Reflecting on 100 Geocaches

Today I trundled out to find GCXD5E which makes 100 of these silly Geocache things I've found.

In collecting these I've tried to follow a not-exactly strict but somewhat tidy process of finding those closest to my house without major skipping rather than running all over the city looking for low-hanging fruit. This does tend to minimize driving time but raises the question of what the crap I'm supposed to do with some of these.

Take this one for example: GCYKJJ This thing is within 5 miles of my house so before I clear out that radius I'm going to have to either ignore it or spend a week trying to solve it. That said, it does actually appear to be have a solution; that is not something one can say with certainty about certain other fairly useless caches.

I'm convinced that GC10W36 is merely someone's attempt to be an ass. I realize, of course, that there's a demand for more difficult caches but when no one has solved your cache and it's been sitting there (4.3 miles from my house) for 8 months you have to begin to wonder about motives. No doubt someone will eventually find the answer (by brute force if nothing else) but at this point I'm not motivated enough to bother. Why not just encrypt the coordinates and directions with MD5 and be done with it if you don't wish the cache to ever be found?

Last on my tirade are the 'crazy requirements' caches like GC1601V. While I agree this is doable it seems to take what should be a simple hobby and change it into a long-term lifestyle choice. Again, there's a place for this but from my lowly position at 100 caches it's hard to relate to life amongst such stellar objects.

All the complaining aside, I have to admit there are some good caches out there but they're outnumbered 2:1 by crappy ones that require only the ability to drive and a working pen. I'm far from a genius at this pastime but even I tend to grow bored of looking through bushes and under parking lot light poles. I suppose I could always park a mile away from the light pole and at least get some exercise out of it.