Ocala Florida Camp and meet and greet November 2011

[Lowdown3]

Planning on bringing some medical kits and individual medical items- sutures, Israeli dressings, etc. , probably a couple Katadyn water filters, a handful of gas masks, some PRI fuel preservative, etc. If you have any specific items you'd like to pickup at the campout, please let me know now or as far ahead as possible and I'll try to bring them. Will have a PVS14 3rd gen Night vision monocular with me to demonstrate also.

Always interested in trades on quality 9mm, 7.62x39mm ammo, Ak and Glock 9mm magazines (can you have enough of any of these?) ;) PM's, good old greenbacks or other items in trade.

[rockriver]

couple of question/suggestions

i'll try to bring a couple of slices from a pine tree.
betting that a few of you are good with a tomahawk, hatchet or knife.
i'd like to see you demonstrate your throwing skills. this may have been mentioned above.
so, proposing that you bring a knife or hatchet to practice with. your best $200 knife
or that one that has the bent blade made in pakistan....

and, i'll try to remember to bring a sampling of the wife's effort to put up some fruit.
maybe get her to write up how she got that piece of fruit to look like it does.
and.. an invitation that you bring something that you've put up or bought at the local grocery that
would be a good long term storage/prep/homemade type food item.
whatcha got!

[protus]

ill be bringing some odd's and ends to clean out some space.
tactical gear,surplus,rifle parts, scopes,whole box of 38spcl. that was given to me that i just dont need or want. Ill have some hot suace for those who are brave.
Will also have some fly fishing etxras that i no longer need/use 8wt st criox with G.loomis reel and prolly all of my fly tying equipment. ( i used to build rods and tie flys but i made so many i dont need the stuff anymore lol ).

like LD im open for ammo,$$ and mags....or certain peices of gear.

[RobertJ]

Still not 100% I can make it but... i still am planning on it. That little thing called work getting in the way. Any how, since I have never met up with anyone before how do I go about meeting up with y'all? Is this a reserved campsite just for SPF? Or will there be other groups there? Just dont want to start walking up to people saying..."Are you with the SPF forums????" (No?!!!! errrr, ahhhhh,ehhhh my bad)
I digress, never met anyone and its about a 2 hour trip and to not be able to stay.... so I want to make the best of my time. Beside myself and the willingness to learn new things is there anything I should bring? Food and Firewood I have read... anything else? I am really hoping to meet yall.

Robert

[rockriver]

robert,
looking forward to meeting you. you have the same questions i had before my first. i too drove about 2 hours and i went just for the day.
this time i'll drive about 5 hours to get there.
just walk up and introduce yourself.
bring a camp chair, or stool.
you will be welcomed. if you come once, you'll come back!
i'm a newbie in just about all categories.
no one has ever made fun.

everyone will know about survival and preparedness forums.
we will have the whole campsite to ourselves.
folks will generally go by their website handles.
several folks have become close personal friends over the years, and you may hear them calling each other by another name. given name or nickname.

here's a couple of mistakes i made and some i've seen others make.
i asked too many nosey questions about folks personal lives.
they hadn't met me before and i was asking where they lived and what they did for a living and more personal.

a guy showed up and started working around the group taking pictures. i don't like my picture being taken when i'm at a family reunion, so that didn't go good with me. if a guy has a neat tent and you want to take a picture, just ask him.. hey, can i get a snapshot of your camp? better yet. leave the camera at home is my suggestion.

i'm a newbie about weapons... i asked a question at my first that could lead to an illegal situation. i wasn't suggesting and had no illegal intentions. but looking back, my question was real stupid. the guys all looked at each other and got kind of quiet for a while. they just wanted to make sure no one there made an illegal comment. each was looking after the other. i like being in a situation where everything is above board and no illegal stuff is involved. they didn't want to be involved in anything even smelling illegal.

i've taken my wife before.. she felt very welcomed and comfortable. she has very active radar. it never went off! she won't be coming this time though.

anyway, look forward to meeting you!
rr

[WiseOwl]

Wont be able to make this one (because of life) but I wish great weather and good times to you all!!!!!!!

Hope to see some GA get togethers in the spring. Very interested in meeting you guys in person and picking your brains...!

[1Admin]

RobertJ-

We have the whole place to ourselves. Their is a gate at the front, lock code will be posted on my cell phone message Friday after noon- 912.375.1480

Sometimes the forest rangers make us keep it closed, sometimes they are more slack about it. Either way usually by late Saturday morning it's closed but not locked.

