BeachBumWannaBs

When I was a kid we'd go to Spring Mill State Park in Mitchell, IN. Looks like there are 10 caches too! I haven't been there since my brother had his wedding there in 1990, but hope it's still a nice place. Nancy

Another great one I heard from a friend (male)... "Yes Dear, you're right. I should have thought if it myself."

mcweb.... you are AWESOME! I love it!! Very cool, and yes, glass-like. I showed it to tenacious_dml (my caching partner) and of course it's not tough enough, or tenacious enough, for him - but that's ok. This one is excellent for me! (please do email the larger version if you don't mind) Thank you Nancy

Wow... you guys are awesome! I want an avatar, but I have no idea what it should be. My caching parter and I both go by our initials (NLK and tenacious_dml), so that's kind of boring. I'm learning to do stained glass... so maybe something that looks like that? We both really like PrairieStyle/FrankLloydWright geometric patterns. Our primary cachemobile is his dark green Toyota Tacoma truck. We use an Etrex Legend. He loves the Simpsons - one of our signature items is a shrinkydink keychain that quotes Bart, "I don't know why I did it, I don't know why I enjoyed it and I don't know why I'll do it again." Nancy - edited to revise ideas for an avatar -

I'm female 36 2 cats highly intelligent, if you believe the online IQ tests - but mostly I feel average degree in biomedical engineering live in New Hampshire - grew up in Indiana, college in Boston, left my old life in Maryland in 2002 as a kid, I was an orchestra geek definitely NOT athletic, ever. My engineering degree instilled a problem-solving mentality, and that morphed into quality assurance as a profession. I love looking at a selection of facts and deducing trends and solutions. (Getting to tell people they're doing it wrong is just a bonus ) Now I get to work at the premeire engineering Geekdom of product development in the country, if not the world, watching over regulatory compliance and looking for ways to improve processes. I thought I was smart til I got here... then I found out how many different ways people can be smart. Surprisingly, while many of my coworkers have heard of caching, no one else does it regularly. While on a short hike with my parents in Sedona in February, I was thinking it would be cool to have a GPS so we could find our way back down to the trail we started on, and then it clicked that about a year ago a former coworker had told me about geocaching. As soon as I got home I went out and bought a GPS and signed up here. Geocaching has given me the opportunity to incorporate some of my favorite things (the company of my sweetie, gadgets, puzzles and the 'AHAH' moment) with stuff I've always thought I should enjoy but hated doing (hiking, long scenic car trips, being outdoorsy). I love caching! Nancy

Beta-test -- No, I'm pretty sure it wasn't a badger. Too tall and wrong color. No stripes, either. This critter had a good-sized tail, and the coat was sort of tortoise-shell - black with touches of dark brown. Even with just a brief glimpse, he looked like the picture I posted above. Nancy

Last Saturday, tenacious_dml and I were on our way out from doing the Jefferson Notch Cache - GCH39E. We continued driving out along the road we came in on to see where it connected. The area is heavily wooded, and we saw a quick flash of a medium-sized critter with a lush black/brown coat and a long tail as he headed into the woods. Too big to be a cat, too small to be a dog... I'm sure it was a fisher! Having never seen one in person, and living in Manchester, NH where our new local baseball team is the NH Fisher Cats, I was amused to see one in person. He went by so quickly I didn't have a chance to grab my camera, but he looked like this: The road we were following ended up at the Mount Washington Cog Railway, where we saw a fox. It was a good weekend for wildlife! In addition to these guys, we also saw a partridge and several moose.

Ron/TivoAussie - you are correct - nice to see you here as well as segwaychat.com I do know a couple of Scotts here - not sure which one may have been your seller though. Glad you're enjoying the ride (should I say glide?) Joel/JoeFrog - I think it depends on what your state regs say, but typically Segway riders are considered to have the same rights/rights-of-way as pedestrians. Happy caching! Nancy

I've had my Segway for about 20 months and I'd have to say that of the 21 caches I've done so far, only two were Segway-friendly. It seems like many Terrain=1 caches are not well suited for Segging in, even though the machine can handle rugged terrain and be pushed/pulled easily. Still, it's a blast to ride, and I love giving demos just to see the grin on a first-time rider's face! Nancy

