ihatethistles

Here I Am I just found out that I’ve been an inspiration to someone. Really amazed me and stunned me into stupefied silence. How cool! Somebody’s been watching me. Through a sliver of time, through my logs! Finding that out made me giddy, because so often I feel like my life makes no difference. I have multiple sclerosis, have had it since 1986, when I was 28 and running through the woods. It took a long time for me to become as disabled as I am, so I’m very thankful for the life of love and adventure that I’ve had so far. Now I walk with a cane, but barely. My balance is really going. I estimate that this will be the last year that I’ll be able to walk. Nice time to discover geocaching… Since July 2010 I’ve found 284 caches and love the blend of the hunt, obsession, spreadsheets, maps and especially nature and the outdoors. Before then, I spent a lot of time sleeping all day long while the sun shone through the windows. Geocaching has given me a series of obtainable goals which bring me out of the house, to walk, often to beautiful areas that I didn’t know were there. I have something fun to look forward to on a regular basis. What better motivation is there for exercising? My sweet, half-muggle husband helps me walk when I have to do terrains greater than 1.5. My childhood buddy comes with me on all day caching sprees. I am meeting the greatest people – cachers! I’m so glad to hear that people enjoy reading my logs. I want others to experience the same happiness by identifying with my small adventures. As a newbie, I thought people got mad if you wrote a lot. Not so. Good! I’ll keep on recording every little victory. Thanks, TSAWSF, for letting me know that I am special. yOu aRe pReTTy dArN cOOl YourSeLf! Lynnie

to t4e: I put the following: "http://s1217.photobucket.com/albums/dd399/ihatethistles/?action=view&current=slopesmall.jpg" into the Background Image URL field. There are no html IMG codes in it. Maybe I'll try making the picture even smaller. I'll try getting out of the forums and accessing My Profile from the button at the left. Thanks!

All you guys are so funny! You made my day! What a story! I went geocaching today with my sweet half-muggle husband, Dave. I'm usually a lurker, but I have to tell you that reading all these posts has been a blast! Thanks!

I still can't get my background photo to appear and tile. I uploaded the pic, copied the url from photobucket and put it in the field while editing my cache page. Is it not showing because the cache is still waiting for approval? I'm also having a problem with my new avatar photo. It shows up in geocaching.com, but only some of the time. Here in the forums it is not showing up. Is it because it takes time to get the new avatar photo to transfer over to the forums?

I am all for power trails. If so many people are against them, I think Groundspeak should create an attribute for them. I'm handicapped and can only walk a short distance. Power trails would help physically challenged people run up their numbers for a change. I spend so much time just driving to and from a cache here or there. And there are too many times that I have to give up because someone forgot to tell me that the weeds are 3 feet high, or "by the side of the road" involves climbing a steep embankment. I haven't done a power trail yet but can't wait to try it. It sounds like it would be a lot of fun with a bunch of people. How nice to just drive .1 mile, park, get out, find, sign, replace and drive on to the next cache. Although I can see how it could get boring. There are a bunch of them here in Illinois that follow mostly backroads around the county borders. But it would be even nicer to do it in California!

Oh! I wish people would start giving parking coordinates. I'm handicapped and can only walk about 1/2 mile on level terrain. I've wasted so much time and gotten so frustrated over figuring out where to park! Even after much research with Google Earth, there are too many caches I drive away from with me head hanging low, vowing to quit this silly game. Like I really could...

I wish I had a picture of this one. It was a sign for a sale on large houseplants at the grocery store. It read: 12" Pot Plants $14.95

As another newbie, who was going to dip, and looked into the matter, I agree with you. Now don't you all yell at me now.

I am handicapped with Multiple Sclerosis. I can walk, but not far. I can't walk in weeds or slightly long grass. I love the woods! I miss the woods! I want to do woods caches, but I can't get in unless there is something like a trail. It would make this wonderful game so much more cool if I could see where I could get to a trail so I could get to the cache without having to waste my time falling down over and over. I love that cache owners can post parking coordinates. It would make a big difference in my life if I could see where the trails were in relation to the cache. Then I could choose whether or not I thought I could make it. Geocaching has given me back my childhood. I've just been doing it a month, and love it!

Thanks, I love your article. I have M.S. and am a newbie. I LOVE it so far. If I were healthy, I would be hiking the mountains instead of doing micros in Chicago. It gets me out of the house by offering me some fun and excitement. I love going to the parks and spending time outside with nature, and also learning about places. I'm very encouraged by the kind attitude of the people on this forum page. Thanks to all of you!

I have Multiple Sclerosis. I walk with a cane, can't walk far, or walk on an incline. I can only do up to Terrain #1.5. I just started and I am walking better and longer, and my depression has improved. There was nothing in my life that was exciting. I love the outdoors and learning about the history or science of a place. There's nothing like an obsession to get your mind off problems. I worried all the time and it was killing me. I think geocaching is going to save my life, too.