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I placed a 2005 Maine Geocoin in our first cache, I didnt write down the ser.#, I just placed it as a prize for someone. Is this O.K.? Reading some of the posts I see that they are trackable and /or can be registered. Does this mean they can be used as a travel bug? How do you register them and what is the purpose? Any info. on these would be appreciated as I have one more to go in my 2nd cache, and one to keep as a collector item for myself. Thanks,,"Dave and Gail" the newbies!
They are all registered already. They are just waiting for the first person to log them. Until the first person logs them then they will not appear on the listing. You can view the listing here http://www.geocachingmaine.org/index.php?page=mainecoin
Oooooh! Nice!! I hadn't seen this before - good job, Rick! :D :DQuote:
Originally Posted by attroll
It has been on the homepage ever since we started releasing Maine coins.Quote:
Originally Posted by WhereRWe?
Yeah where you been Bruce? ;)
NOT releasing Maine geocoins! LOL! :p :pQuote:
Originally Posted by Haffy6
Do you have to move them along or can you keep them??
If you picked one up in a cache, it's proper etiquette to move it along. If you want one to keep, I'm pretty sure there are a lot of extras among the Maine cachers. If you go to the event this weekend, I'd be willing to sell you one at cost (or there abouts...) :D :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Dave and Gail
Thanks WhereRwe, I already have one to collect,ser#0180, and I have one more to place in our next cache hide. Just didnt know what the heck your sposed to do with the things. I guess Its kind of a T.B. right?? I placed one in our first cache this past weekend and didnt even write down the # or log it, I thought it would make a nifty prize for someone...Newbies we are!! Any more info will be appreciated, Thanks
Thanks for asking . . . I was wondering this myself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave and Gail
Thanks . . . I was wondering this myself. Oh well . . . guess I should practice proper etiquette. How much are the coins selling for?Quote:
Originally Posted by WhereRWe?
When first released, Maine geocoins were getting $30 on eBay. There's now one listed with a "buy it now" price of $11.99. Not sure if it will sell at this price.Quote:
Originally Posted by firefighterjake
Having said that, I really don't know what the current market price is for Maine geocoins... :o :o
no reason to get robbed on ebay. I still have a few left. Email me and I'll get you set up. ($3.00 each if you pick up in Bangor area, $3.25 each +$2.25 shipping if you need them mailed)
That way you can keep your low numbered coin in your collection and put high numbered ones in the cache:D
I'll take you up on that offer Sudonim. Just tell me when and where. I'd like two if I could . . . one to send and one to keep. 992-4714 (work number during the day.)Quote:
Originally Posted by Sudonim
Jake can always be reached by dailing 911:DQuote:
Originally Posted by firefighterjake
On a related vein of thought . . . those of you who have released Maine geocoins . . . 1) Do most people send them along or have you found most people collecting them as trade items? 2) Do you add a tag or other indicator to let geocachers know you desire these coins to be passed from cache to cache?
Sudonim, I'd like to get 2 Maine Geocoins if possible. I live in the Bangor area (Orrington) so anytime is good for me.
Faolan
PM'ed RE:coinQuote:
Originally Posted by Faolan
are you going to be at the Mt. Ag Event Sudonim??? If so will you have coins to sell there???
Sorry Hiram, gotta work :(Quote:
Originally Posted by Hiram357
Maybe we can set up a place to meet though. Give me a buzz @ 989-1889 from 10am-6pm weekdays. I'm almost always here :)
ya know you would just call in drunk and turn your phone off... youd be home free!Quote:
Originally Posted by Sudonim
LOL! He'd have to call himself. He owns the company! :p :pQuote:
Originally Posted by Hiram357
well then what the heck is the problem!?!?!?!?!:confused::confused::confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by WhereRWe?
Or just keep caching . . . seeing as you guys have met up twice before while caching without even trying to do so. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Sudonim
Well that would explain why he wasn't worried about getting back to work when I was there yesterday buying some coins . . . I kept asking Andy if I was holding him up or if he needed to get back to work! I didn't realize he owned the place. :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by WhereRWe?
well yeah, but that was unplanned and unintentional, if ya try to plan somethin it would never work... it's like trying to plan on finding somethin with a magellan... it just doesn't work... :D:D:DQuote:
Originally Posted by firefighterjake
No, no, no . . . finding the caches with the Magellan isn't the problem . . . I just keep stumbling around, shuffling my feet at every pile of sticks, rocks, etc. and poking my head into every hole in the ground as I move out in an ever-widening concentric circle until I either find the cache or fall over after becoming completely dizzy and disoriented from being in the sun for too long. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Hiram357
It's the hiding caches with my Magellan where I run into problems . . . like putting the cache 300 feet off the trail in middle of someone's living room if you read the coords. :D (Actually, being serious here, I mixed up the coords with one stage with another and the other coords were off a bit the first few times, but were within a couple digits of TRF's the other night.)
