Date: May 2019
Caching Name: EnB608
Real Name: Esther and Ben Harris
1. How did you find out about geocaching and what got you started?
Ben:
I had heard about Geocaching and Letterboxing from a coworker, but it was Esther that dragged me out of the house to go searching for some caches. We started off with a few small caches near our house in downtown Baltimore, but when we took a trip to Florida in Spring 2017 we really got going for good.
Esther:
Funny, I seem to remember things differently. I heard about geocaching from a friend and thought it sounded fun. I signed up for a free geocaching account and tried to get Ben to go caching with me. He tried a few, wasn’t interested, I tried a few more, but didn’t like searching solo. When we went on a vacation to Florida, Ben brought it up again, and we found some really fun caches and both stuck with it.
2. How and why did you choose your caching name?
Esther had picked out a name when we found our first few caches, but the next time we went out Ben accidentally started us over. At first we were EstherandBen608, but we shortened it after we started signing all our logs EnB608♥ (yes, the heart is always included). We’re not very creative, but maybe one day we’ll figure out who we want to be and change our name. We can do that, right?
3. How many caches have you found so far?
843.
4. What is your preferred device for searching for geocaches, i.e. smart phone or gps device? What brand?
We use the Geocaching app on our android phones and sometimes we break out the Garmin eTrex 10 if we’re feeling like chasing around tiny greyscale boxes on a black and white screen while deep in the woods.
5. What websites, programs, software or hardware (PDA/laptop/phone) do you use to make caching easier?
Ben uses C:Geo sometimes on his android phone. We also use the Garmin software which makes loading caches on the Garmin quite easy.
6. What type of cache do you prefer seeking – for example: traditional, multi, puzzle, virtual, letterbox, etc?
We go for a little bit of everything. Multi’s and puzzles are fun when they’re field puzzles. Anything that looks fun or has a lot of favorite points we’ll stop for. We always appreciate caches that bring us to new and interesting places.
7. Which caches do you find to be the most challenging for you, both physically and mentally?
We don’t think we’ve done any that have been too physically challenging yet, we enjoy nice long hikes. Ben has tried some of the more complex puzzles around Baltimore, such as Tomulus’ Dots puzzles, or the Circuits caches that GnomeGCer placed. Esther finds graveyard caches very challenging because she does not like stepping on dead people.
8. Do you have any favorites among the Maryland caches that you’ve found? (Feel free to list a favorite for each type of cache)
Ben’s List:
Traditional: GC2FQ4D Water Hazard by sfcchaz was our 500th find
Mystery: GCD1A0 Play it Safe by OUTSID4EVR & MAJELLIN was fun, we had to get a key trackable from another cache, then had to use that to unlock this one.
Puzzle: GC66ZJM Aquarium Floating Island v2 by National Aquarium, which was the inspiration for my first field puzzle cache which is close by.
Esther’s list:
GC37CXX How Bad Do You Want It? by acpape0, was a fun one inside an old hollowed out tree stump that Ben had to climb all the way inside of.
Do you have a favorite in a nearby state?
GC3E522 Free Library of Philadelphia by Coldgears was a fun library puzzle cache in Philly, and our first true favorite cache was GC2ZYN4 pirate's treasure by crash2018 where Ben had to climb up a huge tree (with Esther’s help) in flip flops on Captiva Island in Florida.
9. What’s the most unusual thing that you’ve ever found in a cache?
A toad in 40 Days (or 40 Deciliters) GC4AG5G, which is a cache you have to fill up a PVC pipe to float the container to the top. When we took off the top, a cute little toad was inside the cache staring up at us. The fun part was trying to
pour the water in without drowning the little guy.
10. What are your current caching goals? Is there a certain cache or series of caches that you can’t wait to do?
We would love to finish off the LoZ series before it gets archived next year. We’re working our way towards 1,000 so we can’t wait to see what we do to celebrate that.
11. Have you placed many caches? What types of caches do you like to hide?
We have 14 active hides, but mostly Ben has placed them. We usually like to place caches that bring people to interesting places. Of course we also own 1 guardrail cache and 1 lamp post cache, but we prefer hides that are more out of the ordinary. Ben is particularly proud of his two puzzle caches in downtown Baltimore. Esther has a couple in planning as well.
12. What advice would you give someone that wants to place a cache?
Place the kind of hide you want to find, but please don’t place it somewhere that’s covered in trash.
13. How often do you go caching?
We try to go a few times a month on the weekends, or just a few here and there while we’re out and about.
