I’d like to politely second the motion of avoiding wal-mart. It seems that a lot of us hikers get a lot of stuff at wal-mart because we are poor and it is cheap. That makes ecomonic sense (no pun intended), and it is what wal-mart capitalizes on. That and not giving employees lunch breaks and pushing locally run businesses to closure through aggresive politics and advertizing. A favorite camp supply store in my little town is currently very threatened by a new wal-mart and its owner, named dave, plays in a local band, is in his fifties, and is a really cool and really real guy. he is the type of guy that give character to the local community.
So for what it’s worth, I encourage everyone to reconsider shopping locally. For me, it’s worth the extra bucks
casey