KC Illini

I don't have the "little yellow" but got a better deal. I guess Garmin made some of the "yellow" with a camoflage cover on it. I set out to get the yellow and saw the camo version on clearance. The yellow was suggested retail price of around $100 but the camo version was half off. The sales guy said it was the exact same functioning model but no one was buying the camo for fear of dropping them and not being able to find them. So I saved the 50 bucks, bought the camo and put a big yellow smiley face sticker on it.

I have the basic Etrex and here is how mine works to get the lat and long. Scroll through the pages until you get to the compass navigation page (the big circle with the arrow, etc). Mine defaults to showing the speed on the bottom (useless). From this page use the up / down selectors on the left side to scroll through what gets displayed on the bottom - options are like bearing, direction, average speed, etc. and one of those is coordinates.

My question is about puzzle / mystery caches and whether you need to solve the puzzle as described or is it ok to use other means. A couple of examples in our area (Kansas City): One listing includes a pay phone number to call and requires you to get answers about the area where the payphone is from a stranger that (hopefully) picks up. The answers to the questions are a password to get coordinates from the cache owner. The other requires solving "Einstein's Riddle". Solving the riddle helps you decode the coordinates. Since I find it odd to try and interact with a stranger on the other end of a phone, is it OK to use the internet to find where the pay phone is and get the answers to the questions myself. On Einstein's puzzle, it is a famous enough puzzle that the solution is also published on the internet What are people's opinions of whether this circumvents the "spirit" of the hunt or is this just good, acceptable detective work.

I've noticed in several cahce listing that you need to try to be inconsipicuous, avoid muggles, etc. I understand, you don't want to be caught in the act of pulling a large tupperware container out of a pile of rocks in plain view of someone. My questions is what is acceptable to do when you do find a cache in a high traffic area and want to spend some time looking through the trades and / or log book. Like a cache that is less than 5 feet off of a hiking path in a busy park. My thought is that it is OK to temporarily (less than 5 minutes) take the cache to a very nearby (less than 100 ft) resting spot, even if in plain view. Like a picnic table in a park or sitting on a nearby rock. Thumbing through a pile of stuff out in the open looks more natural than stooping in the woods and hurredly scanning through a cache and hiding from pasers by. I think it looks like I am just going through my personal belongings on a rest from a hike. As long as you remove and hide the cache discreetly, am I correct in my thinking that it is OK to take some time out away from the immediate cache area to peruse or should the entire find, peruse, hide cycle be done under cover?