NorthWest Arkansas Cachers

What has the recent surge in gas prices done to your normal caching pattern?

I know that for us, it has put a severe crimp in our caching. (That and a recent move into a new home)

We used to try to go at least one day on the weekend, but since we've cleaned out everything within 10 miles and most everything within 20, finding caches to help us get to our next goal of 2000 finds by the end of this year has become an expensive proposition.

Of course, I can remember when we balked in the same way a couple of years ago when gas surged over $2.00 a gallon. At some point, we'll probably suck it up and just go back to the way we used to cache, but for right now, caching is (at least a little bit) on hold.

Similar experience here. We find that now we try to combine caching with necessary trips. Sometimes we leave a bit early or sometimes we stay a bit late to catch a few caches either going or coming.
Example; We stayed home this weekend, knowing that the next weekend we will be going to the event at Lake Catherine. But we have a project in the yard that requires two pallets of sod from the grass farm. We have loaded caches that are located near the sod farm into the Colorado. We will leave early, catch breakfast on the way, arrive in the sod farm area around daylight, then cache until our 9AM pickup time. During the warmest part of the day, on Saturday, we routed our trip into Microsoft streets and trips on the laptop. We laid out a cache loop that we think we may accomplish in the allotted time, with waypoints at each cache site.
He, he, you know that with this much planning, something will go wrong ! I guess that I might aught to double check to see that I actually did get the caches sent to the Colorado. Yep, I've done that before, get there and find nothing actually arrived on the GPS ! We were able to continue , but much slower, retrieving the coords from the streets & trips on the laptop, then manually entering them one at a time. Bummer, . . .

Well, we gotter' done ! Left home 0500 hours, ate breakfast at the Waffle house on the way to the sod farm. Checked gas prices on the net for the cheapest gas along our route, and we filled up there.
Haulin' grass went ok, caching went ok. We picked up the grass a little early before our delivery time, and with a few caches under our belts, we headed back towards Vandervoort.
Here is a photo of the Jeep with 4200 pounds of sod on the trailer. Once loaded, the fun was over for the day !

We didn't get as many caches in the area as we would have during a caching only trip, but managed to get in a few during a necessary trip.
Empty trailer gas mileage 20.4 MPG. Loaded trailer mileage 16.2 MPG.
08' Wrangler four door, V6 3.8 liter engine.
Nothing being towed, the Jeep gets 22.5 to 23.5 MPG.

The rise in gas has hit us pretty hard. While planning some summer trips to do with the kids we had to change our original plans to substitute for closer destinations. We're lucky that there are some great state parks that aren't too far away that we can camp at and enjoy.

As far as caching goes, that has been placed on the back burner. We'll grab some on the way or at other destinations but we've really only planned on a couple of trips just for the sole purpose of hunting caches. One of which is back to mountainborn's Lock Yer' Hubs cache. Great swimming hole! There's a few waterfalls I'd like to visit and hide caches at if I can manage to make it there and get the permit. It's weird because this time last year we were hunting just about every weekend or more often and now I've only grabbed 3 this month

My caching has slowed signicantly as well the past few months but I'm starting to pick it back up again since several new caches have appeared close to home and work for me to hunt - without using too much gas. One way to fight the high gas prices is to go caching with friend(s) and share the gas cost. Also, I've invested in a mountain bike that I hope to use to go 'caching with some and get some excercise too.

Actually the price of gas has not affected my caching that much. My Explorer gets 25 mpg hwy and only 13 mpg city. So I'd do better hunting those further caches. Uh... yeah. What has hamperd my caching fun is my recent increased workload. I also plan on hitting a bunch on our trip to Disneyworld.

Well all have to place a bunch more caches in our area.

Anyone carpooling to the Springfield event this weekend?

EDIT: Oops!, I meant June 7th.