Paddling Canyonlands

by Erik Olsen on

Tom Bol reminded me a bit of myself as I read his piece on paddling
Canyonlands. He used to live out of the back of his truck, guided kayakers from Alaska to Baja and lived the
vagabond’s lifestyle. Then, he got hitched, a house and had kids. I’m not quite that settled down yet, but I
sympathized nonetheless with the feelings that the old life was great, and that there might be a way to give the new
life some of that old life shimmer.

Bol decides to take the kids paddling in Canyonlands, Utah, one of our finest,
most beautiful Natinal Parks. The kids take to the surroundings immediately. The first thing they want to do when they
get beneath the gaping sky is scream. Peals of joy. And having been there myself, on an open river, feeling completely
away from everything, I know how they feel.

Tasman Trek

by Erik Olsen on

The format for this site is a bit odd, but the writing and the stories themselves (what they post online, anyway)
are quite good. The magazine is called Geographical, and it is the
official magazine of the Royal Geographical Society, sort of the British version of Nat Geo here (and, my guess, it’s
precursor).

Anyway, I am posting about this article on taking a trek in
Tasmania, which I thought was excellent. Tasmania, as you may know, is formerly Van Dieman’s Land, part of the penal
colony that became Australia (and also a song by U2…probably the easiest U2 song to sing, because Bono doesn’t sing
it). The island lies off the coast of Australia and is known for being a fairly great place for adventurers to travel
because almost 1/4 of it is set off as national park land.

Great God Pan

by Erik Olsen on

Fans of California might be interested in this
blog and site dedicated to California. It’s not updated very often, but some
of the stories are very unique, and cover people and places that most Californians probably don’t know. For example,
check out this article on the gems to be mined from some
old guidebooks, or this one on Frederick Turner and
the closing of the American frontier. The writers have some real chops. One of them,
Mark Sundeen, has done a lot of work recently with the Times and Nat Geo, so
these guys know what they’re doing.  As I say, they need to do more updating, flesh this baby out. I’d like to see
more more more, so I hope they don’t give up on it.

Portable Hot Joe…and More?

by Erik Olsen on


What will they think of next?

Wolfgang Puck is marketing a new

self-heating can of coffee that could change the way we look at our daily cup of Joe. Rather than spend a few
minutes making coffee in a traditional coffee-maker, the can has a self-heating technology embedded inside that heats
the coffee to a pleasant 145 degrees in six to eight minutes, easily the time it takes to dump coffee into a filter,
add water and wait as the magic morning elixir is made.

The technology was developed by a California company named OnTech, and took seven
years and $24 million to create. It works when water flows into a sealed inner cone filled with quicklime, and a
chemical reaction heats the coffee.

For coffee-mad campers, this could be a great solution. Of course, you’d have to deal with carrying out the empties,
so maybe this is more of a car-camping thing, but I can see lots of uses for this technology including portable stews,
soups and, meals. And why stop there? What about for showers and hot tubs as well?