The first is a "virtual cache". The one I found was in Silver Spring. Christina and I had a number of errands to run there, so we took a nice walk to this cache, followed by a dinner of Ethiopian food. Virtual caches were good for urban locations where it was hard to hide a traditional cache. I use the past tense, because they have been discontinued. To a certain extent, they were discontinued to encourage people to use waymarks, which are similar. On the other hand, waymarks are generally things you see on the site ahead of time, whereas virtual geocaches bring you to an interesting place that you generally don't know about until you reach the coordinates. Still, it doesn't make a lot of sense to have a "virtual cache", so the only ones around are those which have been grandfathered in.
Another type of cache is the "event cache". Really, this isn't exactly a "cache" -- it's an event. On the other hand, it has coordinates -- and you can put stuff there, which puts it a step ahead of the virtual cache. The event cache I attended was a 15 minute event in Columbia. It was part of a worldwide series of "flash mobs" organized by a geocaching podcast. In the picture (taken by an attendee), I'm the guy in the foreground in the black jacket and jeans. The event was mildly amusing -- someone handed out Hershey kisses, and there was a prize drawing. Apparently the Howard County police showed up to see what was going on...it's sort of sad that a gathering of about 40 people in Columbia is such a shocking occurrence.
Meanwhile, my coins continue to march across Europe.
Coin #1 has crossed the Severn River into Wales. Coin #2 continues its apparent progress towards Prague. I thought they might at least head towards the States sooner...#1 is in what appears to be a difficult cache, so it may stay there for a while... I bought a few more coins on-line that I'll be releasing soon, since this has been fun.
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