rflester

This month's featured cacher, rflester, is also known as Robert "Bob" Lester.

Bob lives in the rural area outside of New London, Pa. but caches mostly with the local Delaware cachers.

Bob grew up in a house that, at one time, belonged to the Rev. Francis Alison.

Rev. Alison started teaching free classes in the area in the mid 1700s. He moved his school several times before settling in Newark, DE. This school was to become the University of Delaware.

Our interview this month was conducted by Mike Ott. and we extend our thanks to Bob and Mike for doing this.

As you will learn in the interview that follows, rflester gets around and has had some interesting experiences.

(Read the interview)

In the News
Articles about Delaware Geocachers and/or Geocaching.

It didn't happen on August 15 either!

This goal is proving to be harder to attain that it first looked. Since Aug 3. our count on Geocaching.com grew from 1006 to 1009 but even that is not what it seems.

On the evening of Aug 15th the count had risen to 1020 thanks to several active geocachers placing a number of new caches. What is happeneing? Why did it slip back to 1009?

Short answer - more caches being temporarily taken down and a large number being permanently taken down. (Check the inacted and removed sache listing link at the bottom of the right column). These actions help verify that we made the right decision in order to really know which cache is the 1000th.

First to consider is that we should NOT count event caches because these events will happen and then the cache posting will disappear.

Second, some Delaware geocachers have contacted us with a very valid issue. They feel the 1000th cache should be the 1000th ACTIVE cache. As they see it geocaches have been placed in Delaware for 8 years. During that time there have been many that were placed and then, for one reason or another, had to be taken down. So if we were just tracking numbers the 1000th cache would have happened in the past. Staying with this line of thinking, it doesn't seem right to count inactive caches either since no one can go out on the trail and find any of them.

So as it now stands, we are urging all owners of geocaches that are currently inactive to please consider re-activating them or removing them. We'll monitor the numbers as closely as we can.

Check this site often over the next week. When the 1000th ACTIVE geocache gets approved we will post it here.

Let's Hear From You!
Are Gas Prices Causing You to Change the way you Geocache?

One of the lively spots on the web site is our forum. Along with all the geocaching focused topics we also have one called "Off Topic" which is for discussions of topics other than geocaching. But the Off Topic area is also a great place for visitors to this site to speak out about how gas prices have impacted your activities.

• Have you cut back?
• Have you stopped geocaching?
• Do you now geocache with partners rather than alone?

We also be interested in hearing from anyone who has come up with strategies to help cope with this situation.

Link over to the forum and

Let's hear from you -

Ordinarily this space is where you find our featured geocache review. But, for this month, we are focusing on a geocache that hasn't even been created - yet.

The 1000th Geocache Quandary

As you can see from the geocache count at the bottom of this column we are getting close to having 1000 active geocaches in Delaware. Notice the word "active" in that last sentence. It's the key and the reason for the quandary.

Geocachers are all too familiar with geocaches that have to be taken down for maintenance and with geocaches that are archived. These two "facts of life" cause the quandary.

Geocaching started in Delaware back in the year 2000. Over the past 8 years many, many geocaches have been placed here. And many, many geocaches have been taken down. So, technically the 1000th geocache was placed sometime in the past. And even though we are focusing on the active geocaches the quandary. as to which geocache will be the 1000th active geocache still continues.

It would be great if all 33 of the inactive geocaches noted below were able to be reactivated but experience tells us this is only a slight possibility. Some will and some will go away. So trying to determine WHICH geocache is the 1000th will be a tricky task.

We'll be updating the geocache count shown below more frequently during the next several weeks so that when the 1000th Delaware geocache is activated we can pass along the good news. But please note that word "active". Determining which one it is will be harder than it seems.

The 10 Most Recent
Delaware Geocache Sites

Delaware Cache Count as of August 16, 2008
976 Active Caches
33 Inactive Caches

1009 Total Caches
data from www.geocaching.com

Inactive and Removed Cache List
Click the Link above to see a listing of the names of currently unavailable caches.

Check out our Forum
Its the place where you can discuss things with other Delaware Geocachers. There's plenty of topics to choose from. And, if you don't see the one you want to discuss, let us know. We'll create it for you.

Remember everyone can read the messages in the forum but you need to be registered to post new topics or replies. Registration and use of the forum is free.