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Even if you only carry one "big" light, you need one more smaller one so you can see to change batteries in the big one. There's something sort of .. ironic? moronic? .. about not being able to see to work on your flashlight. (Don't ask the circumstances I figured that out under. It wouldn't go well for me. :)) Another reason for a 2nd light, even a small one, is to leave it turned on in your tent when you have to go out in the middle of the night to, um, "answer the call of nature". It sucks to not be able to find your tent afterwards. (Don't ask about that, either. :)) Having the tent lit up a bit can be very handy. This discussion made me think back to older days. I used to pack a 4-D mag light backpacking. No wonder that pack used to be so heavy. MIB

Oh, I see what you mean. That's the magazine release. It's a drop in parts kit from NDZ Performance.

Yeah, the orange I'm seeing at the base of the trigger guard, that's magazine right? What's the purpose? MC B&O--it's stylin Halloween jam for Hellbent Hollers.

I am perfectly content to do night investigations from inside my truck 😎 Frankly, it's been pretty successful! However, I did just buy a REAL backpacking sleeping bag and pad. My kid is in it, laying on the floor with the computer, trying it out, LOL! We may some day do an overnight and hike in. I do have a tiny Fenix and a Cree mini that I like. I just have to keep my pack weight down. Plus, I want my hands free and not be worried about dropping it.

I usually carry 1 coleman light that uses 3 AAA batteries in a cartridge and 1 or 2 Streamlights that use a single AAA battery. Sometimes a carry an even smaller Streamlight that uses 4 hearing aid batteries. My audio recorders run on AAA as does the little air pump for my air mattress when I backpack. The only thing I have that is AA instead of AAA is my GPS and I'm looking to replace it, it's older than dirt. Not a big fan of head lamps. That's why I have 6-8 and they all still work. Hey, at least they're AAA. It's nice to have a common power source that will fit everything in a pinch.

Earlier this year, I committed a huge rookie mistake while backpacking and got caught out in a torrential downpour with light fading. I was with a friend I hadn't seen in a while and didn't check my chest pack before we headed out. I assumed! It turns out, I had taken the flashlights out to put new batteries and never put them back in. It was a very long, dark, and wet night and I vowed that would never happen again. Fast forward to today. I've gotten a new headlamp and flashlight to add to the arsenal. I've always used primary batteries but will try using rechargeable batteries in fair weather so a charger had to be gotten. They're not expensive so I'll give it a whirl. This is my new protocol for going out in the woods. The two 4Sevens Mini (farthest to the right) from my old headlamp will now be in my chest pack as a backup. Each one weighs 1.2 ounce but will produce enough light (40 lumens) to last 8 hours. So, with both, 2.4 ounces will give me 16 hours of ample light. I'll also carry separately in a backpack belt pouch a flashlight I would trust my life with. That will be the HDS or Malkoff (2nd and 3rd from left). They're something that can reliably provide light in any condition, even a torrential downpour. The old saying is that one is none and two is one. I'll always have three which is two. I like redundancy. The new headlamp is a Zebralight H54c which is an AA format. I'll put it through the paces come early Spring and expect it to measure up. We'll see. Here's the lineup of flashlights and new headlamp. Light is good!

A few days ago, I ordered an inexpensive molle pouch (7"Hx4"Wx3"D) that I will put my SONY recorder in. I should be able to attach it to the backside of the top of my backpack using Seek Outside gatekeeper straps which can be attached almost anywhere. We'll see how secure it is as the first order of business is to not lose the recorder. Next, is to see what level of background noise it generates as I'm heading down the trail. I'll report back but not sure I'll give it a good workout until April.

Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin (I love the Gershwin bros) is my favorite song. Not technically classical, not technically jazz but utter perfection. I also love waltzes, like Shostakovich Waltz #2 in a loop for hours as background music. My fave class in college was a Classical Music Appreciation class that turned me on to the great composers. I'm totally into Old Hollywood, and I love all those composers, too - Berlin, Kern etc.

I would wait. If this goes off at all, should be fine at the door.

Wow. Now I am really impressed with all of you. Great taste in real music. I prefer piano as a matter of background training I suppose. My dearly departed mother insisted on piano lessons for me and my sisters. I don't know why. She played the guitar.

I've only had the chance to see 3 different times when we've found handprints, but in every one of those, what was strikingly obvious was how dirty the hands were. If I had to categorize them, I'd say they were a very even mix of sand/dirt and maybe a fine amount of smaller particles. Here's a few pics from 2013 when I found our second set in late March while there to open the camper for the first weekend of the season. There were 3 prints: 1 left up high - 2 right prints mid and lower. My impression/opinion is that it came in to try and look into the camper sometime reasonably close in time to my being there, and placed it's hands in such a way to facilitate leaning in to try looking thru the glass. I always leave my vinyl interior window covers down and snapped, so if it was doing this in the day, all it saw was 'black' and likely a reflection of itself as it approached. By choice, I left the handprints untouched for the entire season, and in hindsight, I wish I had periodically taken additional pics to show the rate of decay in the visibility of them, but over the spring, summer and fall, the sand/dirt/mud was gone within a month of two, but up sometime into mid-fall easily, you could look out thru the window and still observe the impression/outline of where a hand had been. I always assumed THAT WAS an oil or substance on the palms that rain and time took much longer to clean off the glass. As an FYI, in the pics with the tape measure being used, it appeared the top-most finger prints that left anything from it's leaning in and resting it's hand was between 80 and 81 inches. All of these photos were taken with a cell phone camera, and back in 2013 I have no clue what I was using. Maybe an LG, but I don't remember the model. It baffles me why I didn't grab my DSLR. I surely had it with me. The other incidents took place in 2010 when a pair of hand prints were placed on my daughter's car over-night and basically shared these same material characteristics of sand/dirt/mud to them. That was the night I found there had been one walk into the shelter area about 15 minutes after we had finally gone in for the night (for good) and it stood over my recorder to sniff it then casually walk back out. The last time we've seen handprints and known it was 2015 <?> I think... when the land owner was doing some clear-cutting in the north woods and his tractor cab glass windows had some partial hand prints and what appeared to be finger smears close to them. Again, just sandy/dirty/muddy.