I've Been Wanting One Of These For A While Now

Every time I have to go to Wally World, Bi Mart or Fred Meyer for anything I always wander through the Sporting Goods section looking for one of those Coleman Dual Gas cook stoves. I've been looking for a couple years now without any luck.
Same thing with garage sales just on the off chance, one never knows.
It was never a big priority buy I always thought it would be real nice to have one for camping or emergencies.

I finally found one today.

I hate dicking around with propane bottles, ESPECIALLY those little bastards. They are a pain in the ass and expensive as hell compared to just getting a bottle filled.

I mean propane is nice in that it never goes bad but I have been in those situations before where you can't find it for love nor money when the snow is blowing, the roads are frozen and nobody is open for business and have never forgotten it.

White Gas can be hard to find when you really need it too, that's what I always liked about the dual fuel units. Unleaded isn't that hard to come by unless you are way out in the Boonies on foot. I bought a Dual Fuel lantern off of Ebay a couple years ago that was almost brand new for a hell of a good price and stashed that little puppy away after I bought a bunch of extra mantles and a couple gallons of White Gas.

So today I had to go to Wally World to take something back that I ordered On Line that the wife decided she didn't like. A 12'X12' canopy set up.

Of course , after I got done dealing with that mess it was straight to the Sporting Goods section and Lo and Behold, here is one of those little stoves sitting on the shelf as a display.
True to my luck, there wasn't one in a box on the shelf so I had to go hunt down some "associate" type dude.
This proved to be a frustrating deal, he didn't have one of their scanners so he had to go find some other guy. That guy comes around finally with a scanner and can't get the fucking thing to work. He said he thought they were out of stock anyway.

That's when I was about done messing with Walmart cretins.
I asked him if they would just sell me the display model, I didn't care if it had a box or not.
Well, of course, he didn't know and he would have to go ask someone else and holy shit was I starting to get frustrated.

It's right there, sell it to me for fucks sake!

So off he goes and I'm left standing there with my thumb in my ass waiting again.

While he was gone I started looking around at some other shit they had there and this little cutie caught my eye.

Something else I have been wanting.
I bought a cheap,crappy Chinese plastic "emergency" radio a couple of years ago and it's a piece of shit.
When I say Crappy Chinese plastic, I mean it. The kind that is so brittle that if you look at it sideways it cracks.
Of course I dropped it once and broke one whole corner off of it. I wrapped about ten yards of electrical tape around it and threw it in the garage. It still works amazingly enough, I ran across it last week and tried it just to see.

So anyways, I snag the Scorpion radio and pretty soon here comes the Walmart guy with a box in his hands.
Cool, he found one!

Nope.
They are going to sell me the demo model though so that works for me and he did apologize for me having to wait so damn long. I got the two year extended warranty on both of them, not something I normally do but I plan on seeing just how tough they are. This way if they break, I get new ones and can plan accordingly to replace them with something more robust if necessary.

Coleman, like everyone else, has kind of slipped a bit in quality over the years. The tin seems just a shade thinner from what I remember and the fit isn't exactly the quality I remember either so we shall see.


The radio on the other hand is nice.
I plugged in the headphones I use to listen to music with on my lap top and was astounded at the sound quality that came out of it.
The openings and switches have water resistant rubber plugs over them and as you can see, it has a crank handle, solar panel and rechargeable batteries in it.
Big bonus is it will charge up a phone. Big ding for not having a small compartment to put the cable it came with for that in though.
It wasn't cheap either. Good reception, has dual time display capabilities and picked up a local weather channel the minute I turned it on like it was pre set to it.
It scans channels if you hold the button down but doesn't have preset buttons as far as I can tell.
I like it.


Trout season should be opening up around here next weekend and I haven't been fishing in about two years.
That is going to change.
I have been slowly gathering up camping gear on the sly for a few months now, bought a new pole and reel too.
Now that the Sprite is driveable and conveniently only has one seat in it, I believe there is a 3 or 4 day fishing trip coming in the near future for me, alone. With no passenger seat there is plenty of room for camping and fishing gear between that open space and the trunk.
I will be testing out the lantern and the stove, along with a couple other pieces of gear and dusting off my old camping skills.
It's been a long time but I still have them.

Old school camping skills.

Sounds like a good time to me.