February 15, 2021
I received two calls today. The first call came from Natasha. She was late for her massage appointment. She put her keys in her pocket and ran the three blocks. Since I was not busy and lived only minutes away and I told her I would take a look. I searched the route she took and checked the soft snow along the sides. My gut instinct was that they were most likely picked up. The more I thought about it, the more likely it was that they were close to home. We headed back and I searched where I thought they would most likely be. While there, the front door of the nearest home opened. A gentleman asked what we were looking for. Natasha described her keys to him, after which he turned to go back inside and returned with her keys!!! Success sometimes doesn’t come with the detector.
The second call came around 3:30 pm. Ali had lost his keys while sledding down a hill on Friday. It was Monday. After chatting with him, he had done everything right. From immediately searching, to checking places where someone may have placed them if they were picked up. From what he described and what he did it seemed very likely they were there. We just had to find them. Ali described three places where he wiped out on the sled. Both of us searched the hill in detail. Ali remembered that his brother had videoed some of the runs, including two where he went off to the side and bailed. We watched and were able to narrow down the search areas. After two very loud beer cans, we searched the second crash site. I mentioned that very often, after searching and checking a variety of signals, I would hear “the” signal. When that happens I stop and stand up. Moments later I got another signal. I let Ali dig it. Sure enough, there they were. Ali was ecstatic. He stopped and said, “Funny, you just stopped and stood up” .