"This was our family's first cache hunt and finding it hooked us on caching. It was a great walk but I wouldn't recommend it for short people as some of the grasses and plants are quite tall. My GPS got us within 8 feet but the cache was well hidden. It took us 15 minutes or so to find it. Major fun for us."
That was my very first cache log. It seems like a long time ago. Back in those days the a lot of GPS units didn't have the last digit of the coordinates. My first one didn't and it made for some wide search circles. Our 2 daughters usually went along which gave us 4 sets of eyes. That helped a lot.
That was also long before caches could be downloaded onto GPS's. Many hours were spent printing out cache pages on painfully slow ink jet printers. That would then be followed by hand entering coordinates into the GPS. I can't count how many times we almost DNF'd a cache only to realize that I had mistakenly entered the coordinates wrong.
Most of those early units also only worked if you were moving. My first GPS had to be moving at 2.5 mph or the compass needle would disappear. As you started to slow down nearing GZ the needle would just vanish. That meant a lot of walking away and walking back to stay headed in the right direction.
None of that bothered us in the least and we went caching as often as we could. The whole family loved it. I enjoyed how it took me to places I didn't know existed. My wife loved it because she enjoys walking. The kids were addicted because of the swag trading. The ammo can ruled in those days and they were packed full of cool stuff.
Looking back on 10 years I realize all the places caching has taken me and all the interesting things I've seen. I'm also amazed at some of the things caching has caused me to do in all those years. Like driving 2500 miles out of our way just to pick up three more states. Or rappelling down a very steep slope because I wanted a 5/5. Getting dropped off by helicopter on a mountain top because I knew it was way more than I could climb but there were caches up there. Moving from Juneau to Anchorage because I ran out of caches to find. I could go on but you get the idea.
To sum it all up. It has been an awesome 10 years and I expect another 10 just like it too come. Many thanks go to all the cache placers out there that have made it all what it is.