Jennifer Fountain

by Kristin Kizer – Where East meets West and modern meets ancient lies Istanbul, Turkey. A city with a rich history evidenced by the monuments that remain set against glorious backdrops that feel like painted masterpieces

Typically found in heavily wooded locations, trail blazes are marked onto trees at eye-level to give key information. The US Forest Service marks a standardized blaze that looks like a lower case Whether you are exploring the English Moors or the wilds of Acadia Park in Maine, if the weather turns ugly, cairns will become your best friends! Naturally, a GPS system and a map remain your best tools – but by recognizing blazes, cairns and ducks, you might just get the clues you need to avoid a tricky situation.

In addition to a large backpack that holds all supplies, its contents includes: Instead of doing all the research (spending a lot more time and money) to figure out exactly what goes into an emergency supply bag, Sustain Supply Co. In addition to adding your family’s personal items (documents, medications, etc), you’ll want to add AA and AAA batteries for the lanterns and flashlights. While we are overwhelmingly impressed with the Comfort 4 Supply Bag and its contents, we do have two small suggestions for improvement and usability: * Guide or Map with photos and corresponding captions of bag contents. Even if we could print from the Sustain Supply Co.’s website, it would be helpful to have some sort of infographic, especially if other family members (less familiar with the bag) were to use the kit.

We need to replace the concrete jungle with a green one and let nature do its job; that way we can restore healthy soil, conserve water and harvest the rain. My daughter and I dug our hands and tools into the earth, taking care to follow each step we learned earlier in the morning to give the tree the best chance of living a long, healthy life. We were proud to know we helped people to breathe a little easier, that we made our local mountains greener and stronger, that we gave places for native animals and plants to live, and that we helped to build and clean our waterways between the Santa Monica Mountains and the ocean. It felt good taking care of our Mother Earth, just as I take care of my daughter and my mother took care of me.