Posts Tagged ‘recreation’
No Worry, Got Sleeping Bag
Magpark – It is worry time when it gets dark out in the open. When it is time to sleep, one yearns for the cozy bed and the safe confines of your home. But out there in the open, there is also the insects, the wind and often the precipitation to contend with. This is when the sleeping bag drives all your anxieties away and you can settle down to a peaceful sleep. Sleeping bag has a pride of place in the list of camping equipments. A sleeping bag is something akin to a folded blanket that has a zipper. It can be rolled or folded, stuffed in a sack and carried in your backpack.
Using the straps or the cords, the sleeping bag can be tightly folded or rolled. It goes easily into your backpack which you can carry around when traveling. Or it might be that you are riding, hiking or trekking. It is the sense of security, comfort and warmth that makes sleeping bag a travel companion. The rectangular sleeping bag is roomier than the mummy shaped sleeping bag. The mummy bag is broad and open at one end and tapers into an enclosed end which is where the leg side is.
It is not possible to fold the mummy bag like the rectangular bag. It has to be rolled up and tied. The mummy bag provides more warmth and protection with its lesser space and sealed leg side. The marmot pinnacle sleeping bag is spacious and ultra light. Synthetic fills and down fills are the usual insulation materials in use in the sleeping bag. While the synthetic fills are better in wet conditions with lower water absorption capacity, it is also heavier. Insulation is better with the synthetic fills. But the down fill bags have a better heat retention capacity.
You need to choose a sleeping bag according to the weather conditions. In wet conditions, a synthetic fill bag is no doubt better as it has a lower water absorption capacity. A sleeping bag is good in both the summer and winter. You can keep the sleeping bag unzipped in summer nights and zipped when it is quite cold. If in extreme cold weather conditions, you will have to go for a sleeping bag that is specially suited to combat the cold. The down fill bags are best suited in dry climate. Keep your budget in mind while choosing the sleeping bag.
It’s always a good option to go camping. Just remember to always bring important things like a marmot pinnacle sleeping bag.
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Some Great Destinations For Student Travelers
Every year, students across the country travel to various countries to have fun and explore different cultures and their attractions. When searching for a great student travel destination, below is a list of the top destinations for student travelers.
Canada: There is a lot for travelers to see and do when visiting Canada. Canada has a host of beautiful national parks, trendy cities such as Montreal, Quebec, Toronto, Ontario, and Vancouver, British Columbia. There is also a lot to do all year long such as skiing, boating, golfing, hiking, camping, and much more.
Los Angeles, California: Known as the Golden State, California is a great state for students to visit. Los Angeles is an exciting city and filled with diverse cultural attractions as well as entertainment activities. There are beautiful beaches such as Venice, Zuma, Manhattan, and Redondo, as well as theme parks, museums, galleries, and theatres.
Barcelona, Spain: Students love to travel to Spain. The rich culture and attractions such as the beach, architecture, opera houses, parks, live music, and festivals, makes Barcelona, Spain a traveler’s paradise. Barcelona is a great place to study and practice speaking Spanish.
Paris, France: Paris is a traveler’s dream destination. It is a great place to study and practice speaking French as well as visit trendy restaurants, historic districts, and famous attractions such as the Eiffel Tower. You can also watch a film in Parc de la Villette, visit Pre Lachaise Cemetery and view the graves of Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison, and Oscar Wilde, and relax on Paris Plages.
Cambodia: Cambodia is not only a great place to visit, but a great place to volunteer in such areas as child care, teaching, and marine conservation. Popular historical attractions include: The Angkor Wat temple, monuments to those killed by the Khmer Rouge, and the capital, Phnom Penh.
Australia: There is a lot for student travelers to see and do in Australia. There are beautiful beaches, great surfing, the amazing ‘Outback,’ wineries, and the Great Barrier Reef. Students can volunteer or work with a number of conservation programs.
India: India is an amazing country with vast beauty and wonderful cultural attractions. The beautiful Himalayas, spectacular beaches, and the beautiful Indian culture that is home to over one billion people, makes India a great place to visit. India is great place to teach and help the street children in the poorer regions.
