It's hard to say what makes this short film so captivating. The high contrast black and white? Lack of dialog? Or the choice of song, the gentle and pensive After the Storm by Mumford and Sons?
Give it a watch and decide for yourself. The film is as tranquil and languid as a road trip once you've settled into the hum of the road and the kids are mellowed out with books.
* * * The Sunday Morning Chillax? Here's the idea. It's Sunday. You're up early. You're enjoying a cup of coffee in the quiet morning while your kids sleep in. No need to read, this is always a video; something to give you happy thoughts about mountains, fresh air, stoke, fun, or being outside. Enjoy. Relax. Not guaranteed to be weekly . . . hey, you get what you pay for.
Is there anything that cultivates romance, thrill, and delight like the outdoors does? We don't think so. Spending time outside kindles the fires of affection like nothing else. It's a good thing, too, that outdoor date ideas are as endless as an Alaska summer day. You can find romance in a picnic, a night hike, snowshoeing, paddling a canoe, skinny dipping, hunting for hot springs, rock climbing, riding bikes, backpacking, trail running, and what else? Yeah, sure, camping. Play the cards right, romance blossoms. Even in the icky outdoors.
Child carriers and backpacks are not all that new, but you probably knew that already. The entirety of human history all over the globe show examples of slings, pouches and cradle boards used for hands-free baby transport. However, in 20th-century U.S.A., child carriers were absolutely non-existent. That changed in 1968 with a young Peace Corps volunteer named Ann Moore who witnessed the women in Africa carrying babies and infants in slings on their backs. Moore eventually returned from her service in West Africa, started her own family, and having loved the idea of keeping a hands-free active life while keeping her baby snuggled against her body, she went to the store to buy a baby sling. She couldn't find one, so she designed her own soft carrier, called it the Snugli (link) and practically launched an entire industry.
Kelty came along in 1992 with their iconic kid backpack and you could say the trails of the National Park system haven't been the same since.
And now there's a new, fancier, snazzier pack on the street from Osprey . . .
The Vogel family hardly looks like a clan of serious cyclists. In their pictures, John, Nancy and their twin 8-year-old ankle-biters Davy and Daryl are often wearing cotton, sometimes denim, and no sweat-wicking jerseys in sight ever bear so much as the oft pervasive sponsor logo. Is that what a cyclist should look like anyway?
No, not necessarily. A cyclist is someone riding a bike, end of story. If anything, the Vogel folk just look like a standard, chipper suburbanite family headed down the driveway and around the block for a Saturday afternoon of some wind in the hair.
Except they didn't go for a short spin. Instead, they threw down over 9 thousand miles on a ride across the U.S. and Mexico.
We've written about the wonders of sling bags for the ultimate outdoor adventure diaper bag before. It all started with the JJ Cole sling diaper bag because we owned one and loved it. Sadly you can't buy them any more. JJ Cole cut it from their product line and the only thing that soothes our heartache is our unrelenting quest for a similarly awesome, good looking, functional sling bag.
Well, we've stumbled upon some good news, and Patagonia's Atom sling bag scores some big points . . .
This year, I've avoided to the core penning out a gift guide for you. Everyone's doing that now. But what I will do is show you one thing that's surely going to make a fella like yours truly feel kind of special. I say that because these beauties from Nau (pronounced "now") are proof of love at first sight. A friend linked to these on Facebook today and effectively flushed this chump.
Why?: the usual. They look good, are priced for us lowly working class, and up the muchly-over-hyped green factor . . .
Down in the ol' grungy southwest U.S., you'd think we'd be more tuned into the upsides of the poncho for our winter kit. Especially for the kids. Ponchos are the warm garment of choice for native Andean folk and other pre-Hispanic cultures of Central and South America. But the poor things get misrepresented and misconstrued from the bad guys with straps of bullets around their chests in old Clint Eastwood flicks, to the late night infomercials extolling the virtues of the blanket with sleeves called the snuggie. Add to that, outdoors folk tend to hear the word poncho and think, "That's a plastic thing inside the pocket of my emergency kit I got for 99 cents in case it rains." It's no wonder we just don't see classier version of ponchos at all.
When Stuart Wickes and Kirstie Pelling got married, they honeymooned for six months in South America. Actually they rode their bicycles through South America. Not a bad way to celebrate the blissful bells that mark the blessings of becoming ball and chain. Six months later they arrived in Tierra del Fuego. As you can imagine, this was one incredible adventure honeymoon full of sweet memories. For example, the pair took a week's work as a crew on a yacht, negotiating the fjords and island clusters of southern Chile.
It was no ordinary vessel. You could say it changed their lives . . .
Pay not a dime as you drive (or walk or bike or levitate) on through the entrance gate at any National Park this weekend November 11-13, 2011. But a wave and a smile to the attendant would be nice, remember your manners. It starts Friday and lasts through Sunday. Pack up those kids and charge up the camera batteries. What's your flavor? Yosemite, Carlsbad Caverns, Bryce Canyon?
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