Good Day Everyone I thought I would pass along some new information to you regarding SS Recovery Service LLC

CHASING SOGS IN A MOTOR HOME

“There it is!” ---and another SkySite Platform ® on the ground (SOG) is recovered. The excitement of the hunt, and the thrill of the find were always there, from first SOG to last.

As we neared Pecos, Texas we entered the cords of our first target, and stopped at the Sheriff’s Office for local road information. Turned out the Sheriff “…don’t know much about that side of the interstate.” However, he directed us to a road that wasn’t on the map; it took us to within a mile and a half of the SOG coords. Magellan Meridian Gold GPS in one hand, and the satellite-image map in the other we headed out. We came to the ledge above an extensive dry lakebed. Burt looked over the edge, and there it was, halfway down the slope! Scooting and sliding downward, we retrieved our first SOG. The ‘chute was white, and we were amused that the Styrofoam sides were held together with sharpened Q-tips!

We spent Christmas in Atlanta, and a summer-like New Year in St. Thomas, USVI, researching who makes the best banana daiquiri! Then it was time to get back to work…

After a little geocaching, just to keep ourselves “limber”, we headed for a SOG coord position that took us down a rural country road in Louisiana. A lady, walking with her child, said her husband might know how we could get to our waypoint. “He’s just down the road, at his Momma’s house –we’re just visitin’.” We met Wayne, his 82-year-old momma Vera, wife Pat, and 2-year-old child, Sydney Nicole. Vera talked about the life she’d spent in these piney woods, huntin’ coons and squirrels; nowadays, pecans are her cash crop. She showed me a couple styles of hand pecan pickers; Wayne proudly showed off the riding pecan picker he had bought for his mother. We told them about the SkySite Platform ® Recovery Program; we showed them the GPS, which showed the SOG was within two miles of their place. Wayne was intrigued. He figured it was on the property of “…that millionaire Texan that all he does is get drunk and smoke!” He, Pat, and little Sydney jumped into their car and he led us to the property gate. A quarter-mile walk took us to just feet from the SOG. Wayne spotted the orange parachute, 100 feet up in a tree!

Wayne and Burt discussed the options: cutting down the tree; bow and arrow, with looong cord attached; or shotgun. Our walk back to our vehicles got the attention of the property manager, who came racing up in a cloud of dust. “Hope y’all know you’re trespassin’, he yelled. He and Wayne laughed and greeted each other by name ---Wayne, Pat, and Dale had all gone to school together. We hopped onto the tailgate of Dale’s pickup and went back to show him the SOG. He figured he “…could shoot that li’l ole thing down tomorrow.” He could, and he did; he took it over to Wayne’s Momma so she could collect the reward.

The three-mile trek we took near Menard was a bad-news good-news exercise. The SOG wasn’t there, but we learned a valuable lesson involving tennis shoes and cactus! “Hiking boots” went to the top of our shopping list.

The next recovery was easy, and covered with blood. Hunters had picked up the SOG, and delivered it to the ranch owner; it shared space in a pickup, with a freshly killed, 12-point buck.

Don’t start out to find a SOG in late afternoon; and always mark your position before you leave your rig! We were on an oilrig landing and only one and a half miles from our next target ---as the crow flies. Two cactus-covered ridges later, happily wearing our new boots, we heard a vehicle and voices. We backtracked to a dirt road, where 4 people stopped to give us a ride closer to our go to waypoint. They were headed home, and wouldn’t be coming back this way. We located the SOG. The sun was going down fast. Then we heard voices and a vehicle again! We whistled and called out; the truck waited for us as we climbed up to the road. The same quartet had come back! They seemed worried about us. We jumped into the pickup with the SOG, and these guardian angels drove us to within a quarter of a mile of our motor home. Since we hadn’t marked the rig, we were following breadcrumbs, and daylight was fading fast. Cross-country, over a fence, around a hill, and the welcome sight of the motor home!

South Texas is hilly and unforgiving. There can easily be a canyon between you and the SOG, three miles away. This was pointed out to us by Clyde, owner of the Paradise Oil Company, a wildcat operation along the Pecos River. Clyde is a modern-day prospector, whose “mother load” is an oil reserve 16,000 feet under the ground, “…bigger than any oil field you’d find in the Middle East!” He’s lived out here, following his dream for fifteen years. His name is on the waiting list for hiring a drilling rig that can punch a 30,000-foot hole in the ground. “It takes 100 semi trucks to bring that rig in here,” Clyde told us. This guy’s belief in this project is fired by satellite and seismic data; his enthusiasm was infectious! A jeep-tour of his property included an overview of Dead Man’s Canyon, and the High Pecos Bridge. This bridge is the only southern railroad link between the West and East coasts. It was considered so important that, during WWII, the Japanese came across the Mexican border and tried to blow it up! We watched a mile-long freight cross the bridge; after five minutes, the train crossed Clyde’s property, right in front of us.

We’d decided Clyde’s place was not the best approach to our next recovery. Another road took us to within 2.4 miles of its position. Another workout for the boots! We had these porcupine-type cactus balls on our legs, on our boots… The up-and-down terrain made it a round trip of 6 miles plus! It took me an hour, tweezers and pliers, to pull the cactus needles out my boot soles!

Our SOG recovery list showed that one of our last SOGs was just 483 feet south of U.S. 90. A fence separated us from our target. Burt handed the Meridian to me. “Go get it,” he said, “I’ll stay here so I can explain to the Border Patrol why you have climbed the fence, and are heading for Mexico.” I almost hesitated ---but you know the motivation of finding and recovering a SOG!

By this time, we had fourteen SkySite Platforms ® in our possession ---stacked in our motor home shower. We had found six ourselves, and picked up eight from other contractors. In the interest of personal hygiene, we headed for Odessa, Texas to deliver the units for refurbishing. We powered down the GPS, and turned the motor home west. Our SOG adventure was over, for now....