Argentina: In Argentina, there are variety of amazing natural environmental attractions for students to visit such as, Iber wetlands, Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, and Igua Falls. For students interested in wildlife conservation, Argentina has many places where students can volunteer.
Chile: For students looking to volunteer, Chile is need of volunteers to help in the areas affected by the earthquake and there is also teaching positions available as well as volunteering helping the homeless.
For students, there are many great places to visit all over the world, whether it is for a fun vacation, study, work, or volunteer. When students travel, it is important not only have fun, but also be safe.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Comfortable Stay And Camping Tent, Another Life
Magpark – It is natural that one learns to live with what is around. We get used to the life around. We also carry on relating to the activities that goes on around us. Our surroundings have been transformed over the years with the application of science and technology, and the notions of progress and development. Along with imagination, life has rapidly transformed. At the same time, we have also modified the environment, often devastating what nature provided. In the pursuit of growth, life in the cities have sprung up and grown haphazardly. Life in the cities has become fast paced. We have very little time to pause and reflect.
But then we do realize too that there is indeed a disconnect with nature. Not satisfied, we need and seek a deeper experience. We search for a more direct experience. What better way is there than to use your leisure for this. There are many ways one can spend one’s leisure. Nature trails, adventure tour, mountaineering, riding the rapids, canoeing, bicycling motorcycling, visit to camp sites and many more are the ways that we can chose from. Those fleeting moments when we make that connection are those rare moments of life, unforgettable and invaluable.
Inevitably when one prepares to make that trip one has been waiting for so long, camping tent comes to mind. Not just so that we can feel secure, but also to be at home in the wild. Camping tents comes in different sizes and shapes. An ultra light weight camping tent that can accommodate three persons is the north face spectrum 33 tent.
The camping tent secures its occupants from rain and the cold winds. It also offers reasonable protection from the insects and reptiles around. But in order to make your experience worthy, there are a number of other camping equipments that you would like to have with you. This includes such useful items as knife, flashlight, stove, first aid kit, utensils, insect repellants, clothing, maps and compass. You may also need light furniture. Camping equipment dealers offer these specially made items which are both handy and light so that these can be transported.
Camping is done in the wilderness or in another location. Bringing along the things that you need can really help feel comfortable while you’re outside of your home.
Popularity: 8% [?]
Roller Girls Revive A Moribund Sport
Roller Derby was a staple of the early television era and was similar in its promotional format to its better known “sports entertainment” cousin, professional wrestling. It was frequently seen in the same bad timeslots on the same low powered UHF TV stations, and it was run by the same loose confederation of Runyanesque promoters and businessmen that characterized the regional territory era of pro wrestling. Unfortunately, roller derby didn’t catch on the way professional wrestling did. There was obviously a serious athletic component to it, but the “angles” and storylines surrounding roller derby made pro wrestling seem like Ibsen by comparison. The sport does have its own history–most know that the LA T-Birds were the perennial champions of’70’s, and Ann Calvello and Ralphie Valladares had been in the sport forever and were considered legends–but it never really stuck in the public consciousness like the pre-Hulk Hogan era of pro wrestling.
When the original purveyors of the sport quit promoting in the early’80s most thought it was dead and gone until a ‘new school’ of roller derby surfaced on cable TV via the A&E reality series Roller Girls. It featured a local, all-girl roller derby league in Austin, Texas and followed the lives of the players on and off the track. While much of the show dwelled in Lifetime style drama about binge drinking and bad relationships, it was the first clue that many had that roller derby had risen from the dead. A sport that had faded into the lowest level of obscurity had been rediscovered and embraced by an eclectic group of young women. They had kept the same essential format, thrown in a healthy dose of burlesque camp and Varga pin-up inspired glamour and made it into their own vibrant subculture. They changed the competitive format and renamed the competitions “bouts” a la MMA or boxing. The result was a compelling mixture of glamour, toughness and athleticism driven by a healthy dose of punk rock “do it yourself” mentality.
