rpp618

I just purchased my first hand held GPS. A Garmin Colorado 400t. gerocaching.com can download the geocaches directly to your Garmin hand held. A little note on the web site says that they are only compatible with Garmin units. Now the nice thing about the Colorado is that when you download the geocache stuff, everything gets sent to the GPS, the description, notes, logs, hints, everything. They call this "paperless" geocaching and it really seems to be. The screen is nice and big and the colors are bright. The "rock-and-roll" wheel as a form of controlling the device is great. It has a nice feel in my hand and is quite both compact and light. I am pleased with it, but I have nothing except my aviation GPS's to compare it to. And believe me, those are very sophisticated devices. At $475 at Amazon.com, it is an expensive unit.

This looks like it will be a lot of fun. Since I am completely new to this, I hope it will give a chance to learn the "rules" and etiquette of this really neat activity. On a bit of a personal note, I used to be a very avid camper, back-packer and hiker. Unfortunately, a bum knee has sidelined me for more than 8 years. So I have been limited in my outdoor activities to car-camping and short walks over level terrain. As I am also an avid nature photographer, this was very limiting. Last month I had another knee operation (my 5th) and this time it looks like I will finally be able to get out and do some hiking again. As I have been recovering, some friends told me a little about geocaching and I became interested immediately. Unfortunately, I put on some weight during the years of forced inactivity, but now I will be able to exercise again so that should come off pretty quickly. Unfortunately, I will still be on crutches for this event, but I will enjoy myself nevertheless. So if you see a middle-aged, fat and out of shape guy on crutches looking lost, please come over an introduce yourself!

I am not superstitious, but I do consider myself devoutly religious. Yes, I certainly do believe there are places we should not go. Certainly, any place that would upset your child or bring back bad or tragic memories would certainly qualify. I would also like to add that I am sorry for your loss.