I haven't had any inspiration about the ring overnight, but I did have another thought about caches. I have an English penny from 1794, from Plymouth England, home of the founding fathers. They used to lay coins in the tops of the houses when they were built, for luck. I didn't know that when I found it or I'd have left it there. But I thought that might be an interesting thing to have in a cache; A lucky penny from the home of the founding fathers.
For a military cache, I have the top of what's highly likely to be a miltary button from soldiers or sailors defending against Napolean and his troops, also from the City of Plymouth. It has a lion's head on it.
Both grubby and unrenovated, as they should be. I'd be happy to send them over if they would be of any use, and if there is somewhere to send them to.
Very kind of you, zwie!
However, no need to part with your treasures. I think we may be able to get donations of items from organized groups- that way we could get the word out at
those places as well! For example, REI may donate a new GPS or something like that. (And don't forget the $50,000 in reward money already offered.)
shana, in answer to your question, it is for both purposes. To keep an eye out for Mr. Harrod or any indication of him and his possible location- and to win a cache. They are not exactly separate- we are attempting to correlate the two in order to raise awareness.
Fow example, yesterday I was on the phone again with the USFS. The ranger I spoke to told me that they had a large sherriffs training dept recently use their park for a refresher course in geo-location and cell ping usage in MP cases. I asked if they were notified of any geocaches in the area and he said, funny that you should say that- we have a weekend group (campers) coming out for a geo seminar this weekend so I advised the SO to leave any caches alone. The SO said they 'always did, unless it became a training exercise with real-life applications.'
I've had this expereinece myself, although not with a geocache. But stumbling aross evidence of a body while on vacation in another country falls into the same category, imo.
Granted, I also obsessively check trash bags or backpacks etc abandoned on the side of the road, so perhaps it's just in my nature. But that is, in part, the nature of the geocache project. Hit up groups that already have an eye for detail, and make finding Mr. Harrod part of their recreation time.