Stand to Pee devices for females

I sent this email to every STP device maker I could find on the net but only P-style has responded so far.  We both used P-style on our last hike and we were happy with it.  

Get one or two for yourself:
http://www.thepstyle.com/pages/What's-a-pStyle%3F.html

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Hello there, 

My ten your old daughter and I are avid hikers and users of a female

stand to urinate devices.  I run the blog

http://mosswalks.blogspot.com.  

 My daughter and I would like to write a review and comparison of each

currently available stand to urinate device for women.  I think this

review and comparison could provide valuable publicity for your

device.   We are asking each manufacturer of these type of devices to

send us two free samples (one each) to test out for our review and

comparison.    We intended  to publish our review by July of this year.

But so far only P-style has responded so we will hold off on doing our review until September.  By then we will have through hiked Oregon on the Pacific Crest trail.

Thank you

Mossy Mom

Dry Creek South to Ridge Camp Backpack

5.5 miles with 1,700 feet total elevation gain

Crossing Le bar creek

Dry Creek is my own private trail.  I have a private camp site up on the

 ridge.  Dry Creek trail used to go from Staircase on the North Fork

 Skokomish to Camp Comfort on the South Fork Skokomish.

The Shady lane nature trail is a severed portion of the Dry Creek trail. 

Most of the trail has been lost to logging and logging roads.  Starting

 from Stair case one must run a gauntlet of summer homes with

constant destructive to the forest activity and no trespassing signs.

 

Then one must hike 4 miles up an old logging road to a creek.  Then

 one must try to ford the creek, and it's not always easy.  Then one

 must walk another 1/2 mile to reach the old growth.  The glorious

 wonderful old growth. 

Coming in from the South one must drive past the South Fork

 Skokomish trail and past Lebar horse camp, then if the gate is open

 one must travel about 3 miles long the river on the road, then one

 must take a sharp right to head up the hill at an unmarked road.

 Then the water bars from hell start.  Evidence of a cracked oil pan can

 be seen at the first water bar.  One must drive up 5 miles while

 negotiating the biggest water bars in the world.  Water bars that

bottom out my Jeep.  Then if one is very lucky and make all the right

turns they arrive at the trail head. 

Next one must walk 1.5 miles up a hot, dusty and ugly churned up logging road.  Why did they route the trail up the road here? There is evidence that the trail once went up Le Bar Creek.  Why not route it up Le bar creek?  While hiking up the logging road one will encounter Le Bar Creek and most of the time one will have to cross barefoot, the algae is too steep for any human to be able to cross in boots. 

finally if one's vehicle has not over heated and they have not fallen

 in the creek one reaches the actual trail and one immediately enters old

growth, glorious mostly untouched old growth.  nourishment for the

 soul! 

Not many people are willing to go through all of that.. the trail from the South Typically sees about a dozen people sign the register all year long and about 1/4 of them are hunters.Everyone else is content to start at staircase and turn around at the creek. 

For this trip I chose to go in from the South again since the gate is open and my Jeep running sort of okay.  I took my daughter with me and we camped at the ridge top campsite just 2.5 miles and 1,100 feet from the trail head. 

 

This is one of those places where I have had lunch so many times and every time tell myself someday I will be back to spend the night.  Now that my little daughter is old enough to hike and my spouse it not yet completely bedridden I am making these some days happen!

We camped in the circle

Ecstatic to be in a cloud

Mommy pulled a bag of marshmallows out



On the road

Packed up to hike out



Camp

Camp in the morning light

Where did this horse go?



View the second we arrived at home

When we got home I parallel parked across my drive way since it was full. There was a soccer player across the street changing his shirt. Laura said "we got home just in time to see a person changing his clothes". I looked at the guy who was undressing him self and I said really? But he just looked at me and continued to take off his soccer shorts and prepared to put on his jeans. Like they all do, he was hiding from the view of his soccer friends and his cultural group while changing in full view of my house and me and my daughter just 20 feet away. It's like we don't exist. So I surprised him by pulling my camera out of the back of my car and taking a picture of him. He jumped to get away from my camera and in doing so ran down the sidewalk behind his truck in his underwear with his jeans in his hands and in full view of his soccer buddies. All his buds started laughing hysterically and looking at me approvingly.. he came back around his truck but with his pants on and he looked at me laughed too. I bet that's the last time he changes his clothes in front of my house..

Dry Creek from the South

Tetraplodon mnoides "Black fruited stink moss"

The goal today was to start at the south end of the Dry Creek Trail and hike up and over the saddle and down to the ridge top campsite.  The road to the dry creek trail is in good condition, meaning no trees or rocks in the road but there are huge water bars that require a high clearance vehicle to overcome.

