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@Mister Greenthumb wrote:
Just an update on the batteries we use. They are Kenco rechargeable nickel hydride. We just returned from the WGA Campout where we probably had them on for at least 16 hours including an hour illuminated during night caching. I charged them before we left and the still had 1/3 charge when the weekend was over.
I’d need two 12v 800amp car batteries to power my Magellan for that long! 😆
At least now I know what all those purple, triangle shaped boxes are doing all over the forrest preserve behind our place are!
I had one of those stuck into the end of a pinecone in one of my caches called NEMESIS #5 The cone of silence.
That reminds me. I gave that container to The CinemaBoxers, who in turn sent it out to the east coast to be placed. I never got the GC number for that cache. Looks like a need to make a call.
Way to go Dan! 3k is a huge Milestone.
The simple fact is that most people don’t read anything inside the cache, and rarely read the cache page.
For example, my Riddler series of caches has instructions inside every one of them. They don’t tell you how to open the puzzle, but gives hints, and most importantly, ask that you put back everything exactly how it was found. Out of 10 Riddler caches with probably 25-30 maintenance visits, I’ve only ever found the cache to be put back the correct way, twice! On many, many occasions, the puzzles aren’t even closed or reset for the next cacher.
This is just the nature of the game I guess. Sux, I know, but don’t let it get you down.
I can’t tell you what model would be best for them. All I can tel you is my opinion of what I’ve used.
I own a Magellan Meridian Color, which was discontinued last year. It’s accurate like no other, but it can be slow to react at times.
It gets reception where others can’t, and the compass is the best on the market.
The only problem I’ve ever really had with my Magellan is customer service. It’s the worst in the industry by a long shot. Maybe the worst customer service in any industry. If you ever need repairs, or even have a simple question to ask, it can take months to get an answer, if you get one at all.
If I ever have to replace my Magellan, I would most likely buy another one. I own a Garmin dash Mount that I love, and I’ve used many Garmin hand held models and really like them as well. The only reason I can see for not switching to a garmin, and I mean the ONLY reason, is the compass.
However, if you start with a Garmin, you will never notice the compass inadequacies. Garmin’s fit your hand better. They have a more colorful display (color screen models), they are smaller, and in my opinion are more aesthetically appealing.
One last thing, and this has come in handy a few times. the Magellan is durable as heck. I’ve dropped it on the rocks and from my bike more times than I can remember and it still works great. It also floats!
draconis found NEMESIS #18 This one is just, BULLSHWAG! (Traditional Cache) at 5/18/2008
Log Date: 5/18/2008
So goes the Story…..We decided to get to this cache from ‘Be Like CacherClan’. It was only .2 mi or so from it, what could be the problem?
We followed the trails, avoided a few mountain bikers, and ended up strolling along the river. 300 feet, 270 feet, 250 feet, and eventually up again 260 feet 290 feet, 400 feet. With every turn, we hoped the cache would be getting closer, but like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, every time we seemed to be gaining ground, we would turn and lose it again. A touch of the search for Eldorado?
When the counter went over .1 miles again we decided to backtrack. We found a smaller trail that seemed to be right on the shore of the rive, and even that one was difficult, having to detour around fallen and uprooted trees. We examined our prospects for a water crossing, but no stepping stones were available, and our boots and shoes were inadequate. After about 10 minutes a phantasm appeared: a bright white bridge, our way across!
As we approached closer, the truth was revealed, it was a large tree, fallen across the river, so old that the trunk was bark free and whitened from exposure over the years. Rover went first, climbing up and crawling on hands and knees, starting his crossing before I even caught up. I went next, starting out crawling, but as the tree narrowed, my stash bag was hanging funny and I ended up scooting along a little at a time. Jonathan followed, following my crossing pattern and making it across without incident. A couple of bikers were riding past the end of the log as I was crossing, and I said “Don’t ask”. After congratulations, we started out again.
Following the trail, Rover explained about this spot being a ‘party spot’ when he was younger. The GPS distance started to climb again and we dove in. Trees and thorns, sticks and stumbles, mud and climbing described out progress towards the cache. We got to the 30 foot threshold and began our search.
Rover wandered with the Magellan, I used the E-trex and a compass, Jonathan just searched. You can guess who came up with the find? Jonathan, of course. I was zeroing in on it and one more compass plot would have done it, but he beat me to it. What a devilish hide! We SL and replaced, deciding to bushwhack towards the sounds of cars, and hopefully civilization.
We emerged, blinking and blinded, on a road near buildings, and made our way back to the car, using the roadway and trails that Rover was familiar with.
Dragging our tail-ends to the car, we discovered it locked with the keys inside. A cracked open window provided a chance, where we Mcguyver-ed some sticks and duct tape to snag the keys, then headed home, munching some snacks and gabbing all the way.
TFT-Adventure
*BUMP*
Sorry Ralph, but we’re most likely not going to make this one now. I got hold of some bad turkey last night and…
We’ll I’ll save you the gorry details.
If everything goes as planned (plan B) we’ll still make it there tomorrow. Not sure if we’ll have camp set-up by 11:00 though, but we’re sure going to try.
We don’t have an electric site, but we do have a power inverter in our car we will be using to recharge batteries as well.
