Stealth Cam G26NG Review

We purchased a Stealth Cam Model G26NG from Sam's Club on July 31, 2014.  This blog post will serve as a place for the review of this unit.  We will continue adding photos and narrative regarding the unit as the review process evolves.

Sam's sells "game cameras" each summer as a "seasonal item."  The cameras are usually placed on an end cap near other hunting-related items in Sam's pseudo-sporting goods department.  This summer, we noted the cameras shortly after July 4th.  We almost missed out on this camera as the inventory shrunk by about 2/3rds between early and late July.

Originally, the supply of this particular game cameras filled an entire end cap and spanned two pallets!

After getting the unit home, we used an X-acto knife to carefully and surgically cut open the stubborn blister pack material.  By using this technique to extract the camera unit, we keep the packaging looking pristine and "resalable" in case we need to return the unit within the 90-day window.

 Above, the X-acto cuts have already been made but appear almost invisible in this photo.  Below, the camera comes right out and the blister pack remains intact.  Under no circumstances will we use the included batteries, SD card or strap.  By leaving those accessories intact in their packaging, it's easy to make a case that we would be returning the camera unused should the need arise.  Hopefully, we can find the manual online and no have to extract and unfold the included manual.

Below you can see the camera in its first "state-of-inspection."  The first thing we noticed and disliked is there appears to be no protection for the lens.  The LED lights are behind some protection but not the lens, as you can easily see by the second photo below.

Once we find 8 AA batteries and one of our many spare SD cards, this review process will continue.  Stay tuned.

The manual for this model is located here:

http://www.gsmoutdoors.com/downloads/61/stealth-cam-2013-2014-manuals/  It's 5.5 megs and a very fast download in PDF format.  There's 20-something pages of info in the manual.  The rest of the manual appears to be in one or more foreign languages.

Buckaroo Coffee

Stephen Neal Saqui

Buckaroo coffee: Heat water over a Coleman stove. Do not let the water boil, bring it up until it is rolling but not boiling then take it off the heat and spoon two spoons of medium ground coffee (of your choice as long as it's not decaffeinated). Put the cap back on the pot and let it sit. Forget all the lies about salt or eggshell, just let it sit. Go about fixing things to eat with it if you're hungry. When the grounds have settled to the bottom, pour a cup and drink. That's Buckaroo coffee. I have a hand grinder and prefer to grind good roasted beans. Harry Rogan liked Folgers and would scoff at my way but he would drink my coffee and I his. Now there's another thing about Buckaroo coffee...in the Nevada Mountains one might be out prospecting or walking (some call it hiking) and when returning to camp one ALWAYS makes a pot of Buckaroo coffee. That's how it's done. You noticed I didn't say what size spoon? Pick one.

Creating Space

We keep a lot of old OSB and scrap lumber around to tinker with rigging our camping gear each year.

An empty pickup bed is a lot like an artist's blank palette--it's just waiting for YOU to apply your talents to find new and unique ways to pack all your camping stuff.  Instead of creating a painting with your blank palette--you're creating space!

For each year's camping season, we always reinvent our wheel.  We always create new space.  We always come up with a different way to use the same blank palette.  It's been that way for 50+ years and there's every reason to believe it will be that way until we pass on to the Great Campground in The Sky.

This year we wanted to solve a vexing problem with the way we packed our 1984 Nissan short bed last season.  As everyone who camps knows, you get done with certain things last.  It would help if the last things you use in the morning go into the truck last instead of first!

This year, we think we finally got it right.  Of course, we say that EVERY year but, really, we might have it right this year.

As everyone knows, plastic tubs are the mainstay of our camp rigging.  These tubs sell at Wal-Mart for $5 or less.  There are four sizes.  Really small, small, large and really large.  We don't use the really large ones, only the first three sizes.

