Hi everyone,
I am from EU (Prague - Czech Republic) but living with my GF in NY/NJ now.
I have been backpacking my whole life, but have yet to sleep in a real hammock for the first time. The plan was to build my own hammock, or two actually, one for me and my girlfriend, but I don't think I have enough time for that anymore so I will be buying.

My girlfriend isn't much of a backpacker yet (AFAIK she slept in a tent once before) so I plan to skip the whole tent part in my grand plan to convert her to be more outdoorsy, as the back and neck pains from that were always the biggest problems for me (I never used pads, usually just slept on top of my poncho, until it ripped in the middle of a night while using it as a hammock in Hawaii)

I love backpacking and to me it has always been more fun that sunbathing at some stupid beach resort, and also cheaper but now when we are equipping my girlfriend basically from scratch it certainly isn't very cheap.(But the new gear is so much more awesome now )
We spent $400 just on a her backpack and boots yesterday, I bought 2 sleeping backs for close to $600 couple months ago and now I am looking at spending another $400 for two BlackBirds. At least the tarps I will hopefully make myself...


Is it wise to buy BlackBirds right away? I don't have a lot of money, but I like to buy the best gear that lasts (it usually pays of in the long run). Do you guys think Brandon will be able to deliver within 20 days or so?

Well I just wanted to say hi, I have been reading the forum for months and never contributed. Thanks everyone for so much extremely useful information, without this forum I would have never grown balls big enough to make the switch.