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eTrex Yellow. It was expensive enough for my budget, and simple enough for me to use. The salesdude really wanted me to buy a Legend or Vista, and i was really tempted, but reality set in. I have no regrets, though. It has been dependable and has survived being handled by my kid and his friends. It's accurate enough for the easy caching we do. And it is awfully cute...

Thank you for writing about your experience in Biloxi. It meant a lot to me that you would take the time to write it all down, and I read it twice. I won't say I enjoyed it (it is a sad story on so many levels) but I deeply appreciate it. Thank you.

The kiddo and I have an old spiral notebook, and we write down the clues and coords in the notebook. Then we enter the coords in the eTrex Yellow by hand, drag out the Gazetteer or city map, and figure out where to go. Sometimes i make a mistake. Oh well. Just recently I printed out a couple cache sheets and felt very guilty about it because each cache used up 3 pieces of paper (and the library only lets you print out 10 sheets a day anyway).

I always run around believing the best of people. Gullible, I guess. Once my kid and I were driving by our usual gas station and saw a man standing at the corner with a gas can and a sign "need gas". I decided to buy the guy a gallon of gas. Hey, I've run out of gas and not had money to buy it before! So I pulled up to a pump and called the guy over. Nope, he wanted money. Said he didn't need gas at all, he just wanted "a little extra cash". Now whenever I want to give someone "help" I remember that little incident. I think it probably works better to give through organizations. When I was a kid my family got a wonderful huge Christmas gift of food from a church group, and it wasn't even our church! Their donation went directly to where it was needed and for the purpose it was intended.

Single mom here, too. My 12 year old and I have been using a Garmin eTrex Yellow ($99) all along and have no complaints!

We had great fun at a MiGO event. MiGO may be the only thing I miss from my time spent in Michigan.... (maybe )

Whoa. Cool. (but I'm such a chicken I probably wouldn't even get out of the car...)

We like them all, though we've not been caching much as we'd like! My favorites are boxes that can hold trade goodies (yup, keep the kids happy!) in little parks that I didn't know existed, fairly easy to get to, with clever clues, a little historical interest, and a pretty view is a plus. I'm thinking of "Old School" in Shoreline WA. The clues had my son and his friend thinking (do you count from the bottom or the top? WHAT do you count?) the view was great, nice park, nobody got frustrated to the point of quitting, and they got to trade something, etc. etc. It's all good!

Hot Doggies!

It's in GCJXA3 "Maplewood Ammo Box Stash". I consider it a "freebie" not a trade item, cuz it is slightly used, after all. It's an XL, and it's in a zippy bag. Someone take it, please! (there's some old labelling on it, it was the only zippy bag I had that was big enough). FREE SHIRT! NOT A TRADE ITEM!

Dear Miss Manners, I won a geocaching.com t-shirt at last year's MiGO event. It was waaaay too big, but I wore it a couple times. Last week I put it in a cache as a "freebie" because I just couldn't bear to toss it into a used clothing donation dumpster. It was clean, I promise. Is a slightly used t-shirt just too grody to put in a cache? Should I go retrieve it? Overwrought in Washington

I have high arches, narrow heels, and wide toes (and a wannabee neuroma on my left foot). The curved last on Vasques are murder on my feet. I've had good luck with boots by Salomon, Technica, and Ariat. I also put Superfeet or Spectrum Stabilzer insoles into all my shoes. They cost $25-35 and make me just as happy as custom orthotics ($400) would. Find a GOOD shoe store. Have the salesperson figure out what last you need. They should then be able to choose brands with that type of last for you to try on. Also try a few different insoles just for jollies. You might find something you really like. (if the sales staff doesn't know what a "last" is, leave. Last is the over all shape of the shoe, the midline from center heel-ish to 2nd toe-ish. If you drew a line connecting those two points through the sole would it curve inward or go straight? My feet like straight lasts. My ex's feet like curved lasts. Everyone is different. Knowlegable sales staff are valuable resources!)

The scrimshaw idea sounds very cool. My son and I love finding handmade sig items like that, and it does go with your name!

Nope.

My son and I make Sculpey eTrex Yellow beads and then macrame them onto lanyard clips to make zipper pulls. That's become our sig item. Our favorite sig item we've found so far is one of Victory Mike's chainmail keychains. My son STILL waxes rhapsodic about how he MET VICTORY MIKE, REALLY I DID!! (said loudly and with big goofy little-boy grin) We met him at a MiGO event, and it was like meeting a hero.

I highly approve of kilts, traditional and utilikilts.

I'm stunningly beautiful, a red-headed green-eyed babe who causes mere mortals to go weak in the knees and swoon with delirious desire. In order to protect the public I only have my hand in my avatar.

I'm a weenie. I always print out the decrypted hint, and always read it before I go searching. Caching loses it's luster when the kid is FLIPPING OUT because he can't find the cache. I dole out little clues from the hints and try to direct him a little to help him think it through. "Hey, the clue says the cache is in the squirrel's penthouse. What part of the tree do you think is the penthouse? And what would a squirrel's house look like?" Gotta cache. Gotta keep the kid enthusiastic. Gotta love those hints!

I am so grateful to everyone who has posted about their experiences with the hurricane. I have no way to comprehend the magnitude of the hurricane, just no way to wrap my mind around it. Somehow hearing about it from cachers (rather than just the TV, radio, newspaper) is helping. Thank you, and my thoughts are with you.

We use a gazetteer and city maps. I want my son to learn how to figure things out, so I give him the lat and long and have him work out where we need to go and the best route to take. (y'know, going the wrong way up one-way streets just isn't fun!). We have a good time with that. He's not too patient with the actual searching for the cache part. If he hasn't found it within 45 seconds the world becomes a bitter place...

This seemed pretty appropos after running across the "what's in your caching backpack" thread last week. A woman from the Hip Mama Message Board has started "Back On Track Care Packs" for kids in shelters after Katrina. The idea is that the kids need backpacks so they don't risk losing anything. She has a website with a list of needed supplies for these kids. You can get just about everything from her website http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/backontrackcarepacks or by emailing her backontrackcarepacks@yahoo.com Send your old caching backpack or kid's outgrown pack out where it can do some good!

Anybody got a tattoo of one of the geologos? I want a tattoo over/around my cancer surgery scar. Leatherman's logo (or a variation of it) might be pretty cool.

We were doing some maintanence on a cache we placed. There was a group of muggles strolling along the trail, back and forth, back and forth, so we were waiting before we put the cache back. Well, it was getting a little warm and one of the muggles took off his jacket to reveal... a geocaching.com T-shirt won at the latest MiGO event! We chatted a bit, they walked farther off, and we put the cache back. I have one of those shirts. I've worn it twice, but it's way too big. If I put it into a cache (not as a trade, just as a give-away) would that be too icky?

Freebie Subaru backpack. Has mesh pockets on the sides (one for water bottle, one for plastic pick-up bags); little front organizer pocket for GPSr, extra pencils, zippy bags, dissicator packets, paper, and sig items; and main compartment for McToys (my son trades for other McToys), trade goods, snacks, Mom-can-you-carry-this, and other stuff. Best of all it says SUBARU on it. Doing my part to promote automotive consumerism!

When I test-drove new cars (Toyota, Honda, VW, and Subaru) I took my dog, to make sure he fit. Didn't bring my GPS to the Subaru dealer, cuz it had worked fine in my old Subies. Gee, I hope it still works in my new Subie.... Subaru Impreza: Got 40 mpg?