It's a 75 yard walk from the gate to the camp area if someone gets there and doesn't have the combo, not a big deal.

Like RR said, everyone is very friendly and helpful. I've seen folks show up with nothing to sleep in, nothing to eat, that have been fed and helped to get bedded down.

We've never tied someone to a tree and made them stay ;) In almost 10 years of doing these, I can't remember anyone taking off right away after arriving- they can't, their tied to a tree remember LOL ;) Just kidding.

Like RR said, it's something you can bring your family too also. We are caring for a sick relative right now or my crew would be with me this go around like usual.

Look forward to meeting you.

[puternut]

For those that want a little more info about the camp area including GPS cords here is a link:

http://www.reserveamerica.com/camping/Lake_Shore_Group_Camp_Fl/r/campgroundDetails.do?contractCode=NRSO&parkId=75399

Looking forward to seeing everyone.

[RobertJ]

Thanks everyone

[rockriver]

lowdown, admin,
a great campout... i learned a lot..
the weather was great!! great timing.
i hope all had a safe drive back home.
rr

[1Admin]

Couple pics from the water class...

All the classes, demonstrations, workshops, etc. given at these gatherings are voluntary deals. No one "has" to participate if they don't wish to. Yet most do.

However, it's impossible to create a set "schedule" of classes. This is not a kindergarten deal nor is it a military type event. Hence you can't over organize things and you must be flexible. It's designed to be a fun, family oriented learning experience and to that end, it's been highly successful.

Some come expecting some sort of paramilitary training- IT'S NOT.
Some come expecting some highly organized ultra rigid deal- IT'S NOT.

We try to be flexible and work with the crowd that does show and attempt to tailor the training/classes/talks/demos to what THEY are looking for, not necessarily what "we" want to teach.

One thing that had been discussed that we had not covered in much detail during previous events was water filtration/purification.

Starting from the concept of: your away from your gear/main source of logistics and have to MAKE a basic filter on your own- we built rudimentary water filters out of clean sand, coffee filters, 2 liter soda bottles, charcoal, fish tank filters and aquarium rock.

Everyone that wanted to, got to participate in the construction of these filters and later drink from them if they so desired. We didn't hold anyone down and make them drink lake water that was run through the homemade filters... :) No one has called me cussing while pooping their brains out, so far so far :) LOL

After that we looked at about a dozen of the more commonly available commercial filtration and purification options.

What's nice in a large group like this is that the larger pool of people means the more options available. If you wanted to see how a Katadyn Pocket filter worked in person, or a Hiker, or a Mini Filter, or a Sawyer water bottle deal, or half dozen other options, they were there and folks got a chance to play with them, use them, toss them on the ground, etc. :)

And that was just the water class!!!

Templar gave an excellent knots and rope work class in the a.m. Saturday and we had a basic rifle marksmanship class using airguns before that.

Protus gave an excellent talk and demo on bug out bags. More than the typical "here's a list of crap" type approach, he went into great detail about what to look for in packs, even how to properly measure and fit yourself for a pack.

Barter time was fun as always and folks left with new or nearly new gear, water filters, compasses, books, ammo, gas masks, etc.

All for now, I'll post more pics tomorrow. Thanks everyone that came. Hopefully Watcher will be able to upload the audio we took around the campfire and the interviews. That was fun!

[Noble]

Another awesome campout! It was great to see everyone again and meet some new folks.

[puternut]

One of our best so far! Thanks to our host for giving us the opportunity to add to our knowledge
and to each one that joined in to make this a great weekend.

[protus]

yip fun times ;p

shoulda slept with the thermacell running or made the wife unit get her own tarp to sleep under LOL had a few buzzz buzzz wake up at o dark thrity whats biting me moments LOL.

the classe were great. Everyone got their hands in on the deal and asked questions, tried out new gear and took intrest in areas it seemed that they had not before......which is awesome to see.

glad to have seen old faces and some new ones......now..someone go watcher to get that 11 oclock news cast posted up...;)

[VINCENT]

i had a great time. so glad lowdown reached out to other forums with the invite or i never would have met all the wonderful people that i did. learned a bunch, had fun participating in each workshop. i even used one of my new knots while packing for the drive home.

looking forward to participating here on s&p, and looking froward to the next camp out in georgia.

thanks again for all who made me feel welcome