I *strongly* recommend the following book - The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook: Your Self-Treatment Guide for Pain Relief This book is very readable and easy to follow - you will likely be able to pinpoint trigger points in your muscles that cause the foot pain (or whatever pain) you're feeling. The trigger points (knots or lumps in the muscle body, typically ranging in size from the size of a pinhead to the size of a grape) are usually distant from where you actually feel the pain. For example, the pain I felt in the bottom of my right heel went away after a few minutes of massaging the right, lower side of my right calf. I sat in a comfy chair, crossed my right calf over my left knee, and used my left knee to dig into the back of my right calf. You can do the same thing with a tennis ball. Anti-inflammatory drugs can help relieve inflammation, but self-massage (or help from a friend, loved one, or licensed massage therapist) will do wonders! You may also want to check your local library for this book if you don't want to buy it. A good massage therapist will know where to look for the trigger points too. Muscles are much like violin strings, and trigger points occur in known spots along the length of a muscle, just like harmonics on a string. I can't recommend this book enough - it really does help, and learning a little about your muscle structure is SO much easier and less painful than surgery!! Good luck! Nancy

I adore my 2003 Subaru Forester! It gets great mileage (I average about 23mpg city, 31 hwy) and I can pack tons of stuff into it. It picked the options to have the gigantic sunroof, a premium sound system and 6 CD changer, and 5 speed. The AWD gets me everywhere I need to go (we have lots of snow here in NH). I highly recommend it!! When I test-drove the Honda CRV, it didn't have the handling the Forester did. I had no trouble getting it to slide doing donuts in a sandy parking lot. The Forester gripped tight to the pavement. I love Hondas, but the CRV just felt flimsy. Nancy

I bought some as silly stocking stuffers for my stepdad and brother-in-law at LLBean. Who knew that camo duct tape was a necessity?? Of course, this was before I started caching... Nancy

Last night I dreamed I was in a cooking gadget store, and I found two travel bugs on display tables among the whisks, spatulas and pans. One TB was a keychain with mini versions of various cooking gadgets hanging from it (appropriate to the store I was in). I was pacing around the store debating which TB to pick up, and wondering what their individual goals were so that I'd have a chance to help them along. Yesterday - while I was awake - I was looking at some of the travel bugs on GC.com. I wonder if I made this cooking gadget one up, or if I saw it for real?? Nancy

That plate updates for each state you look at in the dropdown list of states.... for display only :-) However, looking at WV's DOT site it appears that CACHER may be available if you want it! http://www.wvdot.com/6_motorists/dmv/6g2c_vanityplate.htm (I know NH's DMV site has a similar function so you can search for vanity plates) Nancy

Excellent!! That sounds terrific! Thank you Nancy

I'd love to be able to add a cache to a "to-do" list, rather than watching it, per se. Alternately, I'd like to elect not to get the email notifications for watched caches. I suppose I could direct the emails to an auxilliary email account, but I'd really rather just have a to-do list. Nancy

Well, that goes without saying... it'd be nice to mark certain threads to ignore when you get bored with them

I'd like to be able to have settings to ignore posts from certain forums when I use the "View New Posts" or "My Assistant" features. For example, I'd rather not have to wade through the foreign language posts when I'm checking in to see what new posts have appeared since I last logged in. Or perhaps have the reverse functionality... let me select which forums from which I want to see new posts.

I'm part of a newbie caching couple. Earlier this month we were in Arizona and my parents took us on a hike. Much to our surprise, we enjoyed the hike and figured it was something we could enjoy doing when we got back home to New Hampshire. On the plane on the way home there was a guy with some sort of altimeter/compass gadget (not a GPS) and it triggered my memory that a friend had recommended geocaching to me about a year ago. I came back to work (at the geekiest, coolest engineering company ever) and asked for recommendations on GPSes... got lots of responses (including some from caching coworkers) then went out and bought one. We found our first two caches this past weekend and are totally hooked! We figured that caching would be the ultimate remedy to boredom and couch potato-ism, and would be even better once spring comes along. We're always looking for fun diversions and are also big-time bargainers when it comes to the balance of exercise and eating (if we move more, we can cook more yummy food!) At this point, we don't have enviable numbers, but you can bet that we're both interested in them. C'mon springtime.... hurry up! Our ability to find caches and benchmarks will improve when the ground isn't covered in snow! Nancy