Been busy this week. Internet time is limited so this will be more of a pictorial view of the last few days.
This is our solar powered LED flaslight. It used to be black but it's spent so much time in the sun that the paint has faded. It's the best option we've seen for non-battery lighting. It's hard to tell in the picture but it about 50% larger than a mini-mag light.
Susan and I pulled some driftwood up onthe beach to be used for firewood later. The wind and waves came up the next day and took most of it back out in the lake again.
I found a piece of wood I'm making into a rabbit stick. I don't know what kind it is but it's dense and hard. I'm cutting some chips in it then will shave those off to flatten it.
I still have a long way to go yet. The machete is a Gerber with a saw-back on it. I had to sharpen both the saw side and the cutting side. It works okay but I don't think I'd buy another one.
We finally got to try out our packet cooker. It's a small "stove" designed to burn wood ships, pine cones,etc. and folds flat for carrying. It's a bit on the heavy side for backpacking but it works great. I used a couple of handfulls of wood chips and twigs and it was enough to cook our meal. It works great in the wind and cools off quickly when you're finished. We'll definitely be taking it back packing with us.
Burritos tonight. Susan has already heated up the beans and is now heating up the ground meat on the pocket cooker.
It's a little low-slung so you need to be able to do your work at ground level.
Checked out a DVD fromt he local library and watched it. It has several old training films from the military on it. It's good but dated somewhat.
Laundry day ...
We took this small wading pool to a local hot spring to do our laundry and play in the water a bit. I filled it by carrying water from the spring.
Susan washing/wringing clothes from the bucket.
I'm washing jeans in the "pool."
Campfire time. The dog makes it's way between Susan and I all evening. Whoever has time for the dog has it's undivided attention!
We're heading out for a morning hike to see some caves ...
We spotted these last year but didn't have time to walk over to see them so we decided to make doing so a priority this year.
The same caves on telephoto.
We madea big "C" shaped hike to get to their location because there were some others along the way we wanted to look over as well. We stopped at this one to take a lunch break before headng back. This was the best of the lot primarily because the bats hadn't spent as much time in it. It's tall but not too deep.
The dog making sure nothing is wasted from my sandwich.
Some of the cracks in the ground in the low-lying areas were pretty impressive. Many went down about five feet.
One of the locals we disturbed.
We forgot to bring wire to string the curtains on so Susan used string instead. She threaded it through the curtains by tying the string to the radio antenna on the truck then running the curtains down the antenna.
Cut the thread to length and remove the "threaded" curtains to install them over the windows.
The wind came up Wednesday and whipped the lake into a frenzy. It turned into quite a storm with lots of dust as well. We were glad to be in the U-Haul. It was shaken a bit but held up well against the wind and dust.
The sky got a little dark too. I took some pictures of the dust but they didn't come out well so I didn't bother posting them.
The day after the storm the beaches were littered with driftwood pieces and trash. All the wood we'd thrown up on the sand to dry had been washed back out into the lake.
That afternoon we gathered up some of the better wood for our fire.
After packing that wood I have new respect for those women you see in third-world countries that gather their firewood this way!
Starting the evening campfire. The wind was blowing fairly strong so it was a challenge to get it going.
The evening meal. Polish sausages cooked to perfection (well, they were edible anyway!).
Evening, the day after the storm. Some day when there are no high wind warnings we're going to take our kayaks over to that island to get a closer look at that rock formation.
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