A New Adventure

Andy and I went up to the land last Saturday so I could see the fall colors. Our usual ritual when we get there is to turn on the internet and take out the binoculars to look at the gazing ball Beate and Tim gave us. Then I take a picture or two using my iPad and sent it/them to Kaitlin and tammy. It’s not important, but it’s fun.

Saturday we did things in a different order. We took a walk down to Beate and Tim’s first to see the aspens before it got too late. The pictures don’t do them justice, but you get the idea:

Andy took a few more pictures the next day:

Again, the camera doesn’t really do them justice, but they’re better than nothing.

When we got back to the house Saturday afternoon/evening we looked for the gazing ball but couldn’t see it. Andy figured it might just be in the shade, and Sunday he confidently walked down through the bushes and fallen trees to find it. After about three quarters of an hour he decided he would have to try again some other time. But in the process he grabbed a branch as he was climbing over a log. The branch broke, and he fell flat on his back. He wasn’t hurt, but he realized if he had broken his leg, we would have had a devil of a time finding him. He said eventually we should figure out a strategy for doing that, just in case.

He said there was no hurry, sometime in the nebulous future. Say what? I’m afraid I’m more proactive than that. For now I bought him a whistle, which is small, lightweight and in his pocket, and I ordered an emergency signal flashlight which may or may not be useful when it comes. It didn’t cost much, so it’s not a big deal. At least I was trying to play my part well.

That was step one. We still wanted a better way of finding him in case of an accident. Beate told us about emergency beacons, which use satellites and which one registers with Search and Rescue authorities. They are powerful and impressive devices — when you activate one people come looking for you. But they’re designed to be used only in situations “of grave and imminent danger to life.” That’s not quite what we were looking for.

We needed some sort of finder that doesn’t rely on cell phone reception. A couple of dog websites talked about using a radio-frequency system — the dog has a small device on its collar that emits a signal and the owner has a handheld device that receives the signal. So I wrote to two of the companies and said,

We have 80 acres in the mountains with no cell phone reception and my husband goes up alone. We would like to have a tracking device so we could find him if he’s off the roads and hurts himself. We would go looking if he doesn’t come home. Do you have anything that would be useful?

Thank you.

One fellow answered right way and told us about the Garmin InReach:

gundogsupply.com

It does need a subscription for satellite service, but we did a lot of research on it and it looks as if it might be what we want. If it works we can drop Andy’s cell phone and we wouldn’t be paying much more for a lot better communication. I ordered one yesterday morning and they said they would ship it that day — it should be here early next week. Fingers crossed! As usual we will let you know. At the very least we’re learning a lot.