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Now that :13: has already been posted

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In my humdrum life today, I was off of work (as usual since I only work about 2 days/week).  So I made a few phone calls, emailed and facebooked a bit, edited a picture of my brother and sent it to him for his birthday, mailed out two pathtag trades, went to the post office and bought 100 more postage stamps, did two loads of laundry, did cache maintenance on three of our caches, had a dinner date with Kim, and then we saw the Agatha Christie play “And Then There Were None.”

Tomorrow (Saturday) we’re going to the zoo, followed by church in the evening.  We don’t normally do church on a Saturday, but we plan on attending Sunday’s Cache Quest event GC756YA.  Then Sunday evening we’re having another couple over for dinner and likely either a movie or games.  This concludes our report of what’s happening in the real world for this weekend.  We now return you to the regularly scheduled drivel.

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I tried out my new ankle gaiters yesterday for the first time.  They rock.  Walked 11 miles in tall grass.  No more twigs, burrs, and leaves seeping in over the top of my hiking boots or sticking to my socks.  Nothing.  Not to mention no ticks are able to get up my pant legs.

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We made a trip up ‘nort for the weekend and got to see cbiij, Wi.Hibiscus & Wi.Hi’s Guy, and Sweetlife.  We accomplished our goal of clearing out all of Mr. Greenthumb & Sunshine’s caches north of Fond du Lac/Sheboygan.  That gives us 470 MGT&SS finds, only 38 more to go, all within 40 miles from home.

MGT&SS caches – gotta collect them all!

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The only way I can tell if it’s sufficiently charged is to either switch to the trip computer screen with battery level shown in one of the data fields (pictured), or go to the compass screen with the battery level shown in one of the data fields.  But to do either one of those you first have to disconnect the GPS unit from the charging power source.

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A note to the BOD – the state park pathtags and the 2016 Cache Ba$h breakfast pathtag do not have the WGA tag on them, so currently they won’t show up in the search.  Someone with access will need to edit them at the pathtags site.

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Gee I have the same question.

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For us this past weekend the weirdest thing was probably fiberglass sections of what we assume was a boat.  Our CITO event was at Sheridan Park, right along Lake Michigan.  All sorts of stuff washes up on shore.  Other items worth mentioning from this weekend include a few tires, a few pairs of pants, a 50 to 70 lb iron beam, and a few 5 to 6 foot lengths of rebar.

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We found three caches today, but all of them were ours. 😉  Unfortunately we were looking for four of ours; one apparently was muggled.  Time to disable and replace.

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Welcome to the WGA!

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Lately I’ve been leaving carabiners or marbles.  A bag of a few hundred marbles is pretty cheap, and I put 4 to 6 of them in 2″ x 3″ ziplock bags.  Overall cost maybe 10 cents.  With the carabiners, I get them on eBay, cost is $1.20 for a package of 10, so that totals 12 cents each.  I typically order 10 packages at a time for a total of 100 carabiners.  Shipping is free.

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I had to check.  Find #777 for us was a WSQ multicache in Meeme, WI.  What is remarkable about it was that we found it on April 11, 2011 – exactly 6 years ago today!

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Trekkin and Birdin wrote:

We went to Rapids last night to see the Del McCoury Band….great show. We saw them three years ago in Iowa, on a double bill with Fleck and Washburn. We were happy to have seen only one deer on the way home, which is really quite remarkable, considering we had to travel much of the way through Meadow Valley.

Interestingly, when we went to the “will call” table to get our tickets, we saw another envelope labeled “Jeremy Vechinski.” Did not spot him there, though. It’s a fairly big theater. Too bad!

Wow I really like all of those guys.  Didn’t know they were coming to WI.  I guess I had better set my notification range to something  greater than 22 miles…

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BigJim wrote:

Anyone have a Garmin GPSMAP 64st? What do you like/dislike about it? My old DeLorme PN-60 is getting to the point where I’m ready to replace it. Since Garmin bought out DeLorme and discontinued the PN series, I’m looking for something else.

I have one, and I love it!  Actually, I have the Garmin GPSMAP64s.  The main difference between the 64s and 64st is whether or not it includes a topographical map.
So far, I own or have owned a Garmin Dakota 20, Garmin Oregon 450, Garmin Oregon 650, Garmin GPSMAP 62s, and now the Garmin GPSMAP 64s.  They get used a LOT.  The Dakota and Oregon models are touchscreens, and the GPSMAP series are pushbutton models (which seem to last a bit longer and you don’t have to take your gloves off in Winter to use them).
The thing I like about the 62s & 64s the best, the #1 feature: accuracy.  With the elongated antenna from the “bumped out” thumb, it gets the best possible reception.  I talked with the Garmin engineers several years ago and they said all of their units are pretty accurate, but to a very minor extent the ones with the “thumb” (60CSX, 62, & 64) are technically superior.  We currently have two Oregons (inherited one of them), and the 64s.  The GPSMAP 62s was our main GPSr, but after over 7,000 cache finds in six years, the power button fell off.  But it still worked!  So now our main unit is the 64s.
The only negative I can think of with the 64s/st (which really isn’t a negative for me) is that since it’s a pushbutton model instead of a touchscreen model, it takes longer to type in text for field notes or spell search.  The main positives (of which there are many) is pushbutton reliability/longevity, and signal accuracy.  Oh, and with this unit, like most modern Garmin units, you can wirelessly send and receive waypoints to other Garmin units if you’re caching with others and one of you doesn’t have the cache loaded but the other person does.
I’ve put a free topo map on some of my GPS units, but I’ve never used them.  Therefore getting the 64st ( includes topo map) wasn’t worth the extra charge compared to the 64s (no topo map).  But if you actually value a topo map then getting the 64st is worth the extra money compared to the 64s. Or perhaps if the 64st is on sale and is the same price as the 64s.

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Ours have been ordered, should have them soon!

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