Caching Name: mortonfox
Real Name: Po Shan Cheah
1. How did you become involved in geocaching? Man in the Wild mentioned geocaching on Where’s George chat back in 2001. So I promptly went out and tried to find the nearest cache, which at the time was 17 miles from home. It took two tries. On my first attempt, I took the wrong approach and could only get within about a quarter mile. On my second try, I got it.
2. How did you choose your caching name? Until around 2011, it was Stayfloopy. Back when I lived in Northern New Jersey, one of the local businesses had a big sign saying “PARK RIDGE FLOORING” out by the road. The “R” in “FLOORING” had faded a bit, so it looked more like “FLOOPING”. That’s where it came from.
In 2011, I changed it to mortonfox to match all my other online accounts. This is the name of a character in my comic strip Limpidity.
3. What type of cache do you prefer seeking – traditional, multi, and puzzle, virtual? I think virtual caches are the best but hard to come by nowadays. Mostly, I seek regular caches because those are easy to look up and judge whether the walk is doable and, unlike puzzles, don’t require preparation. Now that it is easy to view and download webcam photos in the field, I do also like webcam caches.
4. Which caches were the most challenging, either physically/mentally? Tree climbing caches have been the most physically challenging for me. The first part is having to carry a ladder up to a fraction of a mile into the field. Then the ladder may not be long enough either. The hardest one I’ve gotten was in Mill Creek Park in Willingboro, NJ. My ladder was almost not long enough and when I got to the top, I still had to reach out on the tree branch for the cache. Fortunately, the bison tube was just within reach by an inch or so.
5. What are your current geocaching goals? This year, I’d planned on tapering off my geocaching activity and stopping at 35,000 finds. That was my goal. I hit that milestone while at Metro Gathering and went quite a bit past it. I haven’t decided what, if any, my next goal should be.
6. Where have you always wanted to go caching but haven’t? Out of the country, perhaps back to the UK where I haven’t been for over 30 years. The current socio-political climate though makes me think that it may be a good idea to wait a few more years before doing so.
7. What is your most memorable caching experience? Keeping in mind that memorable can be both good and bad…
Memorable-good was the group caching outing near Estell Manor in South Jersey. When we were deep in the pine barrens, it was good having over a dozen people team up to search for caches. The hardest cache along that cache trail still took more than 15 minutes to find until someone stumbled on it by chance.
Memorable-bad was going to a geocaching event in the DC area in 2002, where we got lectured by a National Park ranger for an hour about placing geocaches on National Park land. That soured me on national parks for quite a while because I had nothing to do with those cache placements.
Memorable-funny was the bathrobe guy incident at the Garrett Mountain Reservation parking lot. I was retrieving a cache on the railing in front of a parked van. I actually had no idea that anything was going on in that van until a guy in a bathrobe rushed out of the back, got in the driver’s seat, and drove away quickly.
8. What do you like about geocaching? It’s something interesting to do when I travel. The caches themselves may not be that special or unique but it’s better than just driving continuously.
9. Do you have some favorite caches in the area? “Your Key To Cache” is my favorite and the only one in the area that I’ve revisited quite a number of times to exchange trackables. Aside from that, “How ODD Can It Be?” is a recent favorite simply because of the quirkiness of the location.
10. Do you have any other hobbies or interests? Aside from geocaching, I play Munzee, Eventzee, and Flagstack. Also, I am still on Where’s George, the activity that got me started on geocaching.
