If you know me at all, you know I’m not really a ‘camping’ person. I dislike lack of running water and electricity, and the one time I really DID go camping in Girl Scouts, the River flash flooded and we evacuated the campsite at two in the morning in rising water that reached shin deep before I was able to get into a van.
We lost most of our stuff, just abandoned it because the water was rising so fast.
My parents were pretty surprised when I knocked on the front door in soggy pajamas.
My husband likes camping though, and he’s been wishing for us to go to Black River Falls with our fluffer for a real camping trip.
Problem was I had a two person pup tent and a tarp and nothing else.
So… we already have a canopy, and it JUST SO HAPPENS there’s a tent designed to build into it.
We set it up in our backyard for a trial run Friday night!
Photos! Here it is, set up next to our garage. You can barely see the power line that cuts low across our backyard and prevents us from setting it up literally anywhere else.
It’s taller than I am at the EDGES, and the center was unreachable above us when it was fully set up.
The tent has no fiberglass rods to break. (Because we ALL know how easily they break and how expensive they are to replace!) Instead, it hooks into the canopy.
I had an emergency tarp already, so we even set it up properly with a tarp under it and everything staked in.
What’s left of our wood pile. And our fire ring:
I didn’t like how close we were to it, but there was nowhere else to set up.
Tundra was Very. Interested.
I think he’s been camping before because he came right in and settled down. No whining even.
We tested Friday night, and the air bed hadn’t come yet, so I laid out camping pads and a foam topper and a