Yep, eight days in the Nevada desert. No shopping for me!
I read that Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is the busiest shopping day of the year. Not only is it the start of the Christmas shopping season, but large numbers of Americans have a 4-day weekend – especially if you are a government employee.
Just got back from an extended camping trip in the desert in Nevada and my website had a bunch of “ping-backs” from this post by Andrew Skurka.
A ping-back is when another website refers a reader via a link. Andrew was very complementary about this website and Dave Chenault’s Bedrock and Paradox as blogs with some quality content, although not a lot of content, and both sites are not monetized; that is they do not generate income.
I want to clarify this and state again as I did on October 16th, that popupbackpacker.com now incorporates affiliate marketing, which generates a small amount of income for me.
Ostensibly it is pretty common for backpackers to bring an extra pair of shoes for crossing streams and/or to use at the campsite after a long day of walking. So I thought I would share how I do this. This does not apply to winter hiking, which I shall define as daytime temperatures below freezing and lots of snow. For those trips, this is my shoe system.
Continue reading How to Choose Backpacking Water and Camp Shoes
After finishing my backpacking trip and leaving the Trinity Alps, I headed west to the northern California coastline around Arcata and Trinidad. Two goals were foremost: (1) check out some campgrounds for an extended camping trip with Joyce later this year and (2) do some backpacking in the coastal Redwood forests. I spent the night camped next to the ocean and was treated to continuous rain and wind — an encore to the previous four nights. After checking a couple campgrounds for future reference, the decision was made that being outdoors in the rain 24/7 wasn’t much fun anymore. This was not a reason to cancel a trip, but it was motivation to consider options. One enticing option was the central coast area of California south of Carmel all the way to San Simeon, which was enjoying wonderfully warm weather. So I headed south on Hwy 101, dealt with bumper-to-bumper traffic through San Francisco and jumped on Hwy 1 in San Jose savoring a bit of driving along the Big Sur Coast and then a backpack in the Los Padres National Forest, not expecting this…
The Internet is a strange beast. With the anonymity of a computer screen and keyboard there are many people who are not what they appear to be — a counterfeit persona. Along with this there are many people who collect “friends,” “followers,” or “likes” as some sort of ego fulfilling stamp collection.
In spite of this electronic universe, a diligent person can recognize the sincere and honest people on the World Wide Web. But these folks can only be acquaintances. Friendship requires face-to-face real world interactions. At the end of October I spent a few days with some Internet acquaintances who I can now say are friends.