Yeah. It’s a bit late in the season to start shopping for this kinda stuff, but I’m only expecting a few more weeks of nice weather this year, so I want to make them count.
First off, with nearly getting caught still clanging around in my brain, and my outright refusal to let that stop me despite the risks… I bought a nice long sleeve polyester shirt with some camo patterns on it. Hopefully I will be better hidden from nearby eyeballs… Since my mud suit has no functioning zipper, I generally wear a shirt over top of it now. The current one does the trick but is easier to spot because of it’s ‘unnatural’ colors. I can’t wait to dunk into a mud hole with this new one. New polyester always has this sexy smooth texture… Old polyester still kinda does but I assume there’s some sort of coating on them that wears off after a little bit of abuse and a few trips through the washing machine…
The next thing on my list was a small pack I could carry around while I leave my bulky backpack somewhere else. This is a problem I’ve had this year (well, previous years too, but it became much more annoying this year)… I find a nice area, and change out of my normal clothes and shoes. Everything gets stuffed back into the backpack, and I have to slog that around the whole time because… well… zentai suits don’t have pockets, right. 🙂 So I have a waist pack that I can put things like my phone, GPS, smoke, etc into. Much lighter, less getting hung up on twigs, and I can carry only what I need! I’m also hoping I will be able to keep things cleaner this way, too. Since all the dirty stuff goes back into the bag, and since I have to dig through it to get my towels and stuff for cleanup, I end up getting everything else full of mud and grit. My cutesy little digital camera got some grit around the lense one day and now it doesn’t work very well, even after taking it apart and cleaning it as well as I can… My cellphone and GPS devices also get dirty and all these expensive things can’t be inexpensively replaced…
Um what else… Oh. I finally got some of what they call ‘compression socks’… The idea behind buying these socks is that I’m hoping there’s less chance they’ll slide off my feet while I’m stomping through the mud. I’m also hoping that less sliding off my feet will also keep my fun suit from sliding down also, since the legs are a bit short and the mid-section is a bit long. It’s made for people with really short legs or something. But it’s just a generic size.
I do still plan to have a custom made suit made. I won’t be able to afford Fets-Fash like I wanted to, but there are other manufacturers that cost a bit less. Hopefully I don’t get stung on durability. My current suit was pretty cheap, but it is a generic size that doesn’t match my body type quite right.
And the last item on my list, somewhat unfortunately, is a refill for my highly overpriced mosquito repellent. This thing did such a good job at keeping the mosquitos away last year. This year I suffered through them. I spent probably the same amount on DEET and Icaridin products anyway. So I now have a few hours of relatively mosquito-free luxury coming my way. Somewhat disappointing was the fuel cartridge only looks to be like 3/4 full. I kinda feel I got ripped off a bit. But if it lasts two outings I’ll be happy enough.
And that’s it for this week. Hopefully I’ll have some really nice mud play this week. Stay tuned!
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