Feeding my camera's memory

I travel without my computer but with a very active camera, so I need to make sure that I have the right amount of memory cards with me. After all, I'd hate to miss any pictures!

When I rode across the states in 2002 I was carrying a small hard drive with me. That worked, but it's too small to support my current camera habits. I suppose I could buy a larger drive, and I'll need to deal with that at some point in the future as I move beyond one or two week trips. For now, I try to carry enough CompactFlash cards to feed my camera.

Today I wandered over to B&H to pick up another card. Hmmm... the cards I like (made by SanDisk) are out of stock. OK, I'll check Adorama, my second choice of the New York photo stores. Wow - there is a SanDisk rebate program in progress there. And I snuck in under the wire; the rebates end on March 30th!

I tend to buy 2 gigabyte cards, but I'll consider 4 gigabytes too. Let's see, the prices today are $32 for a SanDisk Extreme III 2GB card, and $79.99 for a 4GB Extreme III card. The fact that the 4GB card is that much more than twice the price of the 2GB card seems more than a little crazy to me, but OK, I'll buy 2 2GB cards...

I ususally buy the SanDisk Ultra II, which are good quality cards just below the Extreme III, but today's price has the Extreme cards at lower than the Ultras. OK, I'll buy the higher quality card, no complaints!

Back to the rebate though... If I buy one 2GB card, the rebate is $10, for 2, the rebate is $30, and for 3, the rebate is $50. Let's see, that means if I buy 3 cards at $96 ($32 each), I will get a rebate of $50. That means that the cards are just over $15 each. You're absolutely right, I did just order 3 more 2GB cards! Happy...