From schwartz@bitstorm.net Wed Aug 08 14:57:41 2001 To: misc_survivalism_moderated@yahoogroups.com Subject: [misc_survivalism_moderated] BOB test.... From: Jeff Schwartz Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2001 16:57:41 -0400 -------- BOB test 8/7/2001 My daughter and I decided to go camping with just what was in our BOB bags - both personal and vehicle. My wife was tied up with other things, I had some vacation days from work, we said, "What the hey!" Took off about 07:30 8/7. Plan was to camp at Set Pond in the Ocala National Forest. Mistake number one: By the time we arrived at the forest, we were under a half tank of gas. This can be traced to leaving with less than a full tank and not stopping on the way (duh!), but worse, I neglected to grab the 5gallon gas cans from the shed out back, as I would have in a real Bug Out. (Well, change 'would' to 'should' and it's accurate.) We got into the back woods and drove up and down tiny deer trails… couldn't find Set Pond. Finally decided we were nearing "bingo fuel", cut out of the forest, went to the nearest town and filled the tank. Went back to the forest. It soon became obvious why we couldn't find Set Pond - it wasn't there anymore. Just a wide field of grass with a muddy, clay-ish bed. Not a drop of water. Okay, abort to our alternate spot - Doe Pond. Ditto. Turkey Pond? Ditto. By this time, it's dawned on me that anything with "pond" in the title is going to be dry. We decided to try "Doe Lake", figuring that it's much bigger on the map, maybe there's water left. The plan for the Ponds was to camp there since they're not designated camping areas that have lots of people, and this would be more 'buggoutish' than using a campground. Doe Lake had a camp ground, but would also have water. On the way to Doe Lake, there are numerous signs saying, "DO NOT LEAVE ROADWAY". Apparently that portion of the forest is now under CFR regulations that 'preserve it' - the Doe Lake camping area was closed to public use. Alright, this was getting ridiculous. Turned north, headed for Halfmoon Lake. And finally got a winner. Boat ramp, camping area, and not a soul in sight. We put our $4 in the envelope, dropped it into the slot, and set up camp. By now it was 12:45, and the temp was up in the 90s. We set up a small camp. My daughter set up her backpacking tent, I used one heavy duty space blanket to make a sunshade, and another to make a ground cloth. I was happy. Use twine from the BOB to set this up, and during it realized that in trying to get out of the house without waking my wife up, I'd neglected to take my favorite knife from the scrub pants I was wearing around the house the night before and put it in the pants I was wearing now…. Which annoyed me, because it's easy to open one handed, and I was stuck using the tiny penknife I did have with me, which needed two hands to open… which left me one hand shy. Dug around in the BOB and found the old Swedish Bayonet I bought years ago, and stuck it in the belt. Overkill, but I only needed one hand to get it. We changed into swimming suits, went down to the boat ramp, and got in the water… and then noticed the gator, cruising along off shore. We got out of the water right quickly. The gator continued his patrol. He looked to be about 9' long, from what was showing. We walked back to camp. We were both wet, which made things comfy. We lounged under the sun for a bit, enjoyed the day. Daughter and I told stories, had fun. About 15:00, we were getting peckish. Decided to make food. Got my handy-dandy firestarter kit out, and the plastic envelope of dryer lint. Flicked flint & steel, caught a spark on the 3rd try. Oh, yes, Daddy still has his touch! Put the tinder down, started feeding leaves and twigs to the fire. And then blew it by feeding it too much, had to start over. (Alright, hadn't built a campfire since 1999, gimme a break.) Messed with it for a half hour, then decided to cheat. Tossed a triox fuel bar in as tinder, piles palmetto leaves on top, then twigs, small branches. Reached under the pile with the butane lighter, and flicked. Nothing happened. I could hear butane coming out, but the piezo didn't spark. Not good. Dug around in the BOB, got the matches out of the little ziplock bag, and that did work. Popped open a couple cans of Dinty Moore, tossed 'em in the mess kits, and the kid and I chowed down. Much fun. Kid and I worked on fire building for the rest of the afternoon, building little ones, then letting them go out and starting over. Flint and steel, dryer lint, stuff like that. Found a candle in the BOB, showed her how to use candles to stretch the number of matches. Much fun. Later in the day, we finished off our primary canteens of water, and refilled from the lake, then added Polar Pure. Worked well, no complaints. Kid had fun, and now she knows how to do that. Saw the gator twice more. About 19:30, the fishers started showing up, cast fishing off the bank. Three gators lined up in echelon right formation and watched them. Talked with one guy, found out that the gators lived here on the bank - he even pointed out the little den they live in. I started kicking myself - part of me had stood in front of the gun cabinet thinking