Island of Rain

Rainy day with a lot of heavy rain in the early afternoon. I didn't know it was going to rain until I was already on the island. By the time I saw the heavy rain, it was too late to turn back. So I made the most of it. Picked a bunch of geocaches that I thought would be doable in the rain, although I don't know how I decided that a one-mile beach walk ("WS-108 Porpoise Channel") was doable in the rain! Even getting to the first location was a challenge. Route 111 in Hauppauge was flooded! I stopped at a gas station just before the flood to figure out how to detour around the flood. There, a very helpful man was going from car to car explaining to everyone how to get around the flooded area. I used part of his directions but after that, I knew an easier way to get to Route 347 and then to Lake Ronkonkoma.

The eTrex Legend stopped working after the first geocache, so I used the backup GPS, an older eTrex Basic, most of the day. (Yeah, I know. Who brings a spare GPS receiver just in case?) The eTrex Legend lasted for over 4 years and 5000 geocaches. It started getting flaky 2 years ago when the click-stick and display had intermittent failures, which, strangely enough, could be fixed by smacking the unit. (just like the Ziggy handheld interface in Quantum Leap) I also repaired the rubber lining with superglue. Also, a piece of it broke off when it got wedged in a bridge once. (Funny thing is it got wedged mere inches from the well-camoflaged geocache, so that was an unorthodox way to use a GPS to find a cache. :) ) So it is well past the time when I should've gotten a replacement GPS anyway. This time, I actually do think an upgrade is in order because I'm tired of the rubber lining problem in the eTrex line.

Dinner was fried fish at the LJS in Hicksville. I considered going to Flushing Chinatown but with the rain, it wasn't worth the bother. I don't think there will be a day when it is worth the bother unless I'm already in Queens at dinnertime, so I'll have to plan a Brooklyn/Queens geocaching trip first.

( The caches... )