My So. California caching trip! My wife and I left for CA on Tue. Sept 17th and came back last night (Monday). I downloaded waypoints from Geocaching.com with a 50 mile radius using a San Diego, LaJolla, and Palm Springs zipcode. This resulted in 800+ waypoints (some probably duplicated), but still..... Then I started looking up and printing some cache pages. Most of the caches in the outlying areas (dessert) that were 2 or 2 1/2 stars indicated to take at least a gallon of water. So I limited my search for 2 1/2 and below. We stayed at Ramada in SD the first night. They had broadband access in each room at $10 for a 24 hr. period. since we would be leaving for Palm Springs early the next morning, I used dialup.I guess they are catching on to people using the phone for internet. It was 50 cents for the call (normal) but after 15 minutes it was an additional 7 cents/minute. In Palm Springs we stayed at a Hyatt. The had a bank of computers, fax machines and printers for rent. Internet access was 49 cents/minute. I stuck with dialup the whole trip, connecting at 12K up to 49K depending on the area. My intent was to go caching early in the AM (7-8) and get back by noon to beat the heat and do quality time with my wife playing tourists. It seems like most of the caches in town (San Diego and Palm Springs) are Altoid tins or virtual caches. In the desert they were all in ammo cans. City cache ratings were about the same as ours, but the desert cashes were a different story. I think the placers of the desert caches assume we all have a 4x4 to drive close to the cache. The walk may be flat for a 1-1 but I sure wouldn't call it path where "you could ride a standard bicycle or push a stroller on this trail", as in the example for a 1-1 cache on Geocaching.com. Then there's the clues for the cache. One used "unnatural frones", another used "Oak tree" (looked like a holly bush to me), another was a "Manzanita bush". And then there was "Beavertail, prickly pear and barrel" cactuses. When the whole area is cacti, they all look alike to me, and they all have sharp stickers. I think Myotis helped with these clues! :-) With the desert temperatures of 100+, Shorts were fine, except for all the cuts and scratches I got from the bramble bushes. Lots of sticky cactuses, but I knew enough to stay away from them. Locating the cache area or parking area was the real challenge.Everyone in CA operates in max. mode while driving. The interstates (3-5 lanes) all have shoulders but none of the exits are numbered or mile markers placed on the highways. The main highways, (non-interstates and major roads) have no shoulders! There is a 3-4' wide bike path instead, which make it tough to pull over and try to determine where the exit to the cache is. Naturally it's the exit you just passed but with the curves and hills (and divider) you can't just make a U turn. It's hard to read that little 1 1/2" x 3" GPS screen when the traffic is whizzing by at 70 MPH. I ended up with 2-3 per day because most of my time was spend driving around correcting my wrong turns and exits. One easy cache I was going to do Sunday evening was just off an exit on I-15 on an access road. Little did I know that the exit was also for the Qualcomm Stadium and the Padres were playing that night. It took me almost a hour with the police, one way roads, and closed off roads to get back on the highway! I had my laptop with Mapsource loaded but it's still hard to look at the laptop at 70 MPH with cars on both sides and the sun hitting the screen. Again, there was no place to pull over to get your bearings. I did get some good ideas for handling virtual caches without requiring an email with the answer and even placement of a "cache" and treat it as a virtual. I had some "no finds" once I found the correct area to search or park, but I still enjoyed the hike because they were "non-tourist" areas and the scenery and terrain was very different than in MO. Gas prices in San Diego were $1.75 for regular but in Palm Springs it was $1.44. Guess the rich people need a break. It was 104 (17% humidity) in Palm Springs, the "coolest" that it had been all summer. Now I'm ready for some good old Missouri caches again. Rich