Melissa's Mom's House

This weekend we were back in Wilkes-Barre for Melissa's wedding shower. On Sunday morning, I finally had some time to go on a hike with Tony through their woods. We were gone for around 2 hours, and covered maybe 5 miles.

We started on the path back behind the garage, then went back behind the nursery out to the power lines. We went up the hill to the left, into the woods on the other side, down the hill to the hemlock grove, back to the power lines, up the other side and then to the gas line and home.

The most important thing I learned is where the house is in relation to the power lines - I had it all wrong a few months ago and me and Andreas got quite lost. To get home from the bottom of the power lines you have to make a RIGHT up the hill and take a trail back on the SAME SIDE YOU CAME IN ON (this is assuming you've come down the path from behind the nursery). So I think I have my bearings a lot better now and should not get quite so lost again.

I also got to try out Tony's GPS, which is just a basic Garmin eTrex. The whole first mile or two of the hike, it could not pick up a signal as we were walking through the woods. However, when we got to a clearing and stood still, it managed to find a signal in a couple of minutes. After that, that signal was intermittent depending on the thickness of the canopy - in fields and under some of the canopy, it worked fine, but under the densest canopy it dropped the signal. Because we did not have a signal for so long, and because the batteries were close to dying, I did not get to try out all the features. However, I was impressed when at the end it was able to automatically detect that we were walking towards home, and gave the remaining distance, and even estimated the walking time based on our speed. I quite like the compass (even though you have to be moving) and speed features.

I have an eTrex H - the same basic design with a new high sensitivity receiver - on pre-order from TigerGPS. Tee original release date was supposed to be three weeks ago, but it has been pushed back. Supposedly, it should be in any day now.