Anyway, the tubs are tapered so that they can stack easily.  This means they are MUCH wider at the top than they are at the bottom.  If you put a spacer under a tub to elevate it, you can often make the tubs fit nicer in your blank palette.  Generally, we've always used a piece of OSB on top of a 2x2 for a spacer.

POOF, Creating Space!

This year, we finally got decided to actually create space by combining the "Spacer Concept" with a brand new way to rig the back of the truck.

Lo and behold, we created some really fun space.  We can actually place three .30 caliber ammo cans in our newly created space, PLUS our Bug Box.  In addition, four of the small tubs fit perfectly in a space they simply wouldn't fit before. Meanwhile, there's now space for the tarp, groundsheet and trash to go in last.

This is huge because, prior to creating space today, the back of the pickup bed really didn't work all that well.  Now it works like a Swiss watch.

The moral of this story is to look at whatever blank palette you have with "fresh eyes."  Try to see new, unique and different possibilities.  Think in three dimensions.  Don't be afraid to shake it up and reinvent how you store your stuff.  There's almost always a better way of creating space.

 Not only do four small tubs now fit between the cooler and the stove, we have space for 3 ammo cans.

The portable CB radio finally gets stored in a quickly accessible spot.  The fire tools fit on one side and the hiking sticks fit on the other.  A 50 caliber can will go on top of the CB.  The groundsheet will fit in the big space on the right and trash in the middle on top of the Bug Box.  The tarp lays down on top of the two boxes on the right.

So what are in the four tubs?  The two tubs in the middle are Kitchen Stuff.  One is pots and pans and coffee stuff.  The other is food that doesn't need to be in a cooler.  The two tubs at right are our own personal clothing boxes, one for each of us.

All the overnight stuff (tent, sleeping bags, pillows, foam pads, etc.) goes up front on top of the safety gear.

Corn cakes

YUM!  Agave syrup, butter, yogurt and chopped walnuts on top of a corn cake.

Four years ago, we were smitten with being able to bake stuff while camping.  We did a pretty good job figuring out how to bake while tent camping--and NOT using dutch ovens.

One of the things campers always bake is cornbread.  Cornbread is a very reliable Ol' Camping Sidekick that probably dates back 200 or more years.

But what if you don't want to bake?  What if you want to have a "corn fix" without baking?  Well, Corn Cakes can ride to the rescue.

A local grocery put corn muffin premix on sale this week for 33 cents each in a 6.5 ounce package.  We became curious and Googled "can you make corn cakes out of corn muffin mix."  Sure enough, we found a recipe.  This morning we tested it out.  It was a home run ball.  We both loved the corn cakes.  So, now we have a new way to have a "corn fix" without baking.  The corn cakes taste a lot like corn muffins or corn bread only they are better.  Plus, corn cakes can be whipped up in practically no time at all.  That means no preheating of a dutch oven or camp oven.  And no waiting while the concoction bakes for upwards of 20 minutes.  Nope, it's almost instant gratification with corn cakes.  We love 'em and already want more of 'em.

The recipe is really simple.  Here is the link to it.  In case the link stops working, we've also put up a screen shot of the recipe below the link.  Enjoy!

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/corn-muffin-pancakes/

When Bigger Is Better

Each and every year we concoct a different Kitchen Rig.  Each and every year since 2010, the Kitchen Rig has been centered around a Coleman 425F stove.  The 425F is the small two burner, lightweight model.

We started out yesterday thinking that the 425F was once again going to be the foundation of our Kitchen Rig.  Some strange twists and turns took place yesterday and, as of May 5, we've completely upended redesigned and restocked our Kitchen Rig.

It all started when we decided to get rid of our Coleman 426D 3-burner stove.  We list it on eBay and also our local Craigs List and spent most of the day lamenting no one bid on the 1978 behemoth.  We have about 18 photos in this blog post and the story is best told with captions beneath each picture.

