O! Big Agnes, how you have changed my camping life! Before buying your Air Core featherweight inflatable mattress, I was adrift on a sea of hip-bruising, neck-crooking, self-inflating pads, pitiful half-inch things whose only argument for existence is being softer than rocks and lighter than yoga mats. If my husband’s lumbar spine sensitivity hadn’t threatened to nip our backpacking passion in the bud, I may never have asked that outdoor superstore salesperson for help. But I did. Sweet saving grace, I did! Though skeptical of your size — would you really fit in his pack without tipping the scale over 30 pounds? — my beloved back-pain sufferer was quickly sold on your 3.5 inches of lump absorption. After two blissfully kink-free trips, his devotion to you, dear Agnes, was such that I gave in to his rapturous praises, and decided to give you a go myself. Oh, bliss; oh, dreamy night of starry slumber! I’ll never again sleep Agnes-less in the wild.
Desert Companion welcomed Heidi Kyser as staff writer in January 2014. In 2018, she was promoted to senior writer and producer, working for both DC and KNPR's State of Nevada. She produced KNPR’s first podcast, the Edward R. Murrow Regional Award-winning Native Nevada, in 2020. The following year, she returned her focus full-time to Desert Companion, becoming Deputy Editor, which meant she was next in line to take over when longtime editor Andrew Kiraly left in July 2022. In 2024, Interim CEO Favian Perez promoted Heidi to managing editor, charged with integrating the Desert Companion and State of Nevada newsroom operations.