7.15.2013

Hot Trend: Slacklines – Grab A Slackline for your next BBQ or Camping Trip and Test your Outdoorsy Tightrope Skills… BE a Slacker.


Kids on our Slackline avec un stick to help!
(Hula hoop optional)
Oh, yes! During REI’s recent sale, we stocked up on some essentials: new pancake griddle for the camping stove. Extendo-hot-dog-and-marshmallow-toasters. And, inevitably, with our shopping adrenaline on HIGH due to the big SALE SALE words all over the place, we grabbed a few impulse-buy, non-essentials like we’ve all done at the supermarket check-out line -- the tic-tacs, the US Weeklys, the bag o’ naughty Cheetos.

Which is how we ended up buying a Slack Line.

A what what? You may ask.

A slackline. You know. The flat, ropey, trendy tightrope that attaches from one tree to another that you see Duuuuuuudes, like, jumping up onto and, whoa dude, barefooting their way across…. Sorta like that guy who just recently walked across the Grand Canyon on a tightrope. ‘Cept he had a long pole to hold onto the whole time…. Cheater!!!

Yeah, sorta like that guy who walked thousands and billions of feet above the massive Grand Canyon for a 1/4 mile on a windy day this past June, except this slackline - or “cool version of a tightrope for the 2013s” - is suspended a massive 12 inches above the soft, cushiony ground in our case. Whoa, nelly!

Ah, but don’t mock it Outdoorsy Peeps, until you’ve tried it.

Well, that is, if you can %$^*% figure out the heiroglyphic directions that are included. Took us a fight-starter, walk-off-in-a-huff-while the first time we set it up.

But once we got it, our fam was on our way to slackline, tightrope thrills and mastery! 

Well, not. 

Though we are pretty proud of our “cores” - our muscle groups that help keep us walking up-right and distinguish us from other mammals - the mostly pathetic scene of the fam attempting to make it not across the entire length of the slackline - no, across was too much to ask - we had to dumb down our expectations to: who can take just a few fleepin’ steps on it without careening off to the left or right into the pine needles below.

Humbling. Humiliating. And somewhat hilarious.

So if you want to entertain your campground or BBQ crowd, grab a slackline, a bucket of patience, and work on that core. No gymnasts or sticks allowed!

Namaste & Three Cheers –OM

For more info:
Slacklines - Prices seem to range from @ $50-$90s -- we bought a Gibbon

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