Gryphon and Folkcat Go Geocaching

Gryphon and I haven’t been able to get out and geocache much for most of a month. With the brake lines on his truck needing replacing - and not being able to pay a garage to do it - we’ve been stuck at home every weekend while Gryphon does the job himself.

It’s been quite the saga, and Gryphon’s telling the story in a multi-chapter format over at his blog. The first chapter can be found here.

The brake lines are finished as of last weekend, though, and they seem to be holding up. So we have every reason to expect that, come this weekend, we may be able to get out and find another cache somewhere.

Just keep your fingers crossed for the weather!

I wrote a thank you letter to the Milford Cabinet - also thanking the Toadstool Book Shop and reporter Daymond Steer - for everyone’s involvement with the Milford Memory Box. It was published in this week’s paper.

The Memory Box continues to see visitors. Team Monarchs are the most recent, and they picked up Larry the TB to take home with them for a visit.

I’m glad to see people are having so much fun with this simple idea - sharing memories. And I’m very glad to see people discovering Emerson Park, too. The response is pretty universal - “I never knew this was here!” Well, now they do, and they’re generally glad of it!

Gryphon and I released Larry the Cucumber Travel Bug into the Milford Memory Box Saturday. We’ve had a pleasant visit with Larry while he stayed here, but I think even he was ready to move on. As we placed him in the box, he said “Oookaaaaay!”

Larry, it’s been nice knowing you. Happy travels!

Meanwhile, we’ve had difficulty finding enough time to go geocaching. Gryphon’s truck sprung a leak in the brake line, and he’s been working on that for the last two weekends. He fixed the first part of the line, but that forced a weak spot in another part to become a leak, and so on.

So, our geocache hunts are on hold for the moment, due to practical necessity. We’ll get back out there as soon as we can, though!

It’s been 24 hours since the comment spam, and I am going to cautiously turn comments back on for this blog. You will still have to be a registered user to post a comment, but that is free and a simple matter of creating a log-in.

I am also investigating alternative, third-party software to add to this and my other blogs that will allow comments, but give me greater control over them. I’ll keep you posted.

Thanks for your patience.

Due to the arrival of a new spam comment every few minutes tonight, I have been forced to turn OFF comments to this blog until further notice.

For my regular readers, there are other ways to reach me if you like. The observant will find them right on this page.

I have written to Blogger about this matter, and I hope they will find a way to take action. This is unacceptable.

Well, I’ve had my reply back from Groundspeak, and while it makes complete sense to me the way they explained it, it’s still disappointing:

Hello Jenny

Thanks for the email, but I’m afraid we do not own the Travel Bugs and

thus cannot transfer ownership to you. Travel Bugs are purchased from

Groundspeak and become property of the cacher who paid for them. Only that

person can assign ownership to someone else.

As I say, I can fully understand this position. It does mean, however, that Larry has become something of an orphan, effectively fending for himself. We’ll be releasing him back into the wild sometime this weekend. I’ll post here when it’s happened.

Meanwhile, Larry’s been making himself comfortable during his stay:

Larry hangs out with my sock in progress

I’ll no doubt watch Larry’s listing after we send him along. I’ve grown attached to the little guy, and I want to make sure he’s okay out there.

Some time ago, I posted about the first travel bug we picked up - Larry the Cucumber is still with us today, even though we retrieved him on July 3rd, and you’re supposed to wait no longer than two weeks at most to release travel bugs again.

As I mention in that previous post, Larry’s mission was long since done with, and he was wandering aimlessly. I thought it would be nice to find out if his owners had an idea for a new mission to assign him.

I contacted them through the geocaching website, and waited. No response. I studied his owners’ profile, and it appears that they may have drifted away from geocaching. They haven’t logged into the website since February, and they haven’t logged a cache find since 2003.

Larry hangs around my desk, awaiting his fate

I e-mailed again after about two weeks, asking again about a new mission, and adding that, if they have left geocaching, I’d be interested in adopting him. I said if I didn’t hear from them by the end of July, I’d contact Groundspeak to request exactly that.

It’s now a week into August, and I’ve heard nothing from Larry’s owners. And so, I’ve just sent off an e-mail to Groundspeak, outlining all that I’ve just told you about.

When I asked Larry what he thought about all this, he responded, “Have you seen my hairbrush?” I wonder if that means he expects to be here a while!