Personally, I’ve always enjoyed seeing pictures of these places instead of getting out there and experiencing them. And I think the reason for that is because I generally have never had the proper equipment to actually get out there and enjoy the experience. When I see my friend come back from her trips she has bags of hiking equipment and different gear that she uses to make her time in the wilderness not just enjoyable, but safe and productive, too. Even her camera is a top of the line item!

And while anyone can just go to a random store to buy outdoors equipment the truth is that you really need to get high quality gear in order to make your excursion worthwhile. The savvy shopper will find a high quality store like The Clymb and see what they have on sale in their camping tents department. The next step would then be to find the items that work best for the experience that you’re attempting to create. For a guy like me, I’d be focused on my feet. I find that if my feet are getting battered and bruised out there, then I just can’t enjoy myself. I’m sure that many of you are the same way.

I wouldn’t be opposed to even getting a higher performance pair of shoes to spend some time out in the wilderness. So I’m sure it’s no surprise that my first purchase will be from The Clymb’s trail running shoe section! It’s really all about quality for me – particularly when purchasing equipment that is going to have to stand up to the elements.

Since I’m not teaching during the coming semester and since I will have a little bit more free time, I fully expect that I’ll schedule more time to enjoy the wilderness. And with some high quality gear backing me up, I’m sure that my experiences will be just as exciting as my friend and her husband’s experiences!

Anyway, the woman two treadmills down from me was the epitome of a clod hopper! Every step she took on the machine you would have thought that she was going to go through the floor. I’ll never understand why some people don’t pick up their feet when they get on the treadmills, but you know what? This woman was going at a pretty good pace and she was burning calories like it was her job. Impressive…

But still funny!

The other funny observation that I had at the gym today was the guy on the treadmill next to me. For those of you that go on these treadmills you know that you can increase the incline on the machine to simulate the going up hill effect. It’s actually a great way to burn more calories over the course of a week. Anyway, this guy get on the treadmill next to me and sets the incline at such a ridiculous level that he’s practically falling off of the machine! It was pretty funny – he couldn’t even swing his arms as he was walking because he had to hold on to the top of the machine to stay on it.

Clod hoppers and mountain climbers…hilarious!