOUR CAR!! (see next Question)
 

How do you decide when its time to bushwhack or to stay on the trail? Any stories on when you seem to have made the wrong choice?
We will bushwhack in a heartbeat. Even at a parking lot cache if there is a bush close enough to at least step over. Don’t remember the name of the cache but it was .4 miles from parking. We did not mark the car and left the trail at about 300ft. After several U-turns we found the cache but were totally lost (with a GPS in our hands?) It took us 20 minutes to find a trail, a hour to find a road and a 2 mile walk around the block to find the car, It was a great day. So the answer to the question is “no” we never made the wrong choice.

How many caches have you placed? How did you get started or come up with the ideas?

We have placed 8 caches and 7 of them are still up. We have Serious time restraints so we don’t put out more then we can properly maintain. We try to make them either unique or funny and durable. Our last 2 Hides were placed along the main travel routes as rest stops caches.

Have any of them been mugged?  If so, how did you handle this?
We had a De-sperate Housewives cache that went missing and did not replace it because we did not have the suitable container that represented the series.

What advice would you give to someone designing a cache placement?
Find some first. Look for some of the older hiking caches and Harder D/T combinations to get a idea of all the possibilities. If you make your first hide after finding only 5 micros under lamp post skirts chances are your hide will be a micro under a lamp post skirt.

Second would be even if you get permission from your local dentist to stick one in the bush in front of his office sooner or later that bush will show signs of abuse and that gives us all a bad Image.

Also Don’t sweat it. Our first cache “First National Geo-coin Bank of Delaware” (GC124A1) almost gave us ulcers but we soon found out fellow cachers will gladly help you if there are Problems.

What's your best caching story - the one you tell others to let them know the kind of fun and adventures one can have while geocaching?   There are two of us so we get two stories.

Lloyd’s favorite story:

We were at “Appoquinimink Hundreds cache” (GC10PDK) on a very peaceful morning. We just came out of the woods and were rounding the corner of the church in our own world as usual when out of the blue someone started yelling at us “what are you doing here, this is private property”. Startled, we just froze in our tracks and stared back like deer in the headlights. When we saw the GPS in there hands. our hearts started beating again and we had the pleasure of meeting Mike Ott, WhiteClayLover and Wahkegan. (Mike yelling at someone, That’s funny!)

Three weeks later after finding “The Trove at Brandywine” (GC2916) we notified the CO ( Mike Ott) that do to some work in the area the cache was exposed and needed to be moved. Mike questioned our motive and we had to send him pictures of the exposed cache to prove this was not an act of revenge.

Having said all that, this past summer Mike sent us a e-mail stating that GPSfun had contacted him about a micro hidden in the woods at Killens Pond that was placed without permission and never published. He sent us the coordinates and asked if we would go get it out before the park staff found it. We skeptically did go and find it but the whole time searching we were plotting our revenge if there was no cache there. By the way that micro is now our Truckin' cache (GC1F8YW).

 Jeni’s Favorite Story:

The first cacher we ever met on the trail was Hostanut at Scrapple-ers Woodenhawk TB Motel cache (GCY07T).

After Introductions he joined us in the search. After a long hunt with 2 bouncy GPS, our batteries died and he graciously went to his car to give us new ones. We poked around the area while waiting for him to return and continue our conversation and the hunt when we spotted the something a little off. When he returned we had the cache in hand and were about to log out First FTF. He did not appear to be upset but we imagine Lady H got a ear full about them damn Newbie’s when he got home.

One of the caches we just did, History Hunting by FSHPAD (GC1E16Q) This cache has been placed by the First State Heritage Park at Dover and is listed in the fall issue of the Delaware State Parks Program Guide. They took the step by welcoming and inviting geocachers to visit the historic district of our capital and it is a really nice Puzzle/Multi cache. Featuring it would be a good way to say “thanks we support you too“.

Any Final comments?
If anyone can tell us of an activity other then geocaching where you can run into a complete stranger in the middle of Nowhere, Anywhere. End up talking forever, exchanging phone numbers and referring to them as a friend all because you saw a GPS in there hand? Please let us know, we would sure love to try it.