Stay Wild! T. Tiger Models My New Boot

I am a backpacker, and backpackers need good, sturdy boots to walk miles and miles while hauling all kinds of goodies on our backs. I currently have one backpacking boot tough enough to handle our typical jaunts into the back country, and it's got a lot of wear on it. I have been looking for a back-up boot, and the road has been twisty and long.

Last fall, I fell for a scam. Yes, it happened to me. I was on Facebook, scrolling, scrolling (as one does), and I came upon an ad for L.L. Bean Outlets. They featured boots at an extraordinary discount. And yes, I remembered shopping at L.L. Bean outlet stores on our trips to the beach in years past. So I immediately trusted the vendor.

I went ahead and ordered boots for my husband and boots for myself. It was an insanely good deal. We were so excited! Gotta hurry, gotta hurry, they were selling out! Only after clicking "submit order" did I look up customer reviews of the vendor, and I discovered instantly that it was a scam. They were people famous for taking orders, taking credit card info, and sending NO goods.

So I had to dispute the charge with my credit card company, and I got my money back in short order. But the whole experience left me feeling stupid, sad, and wary. If one can't trust L.L. Bean, who can one trust? But no, they were NOT a legit L.L. Bean vendor. Just another pretender.

Last week, my husband rediscovered a vendor that he and his friends used to order boots from years ago, only online now. We sorted through the boots and he recommended one for me: a Garmont women's U.S. size 8 Santiago, with Gore-Tex and Vibram, which you may see in the photo above, being modeled by my trusty assistant, T. Tiger. It was on sale at considerable discount.

After my prior experience, you can only imagine my great relief when an actual BOOT arrived in the mail on this day! The boot is very stiff and very lightweight. It's probably also very high-tech, though I haven't read the little tags that came with it yet. My existing backpack boot is a Vasque alpha Gore-Tex boot that weighs about 50% more! (One pound on the foot is like five or more pounds on the back, says my husband.)

The paper that was wrapped around the new boots in their box had the hashtag #StayWild. So we decided to include that in our Blip, and our Tiger friend there is also pretty wild indeed. Let's hope this boot turns out to be a great backwoods companion!

My soundtrack tune is this one: John Hiatt, with Something Wild. For the record, it's the only rock song I know of to feature the word "corpuscle" in it.