I’ve had this cup for just over 5 years. Typically I’ll wait 10 years before doing a “long term” review. I have taken it on every backpacking and car camping (trips without our travel trailer) trip since I bought it. This cup has worked out so well I can’t picture myself wanting something else.
Continue reading GSI Infinity Backpacker’s Mug: 5-year Review
Yesterday I shared a post, Campground Etiquette: We need to talk about trash. One of the main points I wanted to make is so many of today’s campers just haven’t been educated on the rules and regulations, nor taught proper campground etiquette.
In this post I’ll cover campground etiquette with a focus on teaching kids to respect nature and their fellow campers.
Well, maybe not senior moments. We try to avoid senior moments. Seems many seniors are just waiting to die, we’re out living.
We just returned from a couple of weeks of camping in the desert. It was a totally relaxing. I didn’t take any pics, so you’ll just have to use your imagination and picture the amazing scenery and wildlife we saw, like a whole herd of majestic big horn sheep.
But here’s something that caught my eye: I saw this really interesting spare wheel cover on a travel trailer that said ‘Adventure Before Dementia.’ The phrase sounds pretty catchy, and it also made me think about our own lives. It’s all about perspective, you know? What it means to you can totally change depending on how you look at things.
My friend Paul recently shared a series of articles about his camping and backpacking trip to Big Bend National Park. In Part 2, he recommended a Driving Guide for visitors to the park. (by the way, I recommend you read Part 1 and Part 3 of Paul and Joan’s recent adventures in Texas).
He said, “If you decide to drive the backroads of Big Bend, we found the $7 backcountry road guide a great purchase. You can get it online or at the visitor centers. It has mile-by-mile descriptions (sorry to those in the civilized world, it only lists Freedom Units TM), a brief description of the routes, and even some history.” <bold is mine>
I was curious about the term “Freedom Units.” I’m not really into slang words or phrases, and I don’t know much about current urban dictionaries. So, I did a quick search online, and I found out that Freedom Units is a joke about the Americanized Imperial measurement system that the United States uses.
Guess what? Only three countries in the whole world officially use the Imperial System: the United States, Liberia, and Myanmar (also known as Burma). The rest of the world uses the metric system. I don’t mean to knock Liberia or Myanmar, but they don’t come to mind as places that are at the forefront of scientific research. The United States is.
Also, I found out that every country in the world, except these three, has laws that require people to use the metric system.
So, what’s the deal? Is the metric system some kind of communist plot? Is there a good reason why the United States should keep using the Imperial System? Let’s take a closer look at this topic.
This is the final book review of a series of three books that influenced me to venture in to deserts. The result of my first forays into desert environs has been a 50+ year love affair in these seemingly stark and inhospitable wastelands, which they are not at all. Not only are deserts my favorite places to hike, camp and backpack; I have lived in the Lower Colorado Desert since 1977.
The two previous “desert” book reviews can be found here:
Book Review: The Thousand Mile Summer, by Colin Fletcher
Book Review: The Man Who Walked Through Time, by Colin Fletcher
Desert Solitaire is a much different work than the two books of Colin Fletcher’s I just reviewed the past couple of days. Fletcher’s are woven around two long-distance hikes. The hikes set a structure for his prose, but in the end, he has to finish the walks. A multi-week or multi-month walk injects a schedule, or maybe better put, a focus on completing the trip itself where observations of nature must, at times, become secondary. Many of Fletcher’s books were about how to survive in the wilderness; Abbey’s is more about how to help nature and wilderness survive mankind.
Before we delve into Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, there are some comments and perceptions of the man himself we need to address.
Continue reading Book Review: Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey