big agnes is not only fun to say aloud...

I go camping quite regularly. Although we do car camp, often we ride our bikes, so we like to have lightweight gear that fits comfortably on our bike racks. A few years ago, I became smitten with the Big Agnes sleeping pad. It's much more comfortable than the more common Therm-a-rest and after trying it out in store, I bought it. It was the best camping related purchase I ever made. Until now.

Most light-weight sleeping bags are mummy-style, which means they begin to taper at the hips and I hate them. I had a fairly new North Face mummy bag that I had used on a few trips and I've always complained about it. I felt trapped and enclosed and this last trip, we spent a really cold night camping so I had to have my bag zipped up all the way to conserve heat. This resulted in a minor claustrophobic attack and I decided that the next time we passed through a town with an REI, I would purchase a new bag.

I walked out with a LuLu made by Big Agnes. Not only is it pretty (brown and baby blue), it's got a ton of room and is actually made to be used with the same sleeping pad that I own! The sleeping pad slips into a sleeve at the back of the bag and works as 1 unit. This also means that you never have to slip off your sleeping pad! Ingenious. The back isn't insulated (because the pad is) which saves a bit of space so that it is relatively light weight as far as synthetic (not down) bags go. I love it.

My old bag didn't go to waste. Cornelius took it over as he was through with his ratty old thin bag that he had used to take across Canada on a bike trip years ago. His bag was no longer warm so we both ended up with new bags. Unfortunately, I purchased the bag on our last day of our trip, so I was unable to try it out camping. But we did take the bag with us to the drive-in movies on the weekend, so I fought off the cold night air watching a movie, wrapped up in the bag lying in the box of the pick-up truck. It was perfect. I could wiggle and kick all I wanted to and there wasn't an attack of claustrophobia at all. Hooray!