Okay, maybe that’s not all she wants for her birthday, but with Chuck E. Cheese’s® just down the road, a bounce park in town and the lure of a sleepover party with her favorite friends, it makes this dad proud to say that his soon-to-be nine year old daughter chose a camping trip for her birthday. Camping has been a part of our kid’s lives just like going to movies or maybe a restaurant. It’s still something that is special to them, but it surprises me that they still get excited about it since it’s something that we do pretty regularly.
Essential Gear: the underappreciated big blue tarp
Inside and out, blue tarps will protect your tent
The outdoor retail market thrives on convincing us that we need new gear to get the most out of our outdoor adventures. This is actually a good thing, since the industry keeps coming out with better gear, each and every year. It can also go a bit overboard, though, with superfluous gadgets and fluffery that is just a waste of your hard-earned money. One way to save money on camping gear is to look for similar products outside the industry that can serve the same purpose. The big blue tarp is one of those items.
First Look: 2010 Grand Manan Tour
One of the best family camping tents of the year was the Grand Manan series, from Eureka!® camping tents. These tents have a simple two-pole design that is easy to erect and provides a lot of usable interior space, for a dome style tent, due to the unique shape of the poles. This year, Eureka is adding the Tour to their Grand Manan lineup and they gave CampingBlogger an early look at the new model.
The Great Outdoors: a different kind of respect
Photo by miwalker on Flickr
One of the few benefits of traveling across the country is that I can catch up on some reading during the flight, and I was particularly taken by an Andrew McCarthy piece in the National Geographic Adventure magazine, this month. “Going Back In” is about a teenage girl who drowns in the South Buffalo Fork of the Snake River during an adventure camp, and McCarthy coming to terms with the guilt surrounding the tragedy.
Be proactive against tick-borne diseases this summer
Ticks are always a concern in the outdoors because they can carry bacteria that cause Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever and a host of lesser-known viruses, like ehrlichiosis and anaplasmosis. Although tick-borne diseases tend to concentrate in the western, southern and eastern states, the problem is rearing its ugly head this year in the upper Midwest and southern Canada. A Minnesota child recently died from Rocky Mountain spotted fever.