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Tidings to the tribe. Trash that’s trivial.

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is most important that you do it.

by Mahatma Gandhi

Un-Happy Camper

March 8th, 2007

After discovering the E!Power atrocity committed by my formerly preferred tent manufacturer, I’m switching permanently to Kelty.

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2 Responses to 'Un-Happy Camper'

  1. Rex Says:
    March 8th, 2007 at 9:53 pm

    You say that now, but wait til you’re on a camping trip and the boys’ Nintendo dies. You’ll wish for an E!Power to let you recharge it.

    Or you could get one of those solar rechargers from solarstyle.com.

  2. pjs Says:
    March 9th, 2007 at 7:42 am

    Actually, Eureka! makes fantastic tents. I’ve had two, and I still have an old two-person A-frame Timberline that I just adore. The kids now set it up to play in the backyard, and it seems a little cumbersome for the backcountry in this day-and-age, but it’s provided awesome service from the Guadalupe Mountains to Allegheny National Forest to Rocky Mountain National and the BWCA. It’s meant as much to me as the copy of LOTR I’ve had since I was 12 or the old sweatshirt I’ve had since college.

    Still, the idea of electricity cheapens the camping experience for me. It’s a summertime pleasure to cook on white gas, propane, or wood. And what light can beat the warmth of a pair of old Coleman lantern mantels glowing on a picnic table, next to a cup of hot chocolate after the kids have hidden away in their sleeping bags with flashlights and comic books?

    I know many people who enjoy hauling a virtual house behind them, parking it on a great gravel lot crowded with other monsters of the road, hanging tacky lanterns, and hooking up a satellite television.

    But with all the pleasures of home on hand, I have to ask myself, “Why not just stay home?”

    We allow Game Boys on car camping adventures. But when we get to the site, they stay in the car.

    That way, the boys are sure not to miss out on natural discoveries, such as the tiny and swift blue skink we found last fall just outside of town at Jefferson Memorial Forest.

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