dinobalz

dinobalz

Interviewed July 2006

The folks in this photograph are certainly NOT at a Delaware cache. But, those of you who visit our forum know that the dinobalz team had ample opportunity to be photographed in a wide variety of locales while they were on the road from mid April to mid June having the Great Southwestern Geocaching Adventure.

Those of you who geocache in the New Castle area also know this team as the creators of a number of well done geocaches that take you to some parts of New Castle many folks have never seen before. So, whether its here in New Castle or somewhere out there on the trail, the dinobalz team gets around.

As you will learn in the interview that follows this husband and wife team (Glenn and Kathy Petrucci) now has 200+ finds and some interesting insights into this sport which we all love. Here's how they answered our interview questions:

How did you become involved with geocaching - and how long have you been doing it?
We put off buying a GPSr for a long time.  We thought that it would be a good idea to have one to take along on our biking and hiking trips, but something else always seemed to take priority.  We started using mapping software, Microsoft MapPoint, when we planned our first RV trip in the Northwest US.  Along the way we met a few folks who showed us the benefits of owning a GPSr, and how it augmented the mapping software, so we finally bit the bullet and bought one.  It wasn't until after we returned from our Northwest trip that we looked into this "geocaching stuff" that came with the receiver and checked out the geocaching.com website, which was in the Fall of 2005.

How many caches have you found so far?
So far we are just under 250, so I guess we are at the “advanced beginner” stage.  We did get quite a geocaching education by doing all the caches on our southwestern trip, so the finds that we have are pretty diverse.

Which type of cache do you prefer seeking - traditional, multi, puzzle or virtual?
That's tough to say, but of course most of the ones we've done have been traditional caches.  We like to do the puzzle caches if they are interesting.

Which find was the most challenging?
The most physically challenging cache for me was the A Journey To The Center Of The Earth by WhereRWee? (GC7808) in Northern Arizona.  To get to this cache, the hike was only 3/4 of a mile, but it was through a lava tube-- climbing over rocks and ice, and crawling through tight spaces in a 32 degrees cavern.  I was totally exhausted by the time we climbed out of that lava tube!

This had to be one of the toughest climbs and it was all because we took the wrong way in! We wound up doing the cache twice in the same day. I was just impressed I made it where we went!

Kathy's choice of tough caches is Coconino Saddle by BootsWalker (GCA747) at the Grand Canyon.  Once again, this wasn't a long hike, only about 3 miles round trip, but it is about a 1200 foot vertical climb down from the rim of the canyon to Horseshoe Mesa.  That one was a real personal challenge for Kathy since she has a fear of heights-- or at least she used to. We haven’t tackled some of the more difficult caches in Delaware yet.  Horn229 has a few that look particularly challenging that we really want to give a shot sometime soon, but we may have to stick to some of the easier ones during the summer to give the stickers and poison ivy a chance to die off.  We did do Rail Cache (GCRXCK) by wdcarvr+1 which shouldn’t have been that difficult, but took us about an hour to find..

Which was the easiest?
I'd have to say that the easiest one was a webcam cache we did on the downtown mall in Charlottesville, VA.  All you had to do was walk in front of the webcam, wave, and send the owner an email.

Which was your favorite?
One of our favorites in Delaware is Higher Aspirations by MikeOtt (GCNG7H), but I can't comment on it too much without spoiling it for the folks who haven't done it yet.  We also really liked Iron Hill Tweet Tweet by MomMom&PopPop (GCNCDM) because of the neat container.

In New Mexico, we enjoyed Arroyo Boulder Hike by Hiltz (GCEF9E).  This was a great hike that teaches you to plan you hike well.  It is positioned in such a way that taking direct routes to the cache will cause you to walk a lot further than you have to.  This cache was one that Runfrog, who is originally from Albuquerque, told us about.

What's the most unusual thing you've found in a cache?
We found a travel-size roll of Charmin toilet paper in one.  It seemed like an unusual item, but kind of practical to find in a cache that requires a long hike, I guess.  The worst thing we've ever come across is a cache that someone left a pack of mints in.  The entire cache was covered with ants.  I guess it made it kind of easy to find; we just followed the ant trail.

Have you had any memorable experiences while seeking a cache?
Our “Great Southwestern Geocaching Adventure” trip was a very memorable experience.  We were on the road for over two months and traveled over 10,000 miles!  I’ve been telling Kathy about the southwest (I used to live in Southern California and Arizona) and promising to take her on a tour for years.

