Hey World! Woah, Calvin's writing on the blog. Yeah, I haven't been on a computer much recently, and thats OK.
I'm super excited about all the work Beth has put into our new, shared blog/web journal/ travel site. My old blog, linked on here a fair bit, calvinrdecker.blogspot.com was very limiting. There was no way to change anything into categories or menus, and uploading photos was painful. Between that and being very disappointed in myself after AZT I kinda let it go, hoping to start something like this. So, thanks to Beth, we have a new site. blah blah...ill shut up about that junk.
So, onto the Northern Forest Canoe Trail:
If anyone is interested in stalking us (dot watching) here is the SPOT share page:
Unlike a Trackleaders.com link, the SPOT share only shows where we have been for the last 7 days. It will not show where we are going next. I considered setting up a private trackleaders link, but the extra cost would provide little added benefit, after all, this isn't a race, so there's no need to see how we're contending. If you want to stalk a little harder, you could always use the NFCT trip planner to view the route ahead (and behind) of us. Its a really well put together page!
I must say, I'm not thrilled with SPOT recently. Seems like every year the tracking prices go up, I think like $200/year for basic now. They have their corner of the market virtually monopolized, and are the standard goto for most ultra race tracking sites. Delorme has a similar product, but reviews are poor and battery life seems to be disappointing. My SPOT Gen3 has been through hell, and back. The devices are available cheap, compared to the service. I wish for $200 a year I could trade my device in for one that I could still see what the buttons are supposed to say (Thankfully I scratched the labels in the plastic) or maybe the strap slots weren't broken (so I PL premium'd a piece of recycling on.) Perhaps my biggest complaint is the automatic billing, with no way to turn it off, or no way to renew without them saving my most recent credit card info. On the plus side, it has never failed to share my location with those interested, and the battery life is amazing so long as you use LITHIUMS. I guess the SOS feature could be peace of mind, but hell, Lewis and Clark were fine (mostly), and I think they ran out of AAA batteries before they crossed the Mighty Mississip! Thankfully their GPS ran on solar power....or something like that.
Alright, I've got to get back to more important trip planning, like building custom canoe wheels, portage packs and seeing what else I can leave home or sneak into Beth's pack without her noticing. We use all the best, light weight stuff, but this crap is STILL heavy!!!
Plan is boat in the water in Old Forge NY Tuesday Morning. My next update will be from the trail.
