Hey, Summer Campers!

Millions of kids have been attending summer camps for a very long time. Nowadays, it seems like everywhere you turn, there’s SOMEbody who went to camp when they were a kid—even celebrities—wait no, ESPECIALLY celebrities! Did you know that Hollywood legend Chevy Chase was a summer camper just like yourself when he was closer to your age?

Yep! Clark Griswold himself (Chevy’s serial character from the National Lampoon movies) was once a summer camper at Camp Tamakwa. There, in the beautiful environment of Algonquin Park in Canada, Chevy had a blast doing fun activities, making friends, and getting know himself.

Speaking of learning more about Chevy, first things first, his real name isn’t Chevy. It’s Cornelius. Cornelius Crane Chase. Nicknamed by his grandmother, the name Chevy comes from a folk song from the 14th Century called ‘The Ballad of Chevy Chase’.

Despite how well-off Chevy’s family was, Chevy still understood a solid work ethic as he put in the effort to support himself while pursuing a career in writing. He gained a lot of experience to put on his resumé by waiting tables, selling wine, managing a supermarket department, driving a cab and a truck, and working in construction.

He caught his first big break around 1975 when he landed a writing gig on NBC’s hit show, ‘Saturday Night Live.’ Originally hired on as a writer, it was during the show’s auditions that Chevy’s talents as a performer were just as valuable as his writing skills. SNL’s premiere sketch featured Chevy Chase who was then the first person to shout out, “Live from New York! It’s Saturday Night!”

Whether on an old SNL sketch, through the invention of Clark Griswold, or his latest character, Pierce Hawthorne, from the show ‘Community,’ over the years, Chevy has made us all laugh (sometimes until we cry). Summer camp did Chevy good. What will it do for you? As always, thanks for reading.

- John

Hey, Camp Fans!

On behalf of Everything Summer Camp for Valentine’s Day, I expressed our love for our customers. And since we love our customers so much, I told you to stay tuned in the next following weeks to hear some of our great new enhancements we’re making to our customer service.

Here’s the second enhancement: Our…

Summer camp, while worth every penny, can get expensive. Here at Everything Summer Camp we respect and salute the smart shoppers of the world, the coupon clippers, and penny pinchers. With lots of retailers and outfitters marking up their prices exorbitantly, it takes a lot of effort in this day and age to save a buck.

We like to keep our prices at Everything Summer Camp reasonable. However, while we like to keep our prices fair, we don’t put anything past our smart shoppers. You may very well be able to find particular camping gear for a cheaper price. But when that happens, you can still shop Everything Summer Camp AND pay that lower price that you found elsewhere!

It’s our Price Match Guarantee. Simply said, we will not be beaten. Find a lower price somewhere else? Tell us and we’ll match it! That’s right, any identical product (which means the same size, color, style, and season) you find on an authorized retailer’s website—we’ll match the price, assuming that the product is in stock and available to purchase on our website as well as the website whose prices we’ll be matching.

Our Price Match Guarantee is just one more reason to make Everything Summer Camp your one-stop shop for all your summer camp shopping. Check out our ‘Price Match Guarantee’ page for further guidelines and easy step-by-step instructions of how to submit a Price Match request.

Happy shopping and, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Camp Fans!

Ever wonder about the history of your camping gear, when it was invented, and why? We do here at Everything Summer Camp. That’s why this Blog takes a day here and there to investigate the origins of specific gear and other camp supplies. Today: binoculars.

In order to discuss the history of binoculars, however, we first need to take a good look at telescopes. Binoculars, after all, are only mini-telescopes that have been aligned and mounted together. Using lenses that people grind in particular ways, telescopes allow you to magnify your vision of faraway objects to make them appear close-up.

Glass-making and lens-grinding was already a booming industry by the late 1500s. Interestingly, the first guy to discover what two lenses can do when pointed at each other was likely just some eye-glass maker, Joe Schmoe who just happened to be fiddling around at work one day.

