I grew up on the east coast but didn't take in the outdoors until living in the Northwest... where REI is king. Living East again I tend to go to EMS for just about everything as there's a store only a few miles away...

to an earlier question about who builds their stuff, i learned from one of their store mgrs that they actually design and build their own stuff which i thought was pretty cool. and I agree - the prices are right... particularly if you're willing to forego the big names and super-high detail builds of some of the other brands.