TCSAR drill

John and I have left town! We've got a busy/crazy month of May in store for us, so we first moved Howie up to Frankston to stage ourselves and prepare. This coming weekend is the Atomic adventure race in Georgia, the following weekend we'll be in Los Alamos for the Jemez 50k/50mi races, and then we're flying to Oregon for a 24-hour rogaine over Memorial Day weekend. Hopefully we'll survive all of that, because in June we're heading to Colorado...

But first! I managed to fit in one last activity in Austin. I drove back for my first team training event since I re-started with Travis County Search & Rescue. I had not reapplied after returning from France, and I finally managed to get myself in order this winter. Just in time for summer traveling... but at least I should be set up to actually be a part of the team as soon as we get back in the fall.

Our team did a drill at Reimer's Ranch last Saturday. A neat place, and we should go mountain biking there sometime. I was part of a "ground pounder" team, looking for clues in a grid-search pattern.

Here is Karen and Juan marking a point on the GPS (new gear I need to buy!) where we found recently-dug dirt:


Noting a piece of a balloon on a bush:


A footprint in sand near a creek:


It felt good to be back with the team and I look forward to spending more time on SAR activities later this year. Even without my SAR dog Grete, I still think I can be useful :)

Now it's off to start prep for the Atomic race...