It was another eye-glass maker, a man named Hans Lippershey, who actually took this intriguing discovery and used it to invent the telescope.  And, while Hans’ telescope was immediately praised by the masses, within a few years, people wanted something you could use with both eyes. It wasn’t long before Hans went to work tweaking the telescope, shrinking it, and mounting a pair of them together.

The binoculars were born (as well as its precursor, the telescope) all within a few years of the year 1610. ‘Spyglasses,’ as they came to be called, were a huge hit that often found themselves in high demand but low on supply because of how much more intricate the work was to build a pair of them as opposed to the involvement of building a single telescope.

Despite the intensive labor involved, binoculars did not deliver a crystal clear image. Because of their small scale, it was difficult for manufacturers to grind the lenses with accurate precision. Even so, people loved using them for birdwatching, going to the opera, and simple enjoyment. Everyone thought they were good enough back then.

Named after the great astronomer, these binoculars are called Galilean Binoculars. We’ve been improving on binocular construction since the 1800’s creating the Prism, Porro Prism, and—the latest—Prismatic Binoculars. Binoculars are still frequently used today for stargazing, police work, and even advanced military missions.

Get your own pair of binoculars today, and thanks for reading.

- John

Hey, Boys and Girls!

Do you know what today is? Yes, it’s February 19—but what else? Well, it happens to be the Chinese New Year. What?! Yes! It’s true. But how can China ring in the New Year today? you might be asking yourself—it isn’t January 1! Well, it may be a little hard to believe, but the New Year hasn’t always been celebrated on this date.  

But how can the new year change days? Well, it isn’t that the new year changed days so much as it is, people started using different calendars (or making up their own if need be). The ancient Babylonians celebrated their New Year’s Day late in March around the vernal equinox.

The first Roman calendar had only 10 months and it contained just over 300 days. Then, in the year 46 B.C., Julius Caesar first presented his Julian calendar (which closely resembles the Gregorian calendar—the one that we know and love here in the U.S.), but had to add 90 extra days just to make it all work!

The Chinese New Year is observed throughout the second new moon after the winter solstice, which is why it is also referred to as the ‘Lunar New Year’ in most Asian countries. The Chinese New Year celebration starts on the first day of the first month and goes until the moon is brightest (approximately 15 days).

Since China adopted the Western calendar in 1912, the Chinese do join in on celebrating New Year’s Day on January 1, but they also continue to recognize a shorter version of the Chinese New Year that they now call the Spring Festival.

One of the most popular traditions of the Chinese New Year is the celebration of the Dragon Dance in which performers hold a craft-dragon by poles to raise and lower it. In Chinese legend, dragons are always considered helpful, friendly creatures. They are linked to good luck, long life, and wisdom. They also perform the equally popular lion dance as seen in the video below.

Happy New Year and thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Camp Fans!

Gather ‘round! Last week, on behalf of Everything Summer Camp for Valentine’s Day, I expressed our love for our customers. And since we love our customers so much, I told you to stay tuned in the next following weeks to hear some of our great new enhancements we’re making to our customer service.

Here’s the first enhancement.

We’re updating the Everything Summer Camp return policy. We like to think that we’ve always had a fairly fair return policy—after all, we understand that sometimes, when you’re shopping for camp in advance, you don’t always realize that you need to return something until a month or two after the fact—but we have news that makes it even better!

Our return policy will remain just as flexible to customers as it always has. In fact, we aren’t changing our policy at all. We’re just making it easier. See, in the past our return policy has been hassle-free as far as what the requirements are for returning a product; people DID, however, need to call us in order to go through the returning process.

Now you can do it all online.

We call it our No Sweat Returns for two reasons. First, we don’t want you to sweat being able to return something and, secondly, because it’s so incredibly easy to do. You don’t even have to call us!—not that we don’t want to talk to you! You can certainly still call us if you prefer, we love hearing from our customers; we just feel that it shouldn’t be your only option.

Now you can call if you want, live chat, email, or simply click here.

To our knowledge, we are the first summer camp outfitter to do online returns, which gives us the most flexible return policy of any summer camp outfitter! Isn’t the camp life great? As always, thanks for reading!

- John