Here's the Coleman 426D that we fully intended to sell on May 4th.  We bought it perhaps 3-4 years ago and it's just been sitting in the Cook Shack taking up space and getting in the way.  Yes, it needs a good cleanup but we figured we'd price it low and just get it OUTTA HERE!

Later in the evening May 4th, we decided to take a good close look at our Coleman stove inventory.  The stove at left is the 425F.  The 462D is in the foreground and the 413D is at right.

Here's our venerable, yeoman 425F.  The large burner measures 60 millimeters in diameter.  The 413D's burner measures 62.5 millimeters but burns MUCH hotter than the 425F.  The 426D's main burner is also 60 mm and the two side burners are smaller.

Here's what really tipped the scales to a new Kitchen Rig this season--our discovery that the 426D 3-burner would fit perfectly in the back right rear area of Marvie--our camping truck.  The 426D fist so well there it's incredible.  It snaps into place and I can drive around town without the stove flying all over the back of the truck bed.

As you can see, this is how we stowed the 425F last season.  It takes up "most" of the same space but unfortunately, there's really nothing much we can do with the remaining space.  When we realized the 426D would make maximum, optimal usage of that space, we were hooked.  We immediately ran in the house and ended our eBay auction and deleted the Craigs List ad.

We also knew right away that we'd finally have some elbow room in the 426D.  Above is how cramped it has been packing the 425F.  It's always a "trick" to make everything fit.  Also, the spare fuel canister has to be stowed in a place that's difficult to access.

This morning we were very happy to see hoe much room we had in the 426D.  TONS of space!

So much space we can now carry two of our favorite spatulas.  Our normal "UTES" box for kitchen utensils is a 30 caliber ammo can.  No way can a decent spatula fit in a 30 caliber ammo can.

Not only that, but we also immediately realized we can once again start carrying a griddle that will fit the 426D perfectly and still ahve room to use another burner.

And not only that but the griddle fits INSIDE the stove!  YEA!

Our "go to" bacon cooking rig just won't fit well on the 425F and doesn't fit all that well on the 413D either.  However, it fits GREAT on the 426D.

Both the griddle and the big Lodge cast iron skillet look like a match made in Heaven on this stove.

We swapped out our small coffee pot for a much larger version.

The surface area of the 426D is so large the possibilities seem endless.

Here's a small wok, a stainless skillet and a griddle, too.

We began to see endless permutations and combinations of various cookware that we had never considered possible or practical before.  We're still working on which pots, pans and skillets we intend to pack for this season's Kitchen Rig.  We will post up a final inventory once we know what it is.

Potassium and Tomatoes

By now everyone knows Potassium is arguably the most important mineral a hiker can have.  Anyone doing any sort of physical exertion such as running or even working outdoors in the hot sun, knows that Potassium really makes a difference.  Heck, that was the whole "schtick" behind Gatorade.  But if you look at the nutrition label on a Gatorade or similar sports drink, you realize how little potassium there is in one of those overpriced bottles of sugar water. An eight ounce serving of Gatorade typically contains perhaps 25 milligrams of Potassium.

No take a Lookie at Sun Dried Tomatoes.  The nutrition facts below are for a 100 gram serving so it's easy to divide any of the values by 100 to get the content per gram.  ONE GRAM of sun dried tomato has about 40% more Potassium that eight ounces of Gatorade!  That's incredible.

We've always known cooked tomatoes contain mind-boggling amounts of Potassium.  Ditto with canned tomato juice.  One V-8 each day when we're car camping pretty well takes care of my potassium needs for a full 24 hours.  Carrying sun dried tomatoes on a backpack trip is the next best thing to having canned stewed tomatoes or canned V-8 juice.

We bought a package of California-produced sun dried tomatoes and split it four ways.  One fourth of the dried tomatoes was chopped and cut up to use in our dinner recipes.  The other three portions will be used each day of our hike.  Each of those portions will provide about 650 milligrams of Potassium each day.

