It is really refreshing to see that some regional park authorities can figure out how to embrace this wonderful game and incorporate it into their own mandates. To learn about Arkansas’s state park geocaching program, visit their website. You can click their logo below to see a bookmark list of caches in Arkansas state parks.

Arkansas State Parks: Parkcache

Canada’s Capital Cachers have a limited number of geocoins for sale. All proceeds from the sale of these coins go to CCC to help pay for our events, and our community outreach. The coins are available in antique nickel or antique gold.

Getting these coins made on behalf of our local caching club has been a pet project of mine for a few months now, and I am thrilled with the way they’ve turned out. On the weekend, one Ottawa geocacher told me they’re the nicest geocoins he’s ever seen!

Canadian residents can buy coins from me for $15 (Can) plus $2 shipping. I accept PayPal! Email me if you’re interested. geonarcissa  *-at-* gmail

All others can go to Geocoindesign.com’s web store to purchase coins for $14 (US) plus shipping (the site will calculate cost based on where you live).

CCC Geocoin in Antique Gold

I was pleased to receive my first issue of FTF Geocacher in the mail last week. I was particularly happy that I wasn’t charged additional fees for shipment to Canada! I also received a pathtag with my copy.

The magazine is aesthetically pleasing. Though the inside content is in black and white, the layout is eye-catching and there are plenty of pictures. There were few ads, though I expect the ads will increase in number as the magazine establishes itself. There is a good variety of content, from short, light-hearted snippets to longer, serious articles. The content is also well-selected to appeal to a broad range of geocachers, from the casual newcomer to the seasoned old-timer.

On the downside, it seemed hastily edited and I spotted several typos. In a magazine with few pages and such light content, there’s no excuse for so many errors to get through the proofreading stage. On top of that, the writing wasn’t always magazine quality. I hope that they’re able to procure better-written content – or at least better editing – for future issues. On a personal note, I felt that the excerpt from my blog was clumsily selected. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with grabbing content from the many geocaching blogs (and they did have my permission), but I expect a print magazine to have a higher standard of editing than a personal blog.

Despite the shortcomings, I did enjoy the magazine and plan to bring it with me to some geocaching events I’m attending in the coming weeks.

Taoiseach and I had a busy weekend. The CCC geocoins finally arrived on Thursday, so I spent Thursday afternoon getting the pre-orders ready for delivery. The coins look great. I’m going to try to get better pictures of them, but here’s what they look like:

On Sunday, we went up to see wheezor of Cacher’s Toy Box in Lakefield, Ontario, and then did some geocaching in the hilly countryside around Peterborough.

Not even Taoiseach’s super winter caching skills could pry this cache from its icy hidey-hole.

My favourite cache of the day was Stone Portal, named for this fascinating structure on a nearby hilltop.

February’s going to be busy – there are at least four local geocaching events this month!

I have mixed feelings about geocaching power trails, but I have to admit that they make cool screenshots!

Power trail in San Diego

If you have some spare time, please read this horrible, biased article about geocaching and leave a comment to let them know what you think of this kind of sensationalist, reckless reporting.

I just learned about some unfortunate fall-out from the recent geocaching-related bomb scare in Texas – a cacher who was spotted with the cache (not the cache owner) was arrested over it. A letter to the geocaching community from this cacher has been posted in the Groundspeak Forum.

Itching for a serious challenge? Check out this multi-state caching challenge, to be unveiled this Spring!

A multi-state geocaching challenge!

Locus Prime has updated several of his Greasemonkey scripts for Geocaching.com:

Quick Hint
Log Maximizer
Log Find Counter
Quick Waypoint Entry
Bookmark Buttons

You can get the updated scripts here.

Thank you!

Found out about this one from bluelamb03 via Taoiseach. I’m sure we’ve all muttered this to ourselves at some point or another, but let it be known that there is only one – GC1V08E.