By Dale-n-Barb   Tue, Jul 22, 2008

Have you ever thought to yourself, how come there are no geocaching stores? Well, now there is!

Let me introduce ourselves. We are known as Dale n Barb in the Geocaching world (as well as the real world). We live in Merritt Island, Florida and own our own Automotive Air Conditioning parts store. We have been caching for about 2 ½ years now and have just over 1100 finds with about 70 active caches hidden.

A little over a year ago we met some cachers from Connecticut who told us that they get together on a monthly basis with other cachers from their area. We thought "Well, how come we don’t do that in our area?" So Barb and I talked to a few seasoned cachers from our area to get their thoughts on organizing a group and getting together on a regular basis. They thought it sounded good but said it probably would not happen. So we started inviting a few cachers to dinner on weekends and it seemed to go well. We talked about organizing a group and it was pretty much just talk. We went to Geowoodstock V in North Carolina and noticed all of the other groups that were represented there. We had several cachers from our area at the event but were not recognized as a group, just individuals. So when we got home we decided to take on the challenge.

In June of 2007 the Space Coast Geocachers Association was born. We held our first event on July 3^rd, 2007 at a local park from 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm. We did not expect a big turnout as it was a Tuesday night and people had to work all day. To our surprise we had just under 100 people show up for this event including two of our state's Reviewers! We introduced the Space Coast Geocachers Association (now better known as the SCGA) as well as our new website www.spacecoastgeocachers.com. We have added a forum for locals to talk about whatever they like. We have held several CITO events as well as dinner events, including four events in one day covering the county and many others over the last year.

On Labor Day of 2007 we unveiled the all-new Space Coast Geocachers Store. A place where cachers can walk into and purchase almost any caching supplies they need. We have anything from bison tubes to ammo cans. We are an official Groundspeak Distributor and carry a large amount of their merchandise in the store. We also carry SCGA shirts, stickers and anything you might need while geocaching. We currently have in stock somewhere between 75 – 100 different geocoins all new and unactivated. We have had cachers from all over the world visit our store since its opening. Another unique thing that makes us standout is the cache that is located just outside the store. Known as “A Cool Cache” GC15RQB. It is an idea borrowed from a cacher in Michigan. I don’t want to give it away so you will just have to visit the cache page or come to the store to see for yourself. The cache page has pictures that are complete spoilers as to what the cache is. Out store has become pretty well known in the Central Florida area. We have a store front as well as an online store. The online store can be found from our website or directly at www.shop.spacecoastgeocachers.com . Not all of our merchandise is located in the online store as we have a changing inventory all the time.

So, if you ever get down to this area feel free to stop in and say hi. We are not usually open on the weekends but send us an email and we will meet you at the store. We open the store up on weekends or at night when cachers want to stop by as long as we are in the area. We only live a couple miles from the store so it usually is no problem for us to open up.

In case you missed it here are some details in review:

The store is located at:

N 28° 21.316 W 080° 41.835
55 Goodwin Drive
Suite 103
Merritt Island, FL 32952
877-459-1050

We will answer the phone as A/C Parthouse as that is our main business.

Our website is:
www.spacecoastgeocachers.com or our online store at www.shop.spacecoastgeocachers.com

We look forward to meeting you someday.