There are very few accessories you can invest in that help you protect your plans involving the great outdoors more than a canopy tent. Whether you use it when you go on holiday and want to extend the available floor space you have in your RV or take it with you to the beach or another place for the day and then the bad weather sets in, you can use a canopy tent to avoid having to pack up and head home or head inside your RV.
There are a variety of canopy tents out there, though, and the choice may seem a little overwhelming. To help you, therefore, we have put together this buying guide.
4 Things to Consider When Buying a Canopy Tent Frame
Choice of Canopy Types and Variations
Before you even start looking canopy reviews with the intent of buying, you need to think first about the type of canopy tent that would be best for your applications and needs. You can do this by thinking about the different uses you will get out of it and finding the model that best matches up with those uses.
Portability
One consideration you need to make following on from the above is whether you should get a portable model or not. There are many situations, for instance, in which you won’t want to spend too much time messing around with transportation and the erection of a canopy. For those situations, a portable option is very desirable. They are also much easier to put up, even if you do not have someone to help you.
Heavy Duty and Robust
Although for most of the time you will probably prefer to invest in a canopy tent frame that is lightweight and easy to manage, there will be other times when having something more substantial and robust at your disposal is necessary. What if, for instance, while you are out in the great outdoors on an RV holiday and sitting under the canopy when their strong winds forecast. If your canopy is not particularly robust, your shelter would be at risk of being damaged or even blown completely away.
Therefore, when choosing the best canopy tent, you need to think about the weather conditions of the places you will be using it and whether it will be beneficial to buy a tougher model.
Another reason why you should consider a heavy-duty is if you intend to use your canopy over a long period, rather than just setting it up for a day or even just an afternoon. For it to last through the constant use, the canopy tent you choose needs to be very sturdy and resistant to wear and tear.
Cost
We would never suggest that you use cost as the driving focus of your buying decision. That being said, we all have a budget, and it would be ridiculous to not take that budget into consideration at all. Besides, at either end of the canopy price range, you will find that the two extremes of the cheapest and the most expensive don’t always mean you are going to get a good value product.
For example, take the cheapest canopy tent you can buy. It may seem like you are going to save a decent amount of money on it and that is enough to make anyone happy, especially when times are tough as they are now for lots of us. However, does the quality and standard of build really hold up given its price tag? Products aren’t given an ultra-cheap price tag for nothing.
Likewise, the most expensive may not present good value for money either. Imagine spending a lot of money on a canopy you hardly use.
The post Canopy Tent Frame Buying Guide appeared first on Travel Experta – Family Travel Blog.
People have always liked to drink on board flights, especially people from Australia. Therefore, it should be no surprise to anyone that there was an inflight bar offering in the 1970s.
Ansett Airlines were a major player in the Australian domestic market up until their demise in September 2001. For many years, there were two domestic airlines, Trans-Australia Airlines (TAA) and Ansett.
Ansett’s Inflight Bar
At the time, Ansett operated Boeing 727s, Douglas DC-9s and Fokker F27 Friendships on domestic routes in the country. Airline tickets were quite expensive, with tariffs agreed upon by both airlines thanks to Australia’s weird two-airline policy at the time.
While tickets were expensive and food complimentary, you still had to pay for a drink at the bar. Here is an inflight bar menu from the era, showing the drinks available and their prices.
Clearly the pricing is astounding by today’s standards – 30 cents for a beer? I’ll have thirty-three please! I like how Australian gin is 35c while the imported gin is just 5c more. Which would you choose?
You can tell it is from another era as you can buy cigarettes on board. These price up at 45c, a far cry from the extortionate prices people in the west pay these days for a smoke!
Overall Thoughts
The on board offering is pretty comprehensive for internal flights, and I imagine you’d be hard pressed not to find something you might like. In those times, all payments would have been by cash as well, which would have meant a lot of coinage being handled on board.
Of course, things haven’t changed too much over the years. On many airlines you pay for your drinks just as they did back in the 1970s. Shame the prices aren’t the same of course!
Did you ever buy drinks on board flights from the inflight bar back in the day? Do you still? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by Daniel Tanner on Airliners.net via Wikimedia Commons.
Menu image by Ikara on Australian Frequent Flyer.
By: The Flight Detective Title: What could you order from Ansett Airlines’ inflight bar in the early 1970s? Sourced From: travelupdate.com/ansett-airlines-inflight-bar-menu/ Published Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2020 15:03:14 +0000
The shrimp stop swimming at dusk and gather near the river’s edge. After sunset, they begin to climb out of the water. Then they march. All night long, the inch-long crustaceans parade along the rocks.
The parading shrimp of northeastern Thailand have inspired legends, dances and even a statue. (Locals also eat them.) During the rainy season, between late August and early October, tourists crowd the riverbanks with flashlights to watch the shrimp walk.
Watcharapong Hongjamrassilp first learned about the parading shrimp, and the hundred thousand or more tourists who come each year to see them, about 20 years ago. When he started studying biology, he returned to the topic. “I realized that we know nothing about this,” he said: What species are they? Why and how do they leave the safety of the water to walk upstream on dry land? Where are they going?
Mr. Hongjamrassilp, a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, decided to answer those questions himself. His findings appeared this month in the Journal of Zoology.
