Among the best things in life (insert Conan quote here) is sitting around a campfire listening to stories. What a great evening.
Folks who build boats (no surprise here) “think outside the box”. They find unique solutions to life’s problems. While I’d been fretting over “operation old guy” everyone had their own thing going on.
One of the guys hadn’t even set up a tent! The sky was cloudy and “troubled”; hot and muggy air might very well resolve into a rainstorm. At first, I thought “this dude is totally hard-core” and felt oddly guilty about my “supertent”. I’ve often laid a sleeping bag on the ground tossed a tarp over my body and called it good… but I never liked that for rainy conditions. With the huge flashy tent had I betrayed the “toughness” of youthful times?
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! I was reading it all wrong! Eventually the tentless fellow wanders off towards “car jail” mentioning something about “sleeping in my Prius”. I was about to make a joke about it when I remembered the vehicle back at “car jail”. It was hitched to a trailer with a cool, long and narrow “sailing canoe-ish” craft. (I’m sure there’s a nautical term for that kind of boat but I don’t know it.) He’s probably getting a zillion miles an hour to tow his sleek narrow boat. The perfect fit of tow vehicle and trailer gives me new respect for Prii (that’s the plural right?).
My “solution” is crude by comparison. Running the biggest consumer diesel on the market to drag a 100 pound craft is hurling dollars out the window.
Then he mentioned he can run the AC all night long in a Prius. It’ll cycle the engine on and off silently as needed. I was in the presence of genius!
I went ape coming up with my tent / cot combo and it truly is the lap of luxury… but AC all night long? That’s leveling up!
A few other folks were already asleep in their boats; happily anchored off shore. That seems pretty cool. My little boat isn’t suitable for such shenanigans. (That said, there are lunatics on the ‘net who’ve slept in tiny PDRs like mine. My back aches even mentioning it.)
Another guy had neither a boat nor a car. How the heck did he get there? Apparently, he just met the Prius fellow and he tagged along. He’d brought a tent but no car or boat. Easy peasy. Carpooling all day in a car with a stranger is what will happen to me if I’ve sinned and go to hell. Yet these two hit it off great. People impress me. I mentioned I know jack shit about sailing but I have a boat. His ears perked up and soon I had a knowledgeable “first mate” for tomorrow’s sailing. How awesome is that?
I’d have liked to have sat by the fire forever but bourbon and the long drive had taxed me. I retired to my cot (in what was now forever cemented in my mind as the “supertent”). I collapsed on the soft mattress but slept uneasily in the heat. I dreamed of air conditioning.
Two camping successes merit mention. First, if you’re of the sort that defaults to overly heavy sleeping bags, bring a sheet when it’s hot. A $6 sheet from Walmart was a big help. Also, my “bug zapper flashlight lantern” really worked. I hung it from the “supertent” ceiling, set it on the blue “bug zap” setting, and ignored it. In a half hour the handful of mosquitoes that would’ve pissed me off all night were dead. Wow! The screened in tent was a perfect use for an “attract and kill” approach.
Later that night the wind picked up. I zipped up the windows and since I had room I pulled in my tote-o-gear and my chair. (Nobody likes a wet chair in the morning.) Perhaps this was unnecessary, a tiny hint of clear sky at the horizon hinted it would pass quickly.
WRONG! The tiny hint of clear sky was receding.
ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE! Lightning, thunder, torrential downpour, four horsemen of the apocalypse, etc… As with the windstorm on my first trip the tent walls bowed in. However, the wind on the last trip had been completely off the hook and this was just a normal thunderstorm. It seemed no big deal for the tent.
I couldn’t sleep in the racket so I clicked on my lantern, sat in my chair, put my feet on the tote, and read a book. I have never ever sat upright in a folding chair inside a tent… much less while riding out a serious thunderstorm. Nice!
Soon it passed and the temperature was 40 degrees cooler. I burrowed back in my bag (which was ideal for the cooler weather) and slept like a baby.
Eventually I’ll hit the water, stay tuned.
A.C.
P.S. The next morning I noted with embarrassment that my outlandish showy tent “shook a bit” in the storm. Folks had been asking me about its performance and I felt obligated to admit it was “a bit loud” during the worst of it. Everyone laughed. I was the only one in camp that didn’t get either wholly or partly soaked in the downpour. Another successful test of the “supertent”.
P.S. A battery powered mosquito fryer seemed suspiciously like a dumb gadget when I got it. However, it has been surprisingly handy. It’s great as a lantern, battery life is fine, and the zapper really zaps. It not a magic wand in the forest but it’s quite efficient in the enclosed space of a tent (or Pruis?). You’ll do well to add a Nebo 6587 Z-Bug lantern to your multi-layered bug defense. Don’t let the toy like appearance dissuade you.