Our hike started at ten am.  I forgot how long the road section of this trail is.  Dry Creek trail used to go from The South Fork Skokomish River to the staircase ranger station on the North Fork Skokomish.  The Shady land nature trail is actually a severed section of the Dry Creek Trail.

I found a lot of Tetraplodon mniodes moss up there and it was in full bloom.

ON the way back we wandered up Lebar Creek where there are clear signs of an old but well maintained trail near the creek.  I wonder if this is the old Dry Creek Trail, maybe this is where the trail went before it was routed up a logging road?  We had our lunch on Lebar creek. 

We also wandered down a road that was decommissioned old style.. that is very gently, they only removed the culverts, they did not cut down all the trees and leave giant gaping holes in the earth.

Our hiked ended at about 6pm

It does not look like they have destroyed the road to Mount Tebo yet.

Mount Walker Area

Jefferson Transit number one to Mount Walker

My mother is off the ventilator and I'm somewhat free to hike again.  Last month was an expensive month for me but at least I had some money then.  This month we plunge to well below the poverty level.  My husband lost his job and has no income.  My family of three will be living on $877 a month unless my spouse can get social security.  He's done his 40 credits, we'll find out on the 16th if he gets anything.

I had a migraine all day but it only really hurt when I was not walking.  When I changed buses in Brinnon I popped into the store and bought two bottles of Coke.  I never drink pop, but I knew that all the caffeine and sugar in Coke would help with my migraine and I was right!

  I took the bus up to the Mount Walker area and headed up Buck Mountain road.  I ran into one couple who were hiking down, they were disappointed with their hike.  There was no view and they could not find the way back to the trail after it hit the road.

I also could not find the way back to the trail so I settled on a nice viewpoint on the road.  I think I know the way to the top now but it involves ignoring a no tress passing sign.. so I'm not so sure.

The rhododendrons are in their prime right now.  I left Patches at home since getting her on the bus sometimes requires psychological warfare and with a migraine I was not up for warfare.

8.5 miles with 2,600 feet elevation gain..

Thimble berries... jam tomorrow!

Salmon berry... Jam now

Buck mountain in the middle

View at my normal lunch spot

The view was better then this but I was too slow to capture it

Riding home on Jefferson transit

Delorme inReach SE first impressions

I ordered the unit by calling Delorme directly, shipping was free but I had to pay tax, so ordering through them might have been a mistake except for the fact that they gave me a $50 "pro" discount.

The unit took about a week and a half to finally arrive.  It looks nice enough and it weighs 7 ounces on my scale, that is the same weight as my GPS.

I used the explore Delorme website to set up my account.  Since I am living well below the official poverty level this month I went for the basic safety plan with no frills.  Set up was not very intuitive but I still got through it fairly quickly.  Syncing was fairly easy once I had installed the syncing software on my computer.

I can not figure out a way to sent OK message to a cell phone, it seems that I have to us my text messages for that.  Text messages cost ten cents each with the first ten each month being free. 

I found that the only way my spouse can text my Delorme is to reply to a message, that seems strange.  I also found that if my spouse pings me it will cost me twenty cents each time.  I was sure that it was only supposed to cost ten cents.  I told my spouse that he will owe me twenty cents every time he pings me and that started a big argument so I did not bother setting up my map page for pings.  He thought I should pay for it every time he pings me.  I think not!

The only way to ping a Delorme is to go to the map page (if you have set one up) and ping from a box there.  Also when I send a check in message to users it takes them to a map page with a reply box.  I see no way to get rid of the reply box.  Each reply will cost me ten cents, I so would like to find a way to turn off the reply box. 

I might want to put people on my list that I don't totally trust not to go crazy and message me dozens of time.  I have one relative in mind that I want to send okay messages to, but she's a funny one and might suddenly decided to reply over and over and over while I am hiking and that is the last thing I want.

The delorme unit beeps when an okay message has been successfully sent and I like that feature.  Also Delorme uses a better satellite network than it's competitor so I expect that less of my messages will get lost now.

Another thing I like about the Delorme is that the website has a "cancel service" link.  The competitor has no such link and they make it VERY hard to cancel even by phone.

I got my first invoice and the tax was really high.. I'm very disappointed with the tax.. on $21 invoice there was nearly $8.00 in tax!  There was Federal cell tax, Sales tax and Utility users tax.. Sheesh.. what a load of regressive taxes!  So I now owe $44 for one month and one day of service plus the $20 set up fee and a ton of tax. Ouch!!