Working with wildlife center staff members, Mr. Hongjamrassilp staked out nine sites along a river in Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani province. They found shrimp parading at two of the sites — a stretch of rapids, and a low dam.
The videos they recorded revealed that the shrimp paraded from sundown to sunup. They traveled up to 65 feet upstream. Some individual shrimp stayed out of the water for 10 minutes or more.
“I was so surprised,” Mr. Hongjamrassilp said, “because I never thought that a shrimp can walk that long.” Staying in the river’s splash zone may help them keep their gills wet, so they can keep taking in oxygen. He also observed that the shells of the shrimp seem to trap a little water around their gills, like a reverse dive helmet.
DNA analysis from captured shrimp showed that nearly all belonged to the species Macrobrachium dienbienphuense, part of a genus of shrimp that live mostly or fully in freshwater. Many Macrobrachiumspecies spend part of their lives migrating upstream to their preferred habitats.
Most parading shrimp that Mr. Hongjamrassilp captured were young. Observations and lab experiments showed that these shrimp probably leave the water when the flow becomes too strong for them. Larger adult shrimp can handle a stronger current without washing away, so they’re less likely to leave the water.
Walking on land is dangerous for the little shrimp, even under cover of darkness. Predators including frogs, snakes and large spiders lurk nearby, Mr. Hongjamrassilp says. “Literally, they wait to eat them along the river.”
And the shrimp can survive on land for only so long. If the parading crustaceans lose their way, they may dry out and die before they get back to the river. A few times, Mr. Hongjamrassilp came across groups of lost shrimp dead on the rocks, their once-translucent bodies baked pink.
Yet most navigate upstream successfully, and scientists have spotted other freshwater shrimp around the world performing similar feats, scaling dams and even climbing waterfalls.
Leaving the water when the swimming gets tough may have helped these animals spread to new habitats over their evolutionary history, Mr. Hongjamrassilp said. Today, the number of parading shrimp in Thailand seems to be declining. He thinks tourist activity may be a factor, and learning more about the shrimp might help protect them.
The study’s authors made “some really excellent observations,” said Alan Covich, an ecologist at the University of Georgia who was not involved in the research. But understanding why the Ubon Ratchathani shrimp move upstream, and how far they travel, will require more research, he said.
“The most surprising thing to me was that it attracted so many tourists,” Dr. Covich said. He doesn’t know of any other example of people gathering to appreciate a crustacean in quite the same way.
“We have crayfish festivals, we have all kinds of things,” Dr. Covich said, “but generally it’s people eating them, not watching them move.”
By: Elizabeth Preston Title: These Shrimp Leave the Safety of Water and Walk on Land. But Why? Sourced From: www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/science/shrimp-parade-thailand.html Published Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2020 17:02:07 +0000
There are reports that Aer Lingus have applied for 1,500 slots at Manchester Airport for the Summer 2021 season. This will allow the airline to base four aircraft there and service flights to the United States.
At present, there have been no press releases from the airline stating what is going on. Even so, it probably makes sense for the Irish airline to do this in the current market.
Aer Lingus And Manchester
From what is known, there will be three Airbus A321LRs and an A330 based at Manchester. These will operate non-stop services to New York JFK, Boston, Chicago and Orlando, and the season starts on 28 March 2021.
With Thomas Cook having gone out of business, there is likely space for another competitor. New York and Orlando will see competition from Virgin Atlantic, while the other two routes have no airline flying at the moment.
Aer Lingus has been connecting passengers over Dublin very successfully from the UK regions for a while now. Due to this, they will have visibility on traffic patterns, potential yields and more, making this an informed decision.
I imagine they also hope to cream off some of the connecting traffic that routes through London Heathrow on British Airways and Amsterdam on KLM among others. It would prove to be quite successful.
Transatlantic Joint Venture Approval
The US Department of Transport has tentatively given its approval for Aer Lingus to join the oneworld transatlantic joint business. This is operated by American Airlines, British Airways, Iberia and Finnair.
These airlines coordinate schedules and pricing, share revenues and expenses. For the consumer, it means more choice – those making a booking on British Airways across the Atlantic will also see options on American Airlines on the BA web site as one example.
Theoretically, it would allow people seeking flights on the British Airways web site to automatically be given options to fly non-stop with Aer Lingus, along with the Manchester-London Heathrow-US city connecting itinerary.
Whether Aer Lingus will join the oneworld alliance, even in a oneworld connect capacity remains to be seen. Frequent flyers would welcome it, especially those in Ireland.
Overall Thoughts
No doubt the boffins have been working behind the scenes to see if the business case for transatlantic flights from Manchester stack up. As things have proceeded as far as a slot application, I would guess chances are good that it will go ahead.
Either way, let’s see if this happens and if it does, whether Aer Lingus will stay for the long haul. If they can make more money elsewhere, they’ll up sticks and leave. Regardless, it is an interesting development in European aviation.
What do you think of Aer Lingus starting transatlantic services from Manchester? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by N509FZ via Wikimedia Commons.
Aer Lingus A321neo LR by Pitmanaaron via Wikimedia Commons.
Business class cabin via One Mile At A Time.
By: The Flight Detective Title: Will Aer Lingus launch transatlantic flights from Manchester? Sourced From: travelupdate.com/aer-lingus-manchester/ Published Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2020 18:03:48 +0000