In honor of Veterans Day, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has announced that parks and areas managed by the department will not charge entrance fees.
“Visitors to national parks are invited to take a day to honor and reflect on what our service men and women have done to maintain our freedom and keep peace around the world,†Salazar said.
For much of the country, Labor Day does not have to mark the end of the camping season and you can still venture into the backcountry if you have some additional gear for the cooler evening temperatures. Here are five items that can help you extend your camping season into the winter.
Last week, I had the opportunity to tour several of the W.L. Gore & Associates facilities that produce the company’s venerable Gore-Tex® brand of breathable, waterproof fabric. If you didn’t know that Gore-Tex was a brand and not a company, don’t feel bad – I didn’t know, either, until a few days before my trip when someone at work mentioned that they used to use Gore cables in their radar systems. Gore cables? Turns out, Gore is into a lot of interesting areas, from emerging energy to medicine.
Hamburgers and hotdogs are a regular camping meal for most people, including our family. Sometimes, though, the regular meals get a bit boring and we like to spice it up with beer sausage, which is equally simple to prepare and tastes a lot better than a hotdog. The biggest problem with cooking a decent beer sausage is actually finding good sausage. For this meal, we tried “Hofbrau Brats” from Trader Joe’s® and they were just okay. Like almost all sausage that you can buy in a grocery store, they were a bit greasy. You are much better off sampling the sausages from local meatpackers and sausage makers in your local area. If that does not pan-out, the next best option is to go mail order from a reputable sausage house, like the Mt. Angel Sausage Company, in Mt. Angel, OR. I really like their Fricadelwurst, which is a very lean, spicy chicken sausage.
Even a camping birthday requires cake
When we began camping as a family, some years ago, we camped at a few private campgrounds to see how the kids would react and to test all of our gear. Private campgrounds, such as KOA® or Jellystone Parks™, are good places to get some camping experience because they have stores with food and camping gear and activities to keep everyone busy.