We sometimes overlook the fact that logs can portray a personal journal of a particular individual. We can get a look under the superficial mentality of a person by reading their logs as they have involved themselves in the game of Geocaching.

While you may or may not know a person in the flesh, it doesn’t take much to understand their alter ego when you read the logs they leave on the various sites when it comes to Geocaching. Names like, “The Big Moose” or “Rubberfeet” tend to define a character who will be playing a role. The opening act is set and the stage is all the Earth. As we look into the saga unfolding, we get a sometimes frustrated view or perhaps a comical view as we read their dialogs left upon the platters of cyberware. I often wonder what outsiders would think when asked to read some of the more colorful logs.

At work, I always made sure my boss did not know about Geocaching. To think that he would go out and read some of my logs, especially when on business trips, and wonder if I ever did any real work made me nervous. There, for the whole world to see is my life as a Geocacher. Looking at my logs will give some people a step by step journal of how I spend hours looking for McNonsense items in the middle of the woods or how I have spent time and energy finding a 35mm film can just so I could sign a little piece of paper and return it to the same spot.

Outsiders really don’t get it. You are either in the game or you are not. This is not a spectator sport by any means. However, I have a couple of friends that read my logs and follow some of my adventures for amusement. Entertainment is found in many different places but reading the logs is one of my favorites. I can start with someone that has 500+ finds and read their logs as they find their first cache or their 500th cache. It is a special treat that through their logs, we can share the moment.

Some of the best logs are written for someone special. My daughter, who just received a Gecko for her 10th Birthday, went out with my wife and found a couple of caches. One of those caches was a friend whose daughter placed the cache. She was thrilled to see that the first cache “Brawny Cub” found was hers. The next cache she found was one I had hidden. It was my first hide and her log really touched me as she closed her log entry with, “Thanks Daddy Bear.”

We read logs from complete strangers sometimes. Well, I do. I love to spend late nights up reading logs of people who have had some interesting experiences. I have seen logs with disaster, arrests, marriage proposals, tales of getting lost, defeat, triumph, sadness, anger, comedy, resentment and confusion just to name a few. Emotions can run high in some logs and because we loose the ability to interface directly with a person, we sometimes can misinterpret what they are trying to say.

 Why is it that we are so interested in logs? Most times when caches come up missing, the only thing we regret is that we lost the log book in the cache. We love getting the notice that someone found one of our caches. We are quick to determine several things about them as we read our logs. We know by the finds if they are experienced or if they are new. We can tell if they found it quickly or if they searched a while. We can tell if they are patient or if they had to make multiple trips. In some cases, we can even determine their physical condition, “I had to rest halfway up that huge hill!” In any case, we know if they enjoyed it or not. Sometimes we get the --- Found It! TNLNSL TFTC.
From that we know they are more likely to do better than most on Wheel of Fortune.

Logs are the footprint of our caching experiences. We should make every effort to leave a journal for others to follow and read. Clues to solving a cache mystery are often uncovered in reading the logs. We can often determine if we should hunt for a cache if others have logged no finds. When we omit the no finds because we don’t want the purple people eater’s faces on our recent log lists, we do a disservice to the cache owners and to the other cachers who will try and hunt it as well. A classic case of this was a missing cache in which nobody logged no finds. It was almost 6 months before the cache owner knew it was missing and only because in conversation at a picnic he learned that several people had looked and never found it.

So remember, keep me entertained and write those logs. Leave your footprints so that others will follow.

Happy Caching!