about taking a long gun with us, and I'd settled on just my normal day-to-day weapons. Now I was wondering if 9mm 124 JHP +P's would go though gator skin or not. At 20:15, the sun was going down and the kid and I turned it… and then a group of dirt-bikers decided to take a few laps around the lake. Nothing like hearing those things run. I lit up a citronella candle about then to keep the mosquito's away - that was useless. Daughter's tent had screen to keep them out, but it was too small for me to fit in. I ended up digging out my burnoose and draping it over me like you see in movies, with a long camp knife propping up the hood. That worked pretty well, kept the bugs from biting, but I could still hear them buzzing around me. Very loud. Dug around and found "Repel" brand bug spray. This stuff had sat in the BOB in the back of my truck for 3 years. It worked great! I sprayed some on me, some on the burnoose, some on the sunshade and in a circle around my little shelter. No bugs for two hours. Wonderful stuff…. Stank like the dickens, and I don't know if I'd use it in a 'tactical' scenario, but came in handy last night. Woke up around 23:00, watched the fireflies. Really nice to see there are still some left. Also listened to the gators. They never did visit the camp, but I could hear them off and on during the night. Kid and I got up about 7:00, talked for a bit, then she crawled under the burnoose and we went back to sleep. Woke up at 8:30, used the little triox stove to make hot cocoa, and packed up to come home. Lessons learned: a) Practice making campfires more often than once every 2 years. b) Get better intel about where I'm bugging out _to_. Places that show water on the map do not always have water. c) When a lighter acts flakey, replace it rather than figuring it'll be good for one more trip d) Always take a long gun. One of the gators acted like it was used to fishers feeding it the entrails, and it had no fear of humans. Had we not been careful about food in camp, it might have decided to come visit us during the night, and things would have gone downhill from there. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Small business owners... Tell us what you think! http://us.click.yahoo.com/vO1FAB/txzCAA/ySSFAA/DROolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: misc_survivalism_moderated-unsubscribe@egroups.com Group webpage: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/misc_survivalism_moderated Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ From cayoung01@earthlink.net Sat Sep 15 06:08:11 2001 To: Subject: [misc_survivalism_moderated] BOB test.... From: "Chris Young" Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 08:08:11 -0400 -------- Thanks to Jeff Schwartz for posting his experiences. What can we do better? Christopher A. Young "The wagon jolted along on the homeward road through the Big Woods. The sun set, and the woods grew darker, but before the last of the twilight was gone the moon rose. And they were safe, because Pa had his gun." -- Laura Ingalls Wilder ----- Original Message ----- From: Jeff Schwartz To: misc_survivalism_moderated@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2001 4:57 PM Subject: [misc_survivalism_moderated] BOB test.... BOB test 8/7/2001 My daughter and I decided to go camping with just what was in our BOB bags - both personal and vehicle. My wife was tied up with other things, I had some vacation days from work, we said, "What the hey!" Took off about 07:30 8/7. Plan was to camp at Set Pond in the Ocala National Forest. Mistake number one: By the time we arrived at the forest, we were under a half tank of gas. This can be traced to leaving with less than a full tank and not stopping on the way (duh!), but worse, I neglected to grab the 5gallon gas cans from the shed out back, as I would have in a real Bug Out. (Well, change 'would' to 'should' and it's accurate.) We got into the back woods and drove up and down tiny deer trails. couldn't find Set Pond. Finally decided we were nearing "bingo fuel", cut out of the forest, went to the nearest town and filled the tank. Went back to the forest. It soon became obvious why we couldn't find Set Pond - it wasn't there anymore. Just a wide field of grass with a muddy, clay-ish bed. Not a drop of water. Okay, abort to our alternate spot - Doe Pond. Ditto. Turkey Pond? Ditto. By this time, it's dawned on me that anything with "pond" in the title is going to be dry. We decided to try "Doe Lake", figuring that it's much bigger on the map, maybe there's water left. The plan for the Ponds was to camp there since they're not designated camping areas that have lots of people, and this would be more 'buggoutish' than using a campground. Doe Lake had a camp ground, but would also have water. On the way to Doe Lake, there are numerous signs saying, "DO NOT LEAVE ROADWAY". Apparently that portion of the forest is now under CFR regulations that 'preserve it' - the Doe Lake camping area was closed to public use. Alright, this was getting ridiculous. Turned north, headed for Halfmoon Lake. And finally got a winner. Boat ramp, camping area, and not a soul in sight. We put our $4 in the envelope, dropped it into the slot, and set up