Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Camp Bonner Search Exercise
The big activity this week was going to the wilderness land search exercise at Boy Scout Camp Bonner just east of Washington, NC. It was hosted by Downeast Search & Rescue otherwise known as the "Swamp Rats". I left just after lunch on Friday and arrived there approximately 4 hours later. We just hung around during the evening while things were getting organized. Our cook, George put together a quickie supper which wasn't originally planned. I went to bed in the back of my pickup truck at about 9:30. Generally slept well except that my feet were cold in spite of the cozy down mummy style sleeping bag. I remedied that by putting a couple of "hot hands" (handwarmers) in my socks.
To the right, Mark and his bloodhound take a break for some water.
Saturday morning dawned on us with temps in the mid 20s with a clear blue sky. The picture to the left shows the command staff getting the search organized. We use the National Incident Managent System (NIMS) to organize our searches.
After breakfast we were assigned our first mission. I was the team navigator which meant that I had to keep track of where we were all of the time and keep a log on the mission. We had a big, I mean BIG bloodhound with us. We started at the point last seen (PLS) which was at a campsite in Goose Creek State Park. The dog kinda' circled around in th
e brush for a little while until we came out in a hiking trail. He picked up a trail and from then on it was keep up with the dog. We checked foot prints in the sand and I took several pictures so that we could hopefully identify who we were tracking. By noon, we definitely established the direction of travel of the subject and went back to camp for lunch. It was a beautiful warm day with bright sunshine and temperatures around 60.
e brush for a little while until we came out in a hiking trail. He picked up a trail and from then on it was keep up with the dog. We checked foot prints in the sand and I took several pictures so that we could hopefully identify who we were tracking. By noon, we definitely established the direction of travel of the subject and went back to camp for lunch. It was a beautiful warm day with bright sunshine and temperatures around 60.To the right, Mark and his bloodhound take a break for some water.
I was the team leader on another mission later in the afternoon just to check out part of the same trail for any physical evidence that we might be able to find.
That evening, George cooked barbecue chicken which was extremely delicious. After supper, I headed for home arriving abpout 1:00 a.m.
One of the benefits of this trip was that I met three members of "Lee County Land Search Team". Lee County is our neighboring county just to the northeast of us with Sanford as the major town. We discussed how we could work together in training and assisting each other on searches.
This was a valuable and fun weekend and I am looking forward the the next one for 3-1/2 days at Burke County in the mountains at the end of March.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Yes, This is February
February has come and so has the cold weather. As if it didn't get cold enough here, we went to New York & New Jersey last week. We stopped in Grantham, PA on the way there to have dinner and visit with our granddaughter Emily. We enjoued a nice Thai dinner and then visited for a while in the student lounge at Messiah College.
We arrived at Beth & Steve's house in Clinton Corners, NY on Friday afternooon. We looked for skating ice on Saturday afternoon but snow a few days before had ruined any good skating. So we went down by the Hudson River in Rhinecliff. Saturday evening, we had a nice dinner with Beth & Steve on the west side of the river.
Monday, we played with the goats and walked down the road to take a picture of the creek.
On Tuesday we left and visited Don & Evelyn Holwerda in Hawthorne, NJ for the afternoon. We always chew a lot of rags when we visit there and we enjoyed our visit with them.
Tuesday night we went to the Control Associates retirement party for Mark, John, & Bill. It was a fun night and we visited with many employees and retirees, some of which we hadn't seen since 1993.
On Wednesday, we left for home and everything came to a halt on I-78 at Hamburg, PA. The snow was accumulating to 12 - 18 inches and the big trucks just stopped. We were able to get off at exit 29-B. We found a Wendy's and were the last customers to be served before the power went off. However, It was our great fortune that there was a Cabella's across the street. They had aux. power so we spent about an hour there before they started to send their employees home and closed the store. What a great place to be stranded in during a snowstorm! Big boys toy store! We were able to get a room at a Microtel Motel without light or heat. We went to bed at 7:30 p.m. and got 11+ hrs. of sleep! Power came back on just after midnight. The next morning we headed south to Reading, PA and got on the Pennslyvania Turnpike for a clean shot home.