......and now that the coordinates are corrected, this will be a very popular cache. :D I got to know those trails like the back of my hand the last couple of days :rolleyes: ........but today....TA DA!! Got it!! :)Quote:
Originally Posted by firefighterjake
Thanks for the atta-boy. I'm glad to hear the coords are now all good. Thanks to everyone who inadvertently became my guinea pigs and found the error of my ways.Quote:
Originally Posted by Smitty & Co.
Hopefully folks will begin trying out this cache and will not be scared away by the fact that it's a multi, has micros and incorporates puzzles (they're easy puzzles, trust me.)
I'm hoping folks are able to remember to hide things as well as they found them too -- particularly the 3rd stage as it needs to be hid in one particular way to avoid being easily noticed by muggles.
Congrats on finding it . . . well finding them . . . the caches that is.
. . . and since you mentioned fiddleheads in the log entry at GC.com I thought I would share my very first Chewin' the Cud column in Village Soup with the folks here. This is a true story that happened last year.Quote:
Originally Posted by Smitty & Co.
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Chewin' the Cud: My fiddleheading misadventure
By Jason Johnson
UNITY (May 29): A few weekends ago I decided to go fiddleheading with a couple of friends of my wife's. For the sake of anonymity, let's call them B. Stackhouse from Pittsfield and J. Tupper from Unity.
In any case, the day started out well enough as Bobby and I headed down to our not-so-secret spot alongside 25-Mile Stream to pick a few fiddleheads. I had told Jolean that we would meet her around 9 a.m. at my house and so at 9:30 a.m. (knowing Jolean's tendency to never be on time) we headed back to my house ... only to find that she still had not arrived.
Nevertheless, after a fashion, Jolean showed up and together the three of us loaded up my beat-up canoe dubbed the "Ugly Duckling" into Bobby's pickup since Jolean and I had discovered an even more secret spot that was a virtual Fiddlehead Nirvana ... the only problem was it required the use of a canoe to cross over the stream.
Now you probably should know a few things about the Ugly Duckling. First off, this isn't one of those high-tech carbon fiber canoes built up in Old Town or even one of those lovingly crafted wood canoes that have been passed down from generation to generation. I bought the Ugly Duckling at a yard sale a number of years ago for about $25 (and that included the paddles.)
You probably should know that the reason I dubbed this old canoe the Ugly Duckling is due to the fact that it's not exactly the type of canoe you'll ever see gracing the cover of a LL Bean catalog.
Over the years with use and abuse the caning in the seats has been torn off and I've patched her up with so much fiberglass matting that it looks like it has a very bad case of leprosy … which incidentally has led to a major shortage of fiberglass epoxy and matting at Mac's Hardware.
In any case, we got the Ugly Duckling down to the stream. It was shortly after we had unloaded the Ugly Duckling that I had a couple premonitions of the calamity that was about to come.
The first sign of trouble was when Jolean managed to do a face plant into the mud ... despite the fact that there wasn't a tree root, rock or stump in sight.
The second sign was even more ominous as Bobby told me how every year he would go fiddleheading with his father (who died this past year) and every year his father would somehow manage to fall into the stream and go for an unexpected early-spring swim.
I should have realized right then and there that my carefree fiddleheading was about to take a turn for the worse. However, the lure of the fiddleheads ("the size of silver dollars" according to Jolean) was too strong and so we started out in the Ugly Duckling to make the 15 or so foot crossing of the stream.
Bobby volunteered to take the lead in the bow of the canoe followed by Jolean, who settled in the middle. Almost immediately, Jolean began to express some concerns. "I don't know. I don't know," said Jolean. "I think there might be weight limits for these canoes. I don't think this is a good idea."
From my vantage point on the stream bank the situation didn't look so bad and so after dismissing Jolean as simply being a bit of a pessimist I jumped into the canoe and shoved off from the shore.
"Don't worry Jolean. It's only a short stretch of water and besides if something happens we'll just go downstream a ways and get fetched up on that large tree blocking the stream," I replied.
I had no sooner said this however when I realized two disconcerting facts: 1. with all of the recent rain the stream was moving by at quite the fast pace and; 2. Jolean was right to worry about overtaxing the canoe as it was about three inches from the waterline. Never one to worry, I quickly told Bobby that we should probably head back to shore.
Fortunately, there was a tree growing nearby which I was able to grab hold of and use to help pivot the canoe back toward the shore.
Unfortunately, this action was merely one more mistake in a morning full of mistakes.
We were pivoting back toward the shore when we reached a point where the Ugly Duckling stopped pivoting (maybe someone who didn't fail physics in high school could tell me what this point is known as -- probably something like Pointus of No Returnus or some other Latin-sounding scientific name or Murphy's Axiom of Pivoting Canoes) and the canoe began dipping into the water.
It was at this point that Jolean began screeching, "The water is coming in. The water is coming in."
This reminded me a bit of Henny Penny of "The sky is falling. The sky is falling" fame. Unfortunately, unlike Henny Penny, Jolean was right ... the Ugly Duckling was rapidly filling with water.
