My Annual "camp more this year" lecture ;-) - Time, Life and Money

There is a very special camping spot with a lot of petroglyphs nearby. Sometimes I set there among them just trying to imagine what might have been swirling around in the heads of those who created them. I must confess to some degree of envy toward the seemingly simpler lifestyle our ancestors must have enjoyed. No mortgage, no credit card payments due, no rising gas price straining the budget.....etc.

 

Looking at petroglyphs is the daytime version of gazing at the stars. ( That would make them earthly constellations, so to speak. )

There is a good book called "How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life" by Alan Lakin. Perhaps the most important point within it is that time and life are effectively the same thing. With time we do all other things including making money. While it might be true that time and money are the same thing in a business sense, may I suggest that it is not true in a personal sense because once all your time is gone, all the money in the world doesn't do you any good. We really spend our lives on a money vs time 'titer tauter' so to speak. In effect we work more, in an effort to make more money. Ironically, we think the more money we make, the more time we will have to do the things we really want to do. In other words, spend more time making more money so we can have more time??? What's wrong with this picture??? Perhaps the big mistake is orienting our lives around our work. After all time is our most valuable possession as it is life itself. Additionally, good health is the thing that gives you the ability to enjoy your time. ( People in pain and the sickly can't enjoy their time. ) Thus he who has both time and health is truly among the 'richest' of people. Let me suggest, that this year you try making your life's schedule around your recreation instead of your work. How does one do this you ask? Planning.

Our camping planner/calendar will aid a great deal toward that end. Be sure to download our 2010 version if you haven't already done so. ( I hope you find the included cookbook useful too.)

Alternately, you can make your own calendar using your own pictures at this Calendar Projects wiki web site. They have many different options for making your own. Then after you have a calendar, the drill becomes planning out those camping trips you have always wanted to do. Plan your recreation time carefully for it is the true gold of your life. You might what to do a little research at this point. You know, Goggle a few camping spot possibilities and such. One great way to research an area is to subscribe to local or state publications from the given area. For example, anyone planning a trip through Arizona might find a $21.00 subscription to Arizona Highways Magazine to be the best camping investment they ever made. After all that magazine uses professional photographers and writers to illustrate and describe the choices locations in the state. Once you have your camping trips worked out, now comes the hard part - you have to stick to your guns and make them happen. Now if all this has a 'deja vu' feel to it, it's because we really have been here before. Remember how we started last year? This year try planning your life around the things you want to do not the things you have to do. Guard your recreation time as though it is your most valuable possession - it is! Time is life and money is only the middle man. Have you been paying him a little too much?

Let's make this a great camping year. Go Camping!

Ken

Running Away

Have you ever felt like just running away from it all? Of course you have, that's what us tent campers do, hopefully with great regularity. We do, however, take our families, dogs and friends with us so we are actually running away 'with it all' not 'from it all'. And, my friends, this is the year we are really going to do that! Heck most of us are either out of work or headed that way anyway, so we might as well configure our lives for living in the woods. ;-)

As you may have heard me say before, tent camping has just got to be one of the cheapest forms of family entertainment you can find. Once you are outfitted, the only real additional expenses to your normal life style are vehicle and stove fuels plus a few minimal supplies like lantern mantels, batteries and such. If you stay close to home that shouldn't be a lot.

So to that 'go camping' end, have I got some cool stuff for you! I have finally got around to organizing my camping tips free pack page on our web site. Essentially, what you get is some of the standard web site content, supplemented with additional information and put in a PDF format so it's easy to print it out and thus take with you. And once you have it on paper, you can write on it. You know, cross off things you don't like in those camping recipes, for example, write in things you do, add your own, and make little side notes to augment those ever capricious memory cells in the brain.

And the big news is, the brand new, never seen before, just off the press, answer to all your prayers, "Go Camping!" organizer/calendar!!! ( It's in that camping tips free pack.) Well ok, I guess it's not that big of a deal but it's kinda cool and I'm telling you it's going to help motivate you and yours to get off that proverbial posterior and do it. This Year!

So get your 'go camping' plan together and escape to that sacred hideaway you love so much! Take pictures, tell us about your trip like Steve and his family did. ( I tried to talk him into taking me with them next time - so far he's ignoring me, though.)

Go Camping!

Ken