banane

Camping Improvements Since the 70s

I just came back from a 4 day camping trip in the El Dorado Forest - great alternative to Yosemite, by the way! As I was comparing my gear to my sister & her husband’s, I started a mental list of vast improvements in camping technology since the stuff my parents had in the 70s.

- Tevas. I used to use old tennis shoes for creek walking/pebbly lake bottoms, but now, voila! Amazing invention.
- At some point fleece came about, and it’s great.Don’t get me wrong, down vests are great, but fleece is good too.
- Poles that are connected with that string inside for quick in-the-dark assembly
- Inflatable kayaks. Tough to steer with the wind hitting your bow, but small children have their uses as ballast, until they tip it over out of boredom.
- Neutrogena non-oily 50 proof sunscreen
- Thermarests

Intentionally left off the list:
- mining headlamps. Good for plumbing or finding stuff in a dark garage or working in the car, but in the camping environment you just end up pissing off fellow campers by blinding them in the face. I have yet to find someone using these properly, basically.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 2:37 pm and is filed under nostalgia, technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. View blog reactions Stumble it! You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.