14. What advice would you give a beginning geocacher?
Read the logs for clues and photos, don’t give up if it’s been found recently and don’t forget your pen!
15. Have you completed CAM in the past?
Twice - 2018 and 2019.
16. Do you collect geocoins?
We have 3 that we have in our collection, and a few pathtags.
17. What type of gear do you carry with you on your caching trips? Besides a pen and a device for navigating, what is your “must have” item that you bring?
Tweezers, hand sanitizer, and bug spray. We also have a battery phone charger that has saved us a few times.
18. Tell us about your most memorable caching experience.
Ben:
There was the time I got stung by a bee in Niagara Falls, there was the Gaurdrail DNF that haunts us from our early days caching in Florida, and our first time completing CAM in 2018.
Esther:
Going for FTF at a guard rail cache. I don’t even remember the name of the cache, it wasn’t anything special, but we were in the area when it was published. Ben went to look in the guardrail, but me being me not liking to put my hands in hidey holes, told him to look first. There was a nice snake curled up for the evening, not liking us poking around his home…..Good thing the cache wasn’t actually in there!
19. Will you share your best caching story with us?
It was CAM day, 2018. We already had the rough plan from the teaser map to get anything in Northeastern MD before heading around the bay to the Eastern Shore and eventually Ocean City. We ended up heading out of Baltimore towards Havre De Grace first, and got co-2nd to find with a father-son team (DLAnubus and Wolfspirit55) from PA. We then went and got the Duck Museum bonus cache. Afterwards, we stopped for a sit down breakfast at one of our go-to spots, Waffle House. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast before heading out to Elk Neck State Forest. We drive up and see quite a few cars around, and some cachers walking down the road grabbing the bonus caches. Well, anyone who went for this cache early on Day 1 remembers that for whatever reason the gate for the parking lot at the arboretum was closed, so everyone there was pretty much ignoring the signs to not park on the shoulder. By the power granted to us in the rules of monkey-see, monkey-do, we parked on the shoulder like everyone else. We head over to the GZ to start gathering our clues for this fairly simple mystery cache. We wouldn’t say we took our time, but we weren’t exactly rushing to complete the cache either. Well, we soon get to the final and wouldn’t you know it, the dang thing had a nice layer of snow sitting on top of a bunch of neatly stacked sticks. That was pretty weird we thought, until we brushed away the snow and realized that we were actually making the FTF! Only moments later did the father-son duo from Havre de Grace show up, having poorly calculated the coordinates from the puzzle and making a rather lengthy detour in the wrong direction. We never imagined getting a FTF on our first ever day of CAM, so it was an extra sweet moment of victory for us.
20. What do you like about geocaching? What keeps you interested?
We like getting to see and explore places we’d never go otherwise. It’s usually about the journey for us, not the numbers. It’s a great way to explore new places we visit.
21. Besides geocaching, what other things do you like to do?
We spend a lot of time volunteering for BARCS (the Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter) and some other local organizations that give back to the community. We also vend beer at the Baltimore Arena and at Ravens games as our side hustle, so that’s fun too, although it definitely can get in the way of caching sometimes.
22. What question did you expect us to ask but didn’t? What is the answer?
What is your favorite Geocache that you’ve hidden?
(Shameless plug time here) GC72VGH - Homophones and Xylophones - a really fun and easy puzzle cache in a great little park at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.
23. How does your family feel about geocaching?
One time we took Ben’s mom with us to visit family in Long Island. We were making frequent stops to cache along the way…... She really wasn’t feeling the extra hours we spent in the car.
24. Tell us about one geocaching accomplishment that you are proud of.
When we got FTF at CAM 2019 - Fort Smallwood State Park. We were excited to make a FTF on CAM Day 2 years in a row, but this time we actually were going for it, so that was nice.
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2019 May Member Spotlight: EnB608
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- Former MGS Officer
- Posts: 18
- Joined: Wed Nov 30, 2016 9:56 am
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- Location: Upper Marlboro
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- MGS Member
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Re: 2019 May Member Spotlight: EnB608
I found them today. The places are interesting. I would not otherwise know about Pierce's Park.Que3nbe3 wrote: Ben is particularly proud of his two puzzle caches in downtown Baltimore.
I'd suggest calling them "multi", because many people are scared about puzzles.
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- MGS Member
- Posts: 21
- Joined: Sun Jul 15, 2018 1:30 pm
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Re: 2019 May Member Spotlight: EnB608
Member Spotlight seems to have gone dormant?