I'm trying to see how long I can keep a streak rolling - 'till I bag all the caches between the casa, the gym, and the office. I've been picking off C&Ds & LPCs for over a month, and I'm getting to where I have to hike a little to get my daily smiley. I usually roll with a caching kit, containing spare logs, batteries, minimag lite, bison tube O-rings, baggies, tweezers, etc - but when I'm on the way from work to the gym, and just hop off the bike for one, I typically jam the eTrex 20 in my pocket and go.
Yesterday was such a day. Parked the bike, and started scrambling back a trail, toward what I was sure would be a relatively quick grab. I've found over 20 of this gal's hides - her coord's are usually spot-on, and they don't require bush whacking, as a rule. GPS puts me 1/8 of a mile in, and over 100' off the trail in some pretty dense stuff - I'm surprised, but follow to GZ, just as I get the "beep" for low battery. I'm not running back to the bike for batteries, so I start working around a promising-looking tree near GZ. I look back at the GPS, and it now has me 80 - 100 feet off, GZ is back out towards the trail.
I hustle back out to the trail, and am bearing down on the "new" GZ, when the Garmin goes black - dead as a doornail. I started poking around, and made the grab, but thought it strange that the eTrex would lock in on a false target that far off. Skies were clear, and tree canopy wasn't particularly dense. I also found it strange that the unit would bother to give a low power warning - with less than five minutes left in the tank. This is the first time I ran it totally dead. I usually pop fresh batteries in at the warning beep. Is this weirdness typical when the ol' AAs are in their death throes ??