camp. By now it was 12:45, and the temp was up in the 90s. We set up a small camp. My daughter set up her backpacking tent, I used one heavy duty space blanket to make a sunshade, and another to make a ground cloth. I was happy. Use twine from the BOB to set this up, and during it realized that in trying to get out of the house without waking my wife up, I'd neglected to take my favorite knife from the scrub pants I was wearing around the house the night before and put it in the pants I was wearing now.. Which annoyed me, because it's easy to open one handed, and I was stuck using the tiny penknife I did have with me, which needed two hands to open. which left me one hand shy. Dug around in the BOB and found the old Swedish Bayonet I bought years ago, and stuck it in the belt. Overkill, but I only needed one hand to get it. We changed into swimming suits, went down to the boat ramp, and got in the water. and then noticed the gator, cruising along off shore. We got out of the water right quickly. The gator continued his patrol. He looked to be about 9' long, from what was showing. We walked back to camp. We were both wet, which made things comfy. We lounged under the sun for a bit, enjoyed the day. Daughter and I told stories, had fun. About 15:00, we were getting peckish. Decided to make food. Got my handy-dandy firestarter kit out, and the plastic envelope of dryer lint. Flicked flint & steel, caught a spark on the 3rd try. Oh, yes, Daddy still has his touch! Put the tinder down, started feeding leaves and twigs to the fire. And then blew it by feeding it too much, had to start over. (Alright, hadn't built a campfire since 1999, gimme a break.) Messed with it for a half hour, then decided to cheat. Tossed a triox fuel bar in as tinder, piles palmetto leaves on top, then twigs, small branches. Reached under the pile with the butane lighter, and flicked. Nothing happened. I could hear butane coming out, but the piezo didn't spark. Not good. Dug around in the BOB, got the matches out of the little ziplock bag, and that did work. Popped open a couple cans of Dinty Moore, tossed 'em in the mess kits, and the kid and I chowed down. Much fun. Kid and I worked on fire building for the rest of the afternoon, building little ones, then letting them go out and starting over. Flint and steel, dryer lint, stuff like that. Found a candle in the BOB, showed her how to use candles to stretch the number of matches. Much fun. Later in the day, we finished off our primary canteens of water, and refilled from the lake, then added Polar Pure. Worked well, no complaints. Kid had fun, and now she knows how to do that. Saw the gator twice more. About 19:30, the fishers started showing up, cast fishing off the bank. Three gators lined up in echelon right formation and watched them. Talked with one guy, found out that the gators lived here on the bank - he even pointed out the little den they live in. I started kicking myself - part of me had stood in front of the gun cabinet thinking about taking a long gun with us, and I'd settled on just my normal day-to-day weapons. Now I was wondering if 9mm 124 JHP +P's would go though gator skin or not. At 20:15, the sun was going down and the kid and I turned it. and then a group of dirt-bikers decided to take a few laps around the lake. Nothing like hearing those things run. I lit up a citronella candle about then to keep the mosquito's away - that was useless. Daughter's tent had screen to keep them out, but it was too small for me to fit in. I ended up digging out my burnoose and draping it over me like you see in movies, with a long camp knife propping up the hood. That worked pretty well, kept the bugs from biting, but I could still hear them buzzing around me. Very loud. Dug around and found "Repel" brand bug spray. This stuff had sat in the BOB in the back of my truck for 3 years. It worked great! I sprayed some on me, some on the burnoose, some on the sunshade and in a circle around my little shelter. No bugs for two hours. Wonderful stuff.. Stank like the dickens, and I don't know if I'd use it in a 'tactical' scenario, but came in handy last night. Woke up around 23:00, watched the fireflies. Really nice to see there are still some left. Also listened to the gators. They never did visit the camp, but I could hear them off and on during the night. Kid and I got up about 7:00, talked for a bit, then she crawled under the burnoose and we went back to sleep. Woke up at 8:30, used the little triox stove to make hot cocoa, and packed up to come home. Lessons learned: a) Practice making campfires more often than once every 2 years. b) Get better intel about where I'm bugging out _to_. Places that show water on the map do not always have water. c) When a lighter acts flakey, replace it rather than figuring it'll be good for one more trip d) Always take a long gun. One of the gators acted like it was used to fishers feeding it the entrails, and it had no fear of humans. Had we not been careful about food in camp, it might have decided to come visit us during the night, and things would have gone downhill from there. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! 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