Today, the same sort of league featured on “Rollergirls” had become a full blown cultural phenomenon. There are now literally hundreds of local “roller girl” leagues in the US, many under the auspices of a national organization called the Womens Flat Track Derby Association. Las Vegas has the ‘Sin City Roller Girls’, Portland, Oregon the ‘Rose City Rollers” and Seattle the ‘Rat City Rollers’. There are now groups in not only the larger and traditionally “hipper” cities but also smaller flyover country environs such as Birmingham, Alabama and Omaha, Nebraska and all over Canada, Europe and Australia. Most of the local groups similarly play up the campy retro pin-up/hot rod iconography and everyone involved sure looks like they’re having a good time. Between teams there’s a vibe of good natured competitiveness and camaraderie.
The young women in roller derby have taken what was cast off TV time filler and revived it into their own distaff ‘action sport’. The community that has sprung up around it bears a striking resemblance to the skateboarding or snowboarding subculture. There’s one big difference–in contrast to more male dominated action sports the roller derby circa 2009 is just the opposite–a living, breathing matriarchal success story.
The new generation rollergirls also pay homage to their sports’ pioneers much in the same way that skateboarders give props to Duane Peters and Tony Alva. Many of the individual group websites have sections devoted to the history of roller derby, and the late Ann Calvello–regarded as the Queen of the original Roller Derby–is revered as something of a patron saint. The Texas Rollergirl group featured in the A&E series has renamed their championship the Calvello Cup.
Ross Everett is a freelance sports writer and highly respected authority on sports betting odds comparison. He writing has appeared on a variety of sports sites including sports news and sportsbook directory sites. He lives in Southern Nevada with three Jack Russell Terriers and a kangaroo. He is currently working on an autobiography of former interior secretary James Watt.
Popularity: 38% [?]
Great Lakes And Global Warming: A Recipe For Regional Reshaping
Climate change is a hot button issue, but even without playing a blame game, there is weight to the data that has been collected. The Earth will warm as it has in the past, but the repercussions will be far reaching. Within North America, the Great Lakes and global warming will interact in a way that could change the region vastly.
This area is already dealing with the deleterious affects of invasive species, and something like climate change will only act like fuel to a fire. Twenty percent of the world’s fresh water comes from the Great Lakes, it is a major source of this finite resource and any depletion will have massive and widespread repercussions.
Spending time talking about how important the Great Lakes are cannot be cast aside. Drinking water, as important and essential it is, is not the only thing the lakes provide. The region gives a huge amount of hydroelectric power to surrounding areas and is a main waterway for shipping routes. In terms of nature, it is a hub for a number of plant and animal species.
All of the benefits come hand in hand with issues that result from extended urban development. These issues include pollution, air and water, as well as the invasion of a habitat by building. Because of the growth of the last century the great lakes are in a position to be easily affected by global warming. The smallest shift in temperature can have widespread repercussions.
Increasing temperature will melt the ice cover that, at this point, is already quite thin along the lakes. No cover will increase the overall evaporation of the lakes and decrease overall water levels.
As recently as last year, the lake level of Lake Superior was at its lowest in seventy seven years and predictions for the future are estimating another three foot decrease. The effects of low water levels include restrictions to shipping and a concentration of pollutants which will damage the water quality greatly, as well as the industry for travel, leisure, and cruises.
Efforts are underway to restore the Great Lakes with billions of dollars needed to update the antique sewage systems as well as cleaning up the polluted sediment that already exists. Building up the wetland environments at the edges of the lakes will create a natural water cleanser and impediment to invasive species.
There are more repercussions from climate change other than decreasing water levels and that includes an increase in the number and ferocity of storms and drought periods. In response to these weather extremes viral transmissions can increase and pollution runoff may be increased. Within the lakes there may be more dead zones, places where there is no oxygen because of algae overgrowth.
The predicted future statistics are not encouraging. The temperature itself will be increased two to four degree centigrade with lake levels falling anywhere from 1.5 to 8 feet! Weather wise, the increase in storms may be 25%.
Making a better tomorrow really does mean being better today. Allowing for proactive measure while being realistic about future effects can mean that humans can restore luster to the Great Lakes region.
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