Houston GeoCaching Society

HGCS: What got you interested in caching?
Maxwell's Hammer: My brother Brian (Me-Tarzan) was in town visiting, and my husband Rob (Mr. Maxwell’s Hammer) and I invited him to go with us for a walk. He asked, “Where are we going?” I replied, “Around the neighborhood. You know, for exercise.” He asked, “Well, can we at least see if there are any Geocaches nearby and go look for them?” I said, “Geo-what?” And that was the beginning of my obsession.

HGCS: How did you decide on your caching name?
Maxwell's Hammer: That’s a good question. Most people think that I must be some crazy Beatles fanatic. I’m not, actually. I mean, they are a great band, but not my favorite. I was creating my account at Geocaching.com, and when I saw that I needed a caching name, nothing came to mind at first. But the song, “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” by the Beatles happened to be playing on my iPod, and I thought, I’ll use that for my name. It turned out to be too long, so I omitted the word “Silver” and “Maxwell’s Hammer” was born. It turned out to be the perfect caching name for me...

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HGCS: Mr. Lefty Writer: After purchasing my first GPSr, a Magellan 315, I was browsing for accessories when I saw this banner add for something called “Geocaching.” It sounded interesting, so I clicked on the link to read more about it. Once on the Geocaching website, I knew this was something that would be fun, so I signed up for a free account and got started. I became a premium member after just a couple of weeks of caching. After that, though, I sort of went on an extended hiatus for a couple of years, and got back into it shortly before meeting my better half.

Mrs. Lefty Writer: I was introduced to Geocaching through Patrick when we first met. However, I would mispronounce the name as geo-cache’ing. Once I found my first TB, I was hooked!!

Mr. Lefty Writer: The first few times she called it...

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HGCS: What got you interested in caching?
Great Birds: We were camping with my YMCA Trailblazers group, one of the dads hid a few caches at Hammon Ranch for us to find and let us use a GPS. After a few hours of hiking across Hill County in the cold and rain, I was hooked.

HGCS: How did you decide on your caching name?
Great Birds: The two Chinese symbols used for my last name (I am told) are Great and Bird. When I chose to use it as a plural, I had hopes my kids would be joining me often.

HGCS: When you cache, what equipment do you use? (PDA, Garmin, Magellan, software)
Great Birds: I use a Garmin GPSMap 60 while in the field. I have cache descriptions saved on my smart phone and usually have a fully updated copy of GSAK on the netbook computer in the car.

HGCS: What are your all-time favorite cache(s)?
Great Birds: The Four Cache loop is my favorite. I’ve loved hiking in the East Texas woods since I was...

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HGCS: What got you interested in caching?
Rich & Lola: Our nephews, (Hallboysx3+), took us to a cache named Zoom Zoom Zoom (GC3C5F) and after that we went to the Smokey Mountains for a vacation and got hooked on the game.

HGCS: How did you decide on your caching name?
Rich & Lola: It started as Rich6467 but after 300 caches and Lola doing all but 1, (see most embarrassing Geo-Moment), we decided to add her name.

HGCS: When you cache, what equipment do you use? (PDA, Garmin, Magellan, software)
Rich & Lola: We started with a Magellan Map330 and after a couple of years upgraded to a Garmin 60cs and got rid of the Magellan all together. We added a 2nd Garmin 60csx.

HGCS: What are your all-time favorite cache(s)?
Rich & Lola: Welcome to Jurassic Park, (GC962E). We never found the cache but the drive to get back to the cache location made it a top ten caches status. Overton Wash, (GC4341), no longer active, but one of the best in Nevada.

HGCS: Do you have any special caching adventures you want to tell us about?
Rich & Lola: We were doing one...

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HGCS: What got you interested in caching?
Manofsteel73: I was attending a company training class in Phoenix and as a part of the training, we had to do a group presentation on any topic of interest. One of the individuals in my group was a geocacher. He explained geocaching to the group and we did our presentation on that subject. When I got back home from the training, I was telling my son about geocaching and he immediately got on the internet to check it out. After a couple of months of my son asking for a GPSr, I finally ordered one on the internet. The two of us made a couple of unsuccessful searches and finally a year to the date of creating the geocaching account, we found our first cache. We were hooked and the rest is history.

HGCS: How did you decide on your caching name?
Manofsteel73: My son created the geocaching account using Manofsteel73. He played football and his teammates called him Man of Steel because of his strength. His football jersey number was 73 thus the father-son team was created. When my son went off to college, he created a separate cache name, Manofsteel72.

HGCS: When you cache, what equipment do you use? (PDA, Garmin, Magellan, software)
Manofsteel73: I use a Garmin 60CSx with GSAK to load caches and GeocacheNavigator on a BlackBerry for paperless caching.

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