Nice story, and I agree, too many people worry if their gear is good enough instead of getting out there to enjoy the gear they have.
Have to agree with you here. If with a foundling and $100 food and gear you've managed to spend a month of Sundays enjoying the outdoors you're way ahead of the clean fingernail fella perusing outdoor magazines and trying to save shekels for a Yuppie axe and one or two 'G' notes worth of 'must have' gear entirely believing that investment trumps experience.