Like a slow motion train wreck I watched in horror from the rear of the canoe as it filled with water, the bow dipped down and Bobby went down with it -- followed in quick succession by Jolean -- and it was at this point that I remember thinking, "Holy crap. Looks like I'm going in too."
Fortunately, I had heeded Jolean's advice to bring the life vests.
Unfortunately, none of us had thought to actually put them on...something I always do, but this one time did not since I had told myself I wouldn't need them due to this just being a short stretch of water.
As we all foundered toward the shore I remember thinking that of all of the many dumb things I had done that morning the absolute dumbest thing I had done was my choice of footwear.
Earlier, I had grabbed an old pair of firefighter's rubber boots to wear, which worked great while fiddleheading along the stream. However, while the firefighter boots worked great in the mud and shallow water, they did not work so well when filled with a couple quarts of stream water.
In fact, the boots worked as well as a pair of cement shoes. I have always told my wife that I would like to be buried in my firefighter uniform, but dying while wearing firefighter gear was not part of my ultimate plan.
Bobby and Jolean made it to shore in a rather quick fashion while I attempted to "swim" (and I use this term loosely here) in a sort of fashion toward shore.
As I slowly moved toward the bank I had a great water-line view of the Ugly Duckling with the life vests still inside drifting by, my paddle drifting by, Jolean's hat drifting by and Bobby's pail that had been a quarter full of fiddleheads drifting by.
For some reason of all the things I choose to latch on to -- of all the things that would provide me with some flotation even -- the one thing I grabbed hold of and held onto for dear life was Bobby's now nearly-empty pail of fiddleheads.
I guess you could blame it on the cold water, but for some reason I also felt compelled to try to save as many of the fiddleheads drifting by as well. I can only imagine the sight I must have been as I sort of half swam-sank to shore all the while trying to grab a hold of as many fiddleheads as possible -- all I can think is that I must have looked like a giant bullfrog on some type of bizarre feeding frenzy. In the end though I had managed to save about 20 or 25 of those edible ferns.
To make a long story short, I eventually got to shore and began to plot out my next move while attempting to wring out as much water from my clothing as possible. Bobby, meanwhile, was frantically trying to get his hospital pager to work, while Jolean was trying to figure out where we could find some more fiddleheads to pick.
I decided my first task would be to retrieve the Ugly Duckling... a simple affair I thought. Remember that large tree blocking the stream? I figured I would simply walk out on to the tree and rescue the Ugly Duckling when it fetched up on the tree.
However, this was not to be since there was maybe a five- or six-foot "hole" where the tree did not entirely block the stream and this was where the Ugly Duckling hit and kept cruising downstream.
I immediately began running as fast as I could to catch up to the Ugly Duckling...no small feat for a man of my build or a man still wearing boots containing two quarts of stream water, some wayward fiddleheads and maybe even a trout or two.
At last, I caught up to the Ugly Duckling as it had snagged up on some debris on the opposite side of the stream. I figured rescuing the canoe would be a simple task now as all I would have to do is get my good canoe and a change of dry clothing before returning to rescue the Ugly Duckling.
However, I no sooner had these thoughts when wouldn't you know it, the stream's current pushed the Ugly Duckling against a snag and then it rolled once and made a dive that would have made Shamu proud. The Ugly Duckling submerged into the murky water like a torpedoed destroyer going down for the last time. And that, my friends, is the story of my fiddleheading misadventure.
P.S. If anyone in Burnham, Pittsfield or the Atlantic Seaboard happens to find a green canoe that looks like a half-blind 5 year old got a hold of a can of fiberglass epoxy, would you kindly call me since it most likely means the Ugly Duckling has finally broken free of Davy Jones's Locker.
P.S.S. The truly ironic thing about this entire story -- I don't even like eating fiddleheads. In fact, I hate the taste of fiddleheads.
Jason lives in Unity with his wife Heidi and their five cats (he is well on his way to becoming one of those crazy old men that you hear about who dies leaving behind everything to the 100 or so cats living in the home). He works full-time for the City of Bangor Fire Department, but he does not save damsels in distress or cats stuck in trees -- he teaches public safety education classes to adults. Jason enjoys volunteering with the Unity Fire Department where he may, in fact some day, save a damsel in distress or a cat stuck in a tree. He also enjoys hiking, camping, photography, snowmobiling, ATVing and eating -- although he does this a little too much and too often. Jason grew up in Thorndike before moving to Unity. He graduated from Mount View High School and attended New England College in Henniker, N.H.
that was a cool story! it seems every time i'm on/near the water, stuff like this happens to me, too, so i can sympathize. i have not been in a kayak since i was a teen because every time i got in one, it would immediately roll over. all the kids in the neighborhood would come running when they knew i was going to try again, because it was (apparently) a lot of fun to watch me. oh, and fiddleheads? they just look yucky! i'll try the uhop pizza but not fiddle heads!