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Untitled Document
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| Florida
Geocaching - Comparisons and Contrasts |
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| by Scott Legal |
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| Me standing in front of
the Magic Kingdom at Disney World |
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| Jeff at a virtual cache in EPCOT |
It became rather difficult for
me to find the time to write about my exploits in Florida while
I was there. This was a vacation where Geocaching was secondary
(at least according to my family). So I decided that I'd write
a little article about the whole Geocaching experience including
a little comparison of caching techniques and environments I
observed there with what we are all accustomed to here in Thousand
Oaks.
First of all, this was a family vacation, not a Geocaching trip,
a fact that several family members reminded me of several times.
I still managed to find a total of 13 caches while in Florida.
I failed on 5. My biggest failing was in the preparation area.
I downloaded over 200 waypoints for the trip, but didn't print
any cache pages as I ran out of time. So I didn't know what
sort of cache I was looking for on several occasions. A couple
were reported missing and I didn't know it. But I still had
more successes than failures.
There were two main types of caches that I found. The first
was the Disney caches. Most were virtuals and all were placed
by tourists, not locals. So local flavor isn't there. The virtuals
are easy and just a simple diversion from the main Disney attractions.
There was a micro on Tom Sawyer's Island, 'Disney
Microcache 1' Jr by downy288, that I failed to find. I e-mailed
the hider and think I found the exact spot it was in, but I
believe it has been plundered. Too bad, because it was a neat
hiding place. I did find a micro in Epcot, Disney
Microcache 2 (EPCOT) by RBDupuy. Here is a listing of my
other Disney finds: Magic
Kingdom by Buddhavista, EPCOT
by JTeate, That's
Some Water, Eh? - TDR3v by Slith & t'sChillin - Team Dragon
Racing and Downtown
Disney by Crashmore.
The second type of cache in Florida that I found was those placed
by locals. These are the kinds of caches that take you places
you wouldn't otherwise visit, let alone even know about. We
all know about that right here in our own backyard. I certainly
can't give a complete picture of Florida Geocaching. I didn't
look for enough caches. But I did come away with a sense for
what it's like there and felt that I came away with some interesting
comparisons and contrasts. So let's begin:
TERRAIN. What makes a difficult terrain rating in Florida?
Well it certainly isn't long hikes with significant elevation
changes. Florida is pretty flat. But it does rain a lot there
and there is a lot of standing water there. So the terrain rating
can easily be affected by mud, growth of vegetation and wildlife.
But I observed that anything over a 2.5 star terrain rating
is quite rare in Florida. I did find one 3.5 star terrain cache,
but it was clearly overrated. I would give it a 1.5 terrain
rating, if that. It is worth noting that I did look up three
5 star terrain caches in the Kissimmee area. All three require
the use of a boat to get to islands in the middle of lakes.
I view those three caches as rather spooky. After you read my
writing on wildlife, you should be able to see why I feel that
way.
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| A real, live gator, swimming
freely near Tom Sawyer's Island at Disney World! Can you
believe it?!? |
WILDLIFE. In California, we have rattlesnakes. I have
even seen a couple mountain lions in the Thousand Oaks area.
But my biggest concern in Thousand Oaks is the dreaded tick.
I have this great fear that I'm going to my one of the dreaded
parasites and wake up one morning with Lime Disease or Rocky
Mountain Spotted Fever. But in Florida, one cache I found warned
of the possibility of running into alligators. I took this warning
seriously, but fortunately did not see any alligators on my
cache expeditions. But I did see two alligators at the Kennedy
Space Center and one at Disney World. For all of my life I thought
that the folks at Disney were meticulous about safety, keeping
anything natural, other than plants, bugs and birds a great
distance away from their parks. So it came as a shock to see,
as we were boarding the raft to take us off of Tom Sawyer's
Island, a five foot alligator swimming from the island toward
Frontier Land. That thing could have grabbed my daughter! I
had no idea that one could be right there.
The same cache that warned about alligators also warned about
snakes. They have rattlesnakes in Florida too. And I suspect
the snakes find it a bit easier to hide there than here because
there is much more vegetation to get lost under. But Florida
is also home to the Coral Snake (whose venom acts much like
the Cobra's), the Cotton Mouth or Water Moccasin, and the Copperhead.
So snakes played a role in my mind as I looked for several caches.
Florida has mosquitoes too. Anyplace that names things after
mosquitoes must have a problem with them. There is a bay just
north of Titusville, where I spent a couple hours caching, called
Mosquito Bay. I read on one cache page that jokingly referred
to the mosquito as the Florida state bird. I got a few bites
while there, but was told that the Mosquito problem doesn't
really get bad until June or July. Nevertheless, the ones I
saw were enormous compared to mosquitoes in California. A couple
of times I mistook them for helicopters. OK, so I'm exaggerating
a little here, but you get the point. Oh yeah, and I'm sure
they have ticks too, but I didn't see any.
Florida also has panthers and bears. So Florida certainly has
its fair share of wildlife hazards for Geocachers to be aware
of. But while I remained aware of these hazards, they did not
deter me from pursuing the few caches I looked for.
VEGETATION. In California we have poison oak. In Florida
they have poison ivy. Poison ivy is probably more plentiful
there than poison oak is here and I did run into it. Fortunately,
the same rule of "leaves of three" applies to poison ivy, making
it pretty easy to identify.
We have brush, but it hardly compares to the amount of vegetation
they have. Two of the caches I looked for required my to climb
over waste tall palms while avoiding poison ivy, plus trying
to keep an eye out for poisonous snakes and alligators. But
all in all, I found the vegetation to be a refreshing change
of pace from the California scene.
DIFFICULTY. Well, I'm sure they have tough ones like
anyone else. There were a couple I couldn't find. There was
a hide-a-key micro that I couldn't find that another person
logged the same day I looked. There were too in cemeteries that
I refused to try because I feel that Geocaching for traditional
caches in cemeteries is disrespectful. But in the sampling of
over 200 waypoints that I downloaded, very few caches (a much
smaller proportion than here) had a difficulty rating higher
than 2.5. I'm not drawing any conclusions from that, but if
the Florida difficulty ratings are consistent with what we are
all used to then the average Florida cache must be a little
easier to find that our average cache.
I didn't find any really creative cache containers. I'm not
saying there aren't any there, I just didn't find any. All I
found were jars, jugs, M&M tubes, and, you guessed it, Tupperware.
But I will say that Tupperware that is camouflaged green has
a real fighting chance of not being found in many places in
Florida.
So here is a listing of all of the non Disney caches that I
found in Florida: Rainbow
Purple, Rainbow
Red, Rainbow
Orange, Rainbow
Yellow, Rainbow
Green and Rainbow
Blue, Indecision
by SceneryGuy, and pine
woodz by Rob and Don.
I'd like to go back and do more Geocaching in Florida some day.
I would try to be more prepared with a set number of caches
and printouts to look for. I would try to set aside a day or
two to just cache instead of just trying to squeeze a little
in as a side trip from some other planned activity. So if you
have a trip to Florida planned, give the caches a try. There
is an established caching community there and lots of caches
to choose from. |
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