Gary the Possum

I've got a Kelty Gunnison 2. It is: 2 person Three-season 5 lbs. 9 oz. total weight 7 ft. 8 in. long x 4 ft. 10 in. wide x 3 ft. 4 in. interior height It can be put up by one person 2 poles with clip design Rainfly 24 square feet of total vestibule space It has 2 doors and 2 vestibules. With the 2 door design you don't have to climb over the other person to get in the tent. Each vestibule has 12 square feet of space, that is plenty of space for a couple packs in each vestibule. I'm 6'6" so I needed a long tent and this one has plenty of room. I've stayed in it several times with another camper and you definitely sleep close shoulder to shoulder (I know you're supposed to sleep head to foot but I don't want someone's feet in my face) with 2 but it's not too cramped. I got mine for $120 about three years ago.

I don't know which ones are good overall but I have a pair of Dunham's Waffle Stomper Paramount. I'm not sure if they still make the Paramount model but they have another one that is similar called the Waffle Stomper Premier. I got mine from a boot store. I've had them for about six years. I use them for hiking and backpacking. They are waterproof. Mud doesn't build up on the soles of the Waffle Stomper like they do on other boots I've worn. The only complaints I have is that the cloth material and padding in the heel of one of the boots has worn away but maybe that's just from six years of use and they don't have much traction on rocks that are both tilted and wet.

Ran into this guy on the trail on my way to the Virgin Falls Cache in Tennessee last year.

I haven't found very many caches, but of the ones I have found my favorite cache to find was the Virgin Falls Cache. It is on about a 6 mile hike. There are 3 waterfalls and at least 4 caves that I know of, possibly more. Virgin Falls is where a creek comes out of a cave travels about 30 yards then drops 110 feet over a falls. The water hits the rocks at the bottom and then dissappears underground. One of the other falls is Big Laurel Falls. The water goes over about a 50 foot falls. After hitting the ground, the water reverses direction and goes back behind the waterfall about 100 feet and then goes underground. The cache is located close to Virgin Falls.

On Saturday I saw a Rattlesnake on the trail while hiking to a geocache. My brother was in front and there was a part on the trail where you had to step up about a foot. My brother stepped up and then jumped forward and yelled "Watch out, watch out!" Well, I stopped and looked down and I was standig right next to a Timber Rattlesnake. I took one step back, said "Uh-oh" and then jumped backwards as far as I could. Luckily the snake just sat there. We had to wait for it to leave before we could continue on, so we took its picture and about ten minutes later it left.

I got mine from my brother. My brother is in college and lives in a house with 4 other guys. Well one of the guys cooked some chicken and didn't like it so he threw it out in the back yard. A possum came and ate the chicken. So this guy kept throwing out bad food in the back yard and the possum kept coming back. So one night my brother took a picture of the possum on their back deck. He decided to call it Gary. At the time there was an election coming up in town for mayor. So my brother made up a campaign poster to elect Gary the Possum for mayor. We printed out one of the posters and put it in a cache. The idea of "Gary the Possum" seemed funny at the time and the screen name I originally had was boring so I changed it to Gary the Possum. After my dad saw the poster, he came up with the slogan, "Don't get run over by big politicians, Vote Gary the Possum for Mayor!"

I like to make things. Count me in.

One time I was hiking in a park looking for some geocaches. My friend Austin was with me. He was walking in front of me on the trail and just came to a complete stop! I thought he stopped because of a mud puddle. I was about to walk around him and jump the mud puddle when he said, "Stop, don't go over there!" I was like, "What it's just a mud puddle." THEN I saw what Austin was looking at. There was a full grown Red Tailed Hawk standing right next to the trail! I was like, "Whoa, thats what you saw!" We just stood there and stared at it and it stared at us. We were standing there and some guys on mountain bikes were coming down the trail. We tried to tell them to stop because there was a big hawk right next to the trail. They didn't here us or they weren't paying attention. The first guy in the line finally saw the hawk and hit his brakes when he was about 3 feet from it. His buddies just about ran into him, then, they saw the hawk too. So Austin and I and the mountain biking guys just kind of stood there and stared at the hawk. None of us really wanted to get too close to it. The guys with the bikes got off and walked their bikes around the hawk. They made sure they kept their bikes in between themselves and the hawk. When those guys walked past it, the hawk stretched out its wings and opened its mouth and just stood there. Well finally Austin and I decided to get on down the trail. We went off the trail and put about 40 feet between ourselves and the hawk and walked on up some before we got back on the trail! That was exciting!

If you own any of the Garmin Etrex GPS units (Navigator, Summit, Legend, Vista, Camo) which one do you own and what would you say the major pros and cons of your unit are?