Coupled with the other potassium-rich food we bought for this trip, we're going to be fine as far as this important mineral goes.
xxx

Nutrition Facts Tomatoes Sun-Dried Serving Size 100g Calories 258 % Daily Value* Total Fat 2.97g 5%     Saturated Fat 0.426g 2% Cholesterol 0mg 0% Sodium 247mg 10% Total Carbohydrate 55.8g 19%     Dietary Fiber 12.3g 49%     Sugar 37.6g ~ Protein 14.1g ~ Vitamin A 17% • Vitamin C 65% Calcium 11% • Iron 51% *Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.

Vitamins   %DV Vitamin A 874IU 17%     Retinol equivalents 44μg ~     Retinol 0μg ~     Alpha-carotene 0μg ~     Beta-carotene 524μg ~     Beta-cryptoxanthin 0μg ~ Vitamin C 39.2mg 65% Vitamin E 0.01mg 0% Vitamin K 43μg 54% Vitamin B12 0μg 0% Thiamin 0.528mg 35% Riboflavin 0.489mg 29% Niacin 9.05mg 45% Pantothenic acid 2.087mg 21% Vitamin B6 0.332mg 17% Folate 68μg 17%     Folic Acid 0μg ~     Food Folate 68μg ~     Dietary Folate Equivalents 68μg ~ Choline 104.6mg ~ Lycopene 45902μg ~ Lutein+zeazanthin 1419μg ~

Minerals   %DV Calcium 110mg 11% Iron 9.09mg 51% Magnesium 194mg 49% Phosphorus 356mg 36% Sodium 247mg 10% Potassium 3427mg 98% Zinc 1.99mg 13% Copper 1.423mg 71% Manganese 1.846mg 92% Selenium 5.5μg 8% Water 14.56g ~ Ash 12.6g ~

Stats Percent of Daily Calorie Target (2000 calories) 12.9% Percent Water Composition 14.6% Protein to Carb Ratio (g/g) 0.25

Nutrition Facts Tomatoes Sun-Dried Serving Size 54g Calories 139 % Daily Value* Total Fat 1.6g 2%     Saturated Fat 0.23g 1% Cholesterol 0mg 0% Sodium 133mg 6% Total Carbohydrate 30.1g 10%     Dietary Fiber 6.6g 26%     Sugar 20.3g ~ Protein 7.6g ~ Vitamin A 9% • Vitamin C 35% Calcium 6% • Iron 27% *Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.

Vitamins   %DV Vitamin A 471.96IU 9%     Retinol equivalents 23.76μg ~     Retinol 0μg ~     Alpha-carotene 0μg ~     Beta-carotene 282.96μg ~     Beta-cryptoxanthin 0μg ~ Vitamin C 21.17mg 35% Vitamin E 0.01mg 0% Vitamin K 23.22μg 29% Vitamin B12 0μg 0% Thiamin 0.285mg 19% Riboflavin 0.264mg 16% Niacin 4.887mg 24% Pantothenic acid 1.127mg 11% Vitamin B6 0.179mg 9% Folate 36.72μg 9%     Folic Acid 0μg ~     Food Folate 36.72μg ~     Dietary Folate Equivalents 36.72μg ~ Choline 56.48mg ~ Lycopene 24787.08μg ~ Lutein+zeazanthin 766.26μg ~

Minerals   %DV Calcium 59.4mg 6% Iron 4.91mg 27% Magnesium 104.76mg 26% Phosphorus 192.24mg 19% Sodium 133mg 6% Potassium 1850.58mg 53% Zinc 1.07mg 7% Copper 0.768mg 38% Manganese 0.997mg 50% Selenium 2.97μg 4% Water 7.86g ~ Ash 6.8g ~

Stats Percent of Daily Calorie Target (2000 calories) 6.95% Percent Water Composition 14.6% Protein to Carb Ratio (g/g) 0.25

Coffee Cravin'

I drink coffee.  I Love Coffee.  I crave coffee. OK? OK!

