Outdoor Gear

Talking with my friends lately, I’ve heard a lot of people are applying for concealed weapons permits. I wonder if all this doom and gloom that you hear on television is the reason for it. There’s a cool website 5.11 Tactical that has everything you could every want to secure your home and family. They have flashlights, clothing, boots and lots of other tactical gear. A lot of the stuff would just be good for hiking and camping.

Last summer when we were hiking around Mendenhall Glacier – way back in the woods and up the mountain – I would have loved to have a portable liter to be carried back on. Joking aside, that wouldn’t be a bad thing to carry with you. These words coming from the couple that kept forgetting the basics like water and bear repel. We had to laugh because every time we were way out in nature enjoying all the beauty we’d discover that once again we forgot the basics. We didn’t laugh too hard when we had to stop for the bear to cross the path when we were biking around Diamond Lake in OR. Talk about scary. We were in several outdoor situations that more would have been better – oh yeah – we would have had to carry all the stuff. I think it was a combination of thought processes that went through my head, from ‘I can’t wait to get outside’ to ‘I don’t want to carry anything extra’ that left us unprepared so many times. More often than not, when we were prepared it was my Maintenance Man that would carry the backpack with the essentials. Boy, I miss those wonderful days. It’s all taking me back to the perfect vacation – not a bad place to be on this snowy, blustery cold day.