Since we’re neighbors, we won’t mind sharing the juice.
😀
I’m a jerk and I know it so don’t flame me for this. But, when history is written, it needs to be written correctly. Otherwise Bin Laden may wind up a hero.
I know John Wayne is a hero to a whole generation. I grew up watching (and loving it) with my Grandfather. I cried with him the day we found out he was dead.
But was John Wayne a Patriot? Or was his whole career a terrible irony?
The following is an excerpt from the book “John Wayne’s America: The Politics of Celebrity” (1997) by:Garry Wills
At the time of Pearl Harbor, Wayne was 34 years old. His marriage was on the rocks but he still had four kids to support. His career was taking off, in large part on the strength of his work in the classic western Stagecoach (1939). But he wasn’t rich. Should he chuck it all and enlist? Many of Hollywood’s big names, such as Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart, and Clark Gable, did just that. (Fonda, Wills points out, was 37 at the time and had a wife and three kids.) But these were established stars. Wayne knew that if he took a few years off for military service, there was a good chance that by the time he got back he’d be over the hill.
Besides, he specialized in the kind of movies a nation at war wanted to see, in which a rugged American hero overcame great odds. Recognizing that Hollywood was an important part of the war effort, Washington had told California draft boards to go easy on actors. Perhaps rationalizing that he could do more good at home, Wayne obtained 3-A status, “deferred for [family] dependency reasons.” He told friends he’d enlist after he made just one or two more movies. The real question is why he never did so. Had Wayne divorced, his status would have been revoked. He waited until after the war to finalize his divorce. He remarried that very same day.
Wayne cranked out thirteen movies during the war, many with war-related themes. Most of the films were enormously successful and within a short time the Duke was one of America’s most popular stars. His bankability now firmly established, he could have joined the military, secure in the knowledge that Hollywood would welcome him back later. He even made a half-hearted effort to sign up, sending in the paperwork to enlist in the naval photography unit commanded by a good friend, director John Ford.
But he didn’t follow through. Nobody really knows why; Wayne didn’t like to talk about it. A guy who prided himself on doing his own stunts, he doesn’t seem to have lacked physical courage. One suspects he just found it was a lot more fun being a Hollywood hero than the real kind. Many movie star-soldiers had enlisted in the first flush of patriotism after Pearl Harbor. As the war ground on, slogging it out in the trenches seemed a lot less exciting. The movies, on the other hand, had put Wayne well on the way to becoming a legend. “Wayne increasingly came to embody the American fighting man,” Wills writes. In late 1943 and early 1944 he entertained the troops in the Pacific theater as part of a USO tour. An intelligence big shot asked him to give his impression of Douglas MacArthur. He was fawned over by the press when he got back. Meanwhile, he was having a torrid affair with a beautiful Mexican woman. How could military service compare with that?
In 1944, Wayne received a 2-A classification, “deferred in support of [the] national . . . interest.” A month later the Selective Service decided to revoke many previous deferments and reclassified him 1-A. But Wayne’s studio appealed and got his 2-A status reinstated until after the war ended.
People who knew Wayne say he felt bad about not having served. (During the war he’d gotten into a few fights with servicemen who wondered why he wasn’t in uniform.) Some think his guilty conscience was one reason he became such a superpatriot later. The fact remains that the man who came to symbolize American patriotism and pride had a chance to do more than just act the part, and he let it pass.
All of these statements can be confirmed in Waynes own archives. His letters to the millitary pleading his case, as well as the corespondence from the movie studios.
Every time I see John Wayne Movies pop up on TV, I still think of my Grandfather who I miss great deal. The question is, had Boyd known this about Wayne, would he ever have watched his movies. I think not, in fact I’m certain of that.
Welcome back!
Welcome to the addiction.
If you’re ever down in the Kenosha area, drop me an email. I’ll be glad to show you around.
I guess you could call me a tree hugger. But because I know that most of the trees will be there after I’m gone, and many of them have been there longer than I’ve been alive, I try not to sweat it if I step on a leaf, or break off a small branch.
I don’t like to damage nature. I learned my lesson from a cache I had a few years back called NEMESIS #3 Are you nuts yet? The area got torn up so bad, that it really bothered me. The area was destroyed on purpose by angry cachers searching for a cache that was muggled. I considered giving up caching because I didn’t want to be responsible for more damage.
But, I came to my senses and started hiding caches differently. No, the NEMESIS caches aren’t any easier, but you won’t be tearing up the land around them while searching. I pick places that are already torn up, matted down, or use dead trees, or even jungle gyms. In my most recent and difficult NEMESIS cache, I’ve even left a marker where to concentrate your search. There’s no need to search outside of a 20 inch area. This is written right in the cache page.
The most important thing I learned was that after archiving NEMESIS #3, I came back to the spot the following year, and guess what. There was no way of telling that a cache was ever there, or that cachers had destroyed the area. Without the original coord’s in my GPS, I probably never would have located the exact spot where it had been.
So, the point is, tread lightly, do as little damage as you can. But don’t beat yourself up over a broken branch. Nature will come back. And it will come back quickly. And it’ll be there long after we’re all gone and forgotten.
@Trekkin’ and Birdin’ wrote:
I really ought to take photos one year.
Yes you should. I have yet to see one in the wild. 😥
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