So, here we go on a short backpack trip.  What's one of the first things a Coffee Cravin', Coffee Lovin' Coffee Drinker to do, huh?  Why, make certain we can get our Coffee Fix each morning we're in The Canyon.  Each of the photos has a caption below and there is more narrative below all of the photos.

Believe it or not, Wal-Mart sells the best instant coffee at the best price anywhere.  Of course saying it's "the best" is subjective but lookie there at the price--ONE DOLLAR for enough instant coffee to make 32 eight ounce cups!  You may disagree that it's the "the best" but you can't possibly disagree that it's the best price!

This instant coffee is made in Mexico.  The Mexicans have a LONG Love Affair with instant coffee and those people South of The Border really know how to make a potent freeze dried dose-o-caffeine.  When you're looking at instant coffee, you definitely want to see "100% Instant Coffee" on the label.  As everyone knows, the trouble with ALL instant coffees is that taste like, well, instant coffee.  So what to do?

Enter our Dear Swiss Miss.  This Miss has been a mainstay of our Camping Coffee for longer than we can remember.  The best way to mask the instant coffee taste is to mix the granules with Good Ol' Swiss Miss.  Trust me, use the full sugar mix--not the sugar free mix.  You will be amazed at how wonderful instant coffee becomes when mixed properly with hot chocolate.

As most everyone knows, typical hot chocolate is essentially caffeine free.  Bummer.

If you look at the hot chocolate label, there's a lot more than sugar in there.  It's that saturated fat that really is a Game Changer and makes a cuppa camp joe so danged much fun in the morning.  Hot chocolate is also a nice bonus source of potassium, which we consider an essential Hiking Mineral.

So, now it's time for the Mad Coffee Scientist to get to work.  Here are most of the tools of our trade.
The first task is to CAREFULLY cut off the top of a hot chocolate envelope making sure you are at the tippy top of the opening.  Second, pour the powder into a quarter cup measure.  Stainless steel works better than plastic.  Then gently bang the bottom of the steel on the counter top to settle the chocolate powder as much as possible.  Then, top off the quarter cup measure with instant coffee and use a knife to make sure it is a level measure.

Then pour this mix into a bowl.  Imagine using a mortar and pestle to get a better mix that goes into solution easier.  That's the goal here.  Mix thoroughly.

After a VERY thorough mixing of the two ingredients, the coffee should have Become One with the Cocoa.

Next, we carefully spooned the mix from the bowl back into the original envelope, carefully rolled down the top much the way a river runner rolls down the top of a dry bag and sealed with a small piece of transparent tape.  The weight of each package varied slightly.

Finally, we have enough for two cups each of our two mornings.  With a Zip Locl sandwich bag, the net weight calculates out to precisely 4 ounces.  The weight of the waste to hike out with will be 5 grams.

Our trusty 1.7 ounce cup and our little six ounce pot. (Weights--not capacities.)

And, the fruit of our labor!  A steaming cup of really yummy, fully-charged coffee.

We did quite a bit of mathematics on this process.  First, we weighed the unopened packet of hot chocolate.  It calc'd to .80 ounce. (Eight tenths of an ounce.)  Then we weighed each packet afterwards and then weighed all four packets together to get a true average weight.

Then we studied the two websites below.  Basically, without going into farther detail, we will be getting at least 350 milligrams of coffee each morning and that's plenty for us.  We are very pleased with the fruits of our labor.

http://goaskalice.columbia.edu/caffeine-content

http://www.caffeineinformer.com/caffeine-content/coffee-instant

Backpack food

Yeah, there's a lot of chemicals in processed foods.  However, we cut ourself a lot of slack when we are backpacking.

Every camper has her or his own ideas about camp food. Every backpacker has their own ideas about the food they carry.  Camping and backpacker meals are like snowflakes. No two camper's or backpacker's meals are the same.  Sure, some meals may be similar but they are always slightly different--just like snowflakes.