Adding geocaching to a tour like that was remarkable.  Before geocaching, we’ve always had a great time traveling; visiting new places, hiking, biking, and checking out the local attractions.  Adding the geocaching dimension, though, took us to many places that we would never have known to visit.  In a way, it was like having a local person as a tour guide everywhere we went.  At each place we had a list of new places to visit, complete with descriptions and comments about the area from other folks that had done the cache!

One particular experience that we had stands out, though.  While searching for a cache along Route 66 in Texas we met a father and son team who reached the cache just as we did.  After talking with them a while, it turned out that we had done a couple of the caches that they had put out in New Mexico, and they were really interested in hearing about our adventures trying to find them, and pleased that we enjoyed the places they took us to in their home town.  It was pretty cool that we could meet complete strangers in a state where none of us lived, and get to describe an experience that they provided.

What advice would you give to a beginning geocacher?
First of all, get out there and do it!  I know not everyone can take off for a cross-country geocaching trip, but there are tons of geocaches everywhere, right close to home.  If you like to walk or hike, geocaching makes it much more enjoyable by giving you a goal- another purpose for hiking besides fresh air and exercise.

I’d also suggest doing a few caches with someone who has done it before who can provide a few tips and tricks and help explain some of the “geo-jargon” folks tend to use in the cache descriptions.  Using a GPSr is pretty straightforward, but with a little experience and common sense they can be used much more effectively. 

I think it helps to realize that everyone’s geocaching goals are not the same, and they don’t have to be!  Some are into numbers, doing as many as possible as quickly as possible, and some want to get the First-To-Find, while others prefer doing caches at a leisurely pace and take in the area.  The thing is not to get hung up on trying to “keep up” with someone else’s goals (unless that’s your thing); geocache the way you enjoy it!

How many caches have you placed?
We have fifteen cache placements, although one is a replacement so only fourteen are active.

Have any of them proven to be more "popular" than what you expected?
"Bulls Eye". It’s a simple one in a parking lot which I placed, so that people out in my area had things to find, and people just have a blast with that one! I think it’s the silliest thing, but cachers have loved it!

Have any of them proven to be more difficult to find than you expected?
Not really.  Actually I thought that a couple of them were going to be more difficult than they turned out to be, but we’ve got some pretty good cachers here in Delaware that are not too easy to challenge.

Immanuel Episcopal Churchyard (GCTCVC) is a puzzle cache gave some folks problems but that was because of some discrepancies on the markers, but I plan to fix that.

We didn’t want to put out a cache that we couldn’t do either, since that didn’t seem like it would be “fair”, but since our southwest trip we’ve learn a couple of nasty tricks that I can’t wait to spring on the Delaware cachers.  One of my goals is to put out a cache that gives Horn229 just a little challenge.  His comments usually always says it was really easy!

Have any of them been muggled? If, so how did you handle this?
The only one that I know for sure that turned up missing was Narrow Dyke Canal, and I’m not sure if it was muggled, fell in the water, or maybe its really still there under all the growth!  If it is still there, it can stay there until winter!

Instead of just replacing it, I changed it a little, archived the old listing and created a new one, NarrowDykeCanal Revisited (GCWQC2).  It is different enough that it requires another search even if you did the old one.

What's your best caching story?
One of our best is when I first tried to put out the original Narrow Dyke Canal cache.  It was an ammo box and I rigged up an “extender” I made out of old curtain rods.  My intention was to hide it inside the culvert pipe but have it reachable without having to get in the water.  Kathy convinced me to give up and that the “contraption” was a miserable failure after spending two hours trying to get it to work.  Not to mention all the encounters with spiders, ticks, snakes, and mosquitoes I had to endure, and nearly falling into the water several times.  Kathy was a good sport and didn’t laugh too much, but drew the line at holding onto my feet while I hung over the edge of the dike.

What advice would you give to someone designing a cache placement?
Don’t hang over the edge of a dike!

Seriously, the caches we have enjoyed the most took us to places that were interesting places to visit, so look for a spot that you would want to take an out-of-town guest to show off our state.

If you put one in a not-so-interesting area, I think good camouflage is appreciated.

Beside geocaching, what other things do you like to do?
Kathy loves doing math problems, crosswords, and word puzzles, and I’m a long-time gadget geek and computer person, so I guess that all fits in with geocaching pretty well.  We like to travel, go off-road biking a lot, and love to hike, so that fits in too.  We enjoy cooking and trying out new restaurants too, so it’s a good thing we get lots of exercise at our other hobbies.

Which Delaware cache site would you'd like to see featured on the web page and why?
Maybe Cache Emplacement by njski (GCJ3DC).  The cache itself isn’t all that interesting, but the spot, Ft. DuPont certainly is.

Thanks, dinobalz, for sharing these answers with us.