And so it is that we have begun to dredge up our long lost backpacking recipes.  If we are car camping, weight and space are rarely an issue.  The more food the merrier.  We often take twice as much food as we need just so we can change our menu on a whim when we feel like it.

Well, backpackers don't generally have such a luxury.  Backpackers need to run a tight ship, make a lean and mean menu and stick to it.  No whimsy for them!

It's been years since we hefted on a backpack and took off down the trail.  Luckily, we learned a lesson long, long ago.  All you need to do is walk S-L-O-W-L-Y through some stores and stop and stare at stuff.  Look very closely.  Read labels and directions.  Buy stuff.  Take it home.  Experiment.  Play around with recipes.  Why, it's easy peezy.

A Surprise Find--Dried Okra!

So, that's what we've been doing lately...taking trips down memory lanes (AKA: Grocery Aisles).  Sure enough, just like riding a bicycle, it all comes back.  It didn't take us long to remember all our old staple foods and meals for backpacking.  Once that knowledge is branded into the synapses, that knowledge never leaves.

Right now as we are writing this it's 3:30 pm on a Sunday.  And we're eating grits....and lovin' it.  We forgot all about instant grits.  And we sure forgot just how danged good they taste, even at 3:30 pm on a Sunday!

Why, you just need to boil and hap cup of water, turn off the flame and pour in the grits and let 'em sit.  We remembered the grits while prowling the aisles of a big box grocery in Phoenix today.  Heck, throw in  some oil, some chopped walnuts, chopped apricots, raw sugar, and top it all off with some coconut flakes and we've got a great breakfast going.  After eating it, boil a coup of water to clean the pot, make some hot chocolate and we're good to go.

Sugar, bulgar & fresh peanut butter

Next item I flat forgot is just like the grit, only better and more versatile--Bulgar.  You don't even have to heat water to hydrate bulgar--just put it in the pot the night before and it will be all re-hydrated by morning.  You can pretty much do anything to bulgar, the possibilities are endless.

Another great breakfast staple is powdered potatoes.  The now come in a bewildering array of flavors and our favorite Idahoan brand is made right in our summer home town, Idaho Falls.  In fact, a Dear Neighbor actually helps to make them!

We're going to put some pre-cooked bacon into a pot of those taters and then do a second pot of scrambled eggs made from powered eggs.

Small corn and small wheat tortillas are great for a short backpacking trip.  In recent years, bakeries pioneered stuff called "Sandwich thins."  Sandwich thins are basically a low rent kinda, sorta bagel.  Interestingly, one half a sandwich thin is lighter in weight than most tortillas but is better suited to hold peanut butter.  Peanut Butter is probably the Number One Staple of campers and backpackers worldwide.

Who knows, you might even get a Ticket from the Backpack Police if you left home without peanut butter.
Anyway, we forgot all about sandwich thins until we were walking slowly around the store staring at stuff.  We're going to take maybe two of them on this trip just for the peanut butter.

From top-clockwise-dried apricots, honey-roasted sunflower seeds
Cajun seasoning, dehydrated refried beans and walnut halves.

Then there's instant rice, cous-cous, dehydrated refried beans and Stove Top Stuffing.  Each of these four yummy food simply requires soaking in hot water to come to life.  No fuel-wasting boiling is necessary.

Today we found some dehydrated shrimp, dehydrated okra, edeame beans, sun-dried tomatoes, crystallized ginger and other similar goodies.  Tuna and salmon now come in foil packs that don't have to be drained.  There's there the staple salami and hard cheeses. We might even carry a small can of chicken, too.  They come in such small cans now the empty can surely can't weigh hardly anything.

So many choices, such a short hike!  It sure is fun messing with backpacking food again!

And now we close this post by eating some refried beans, freshly re-hydrated just for this occasion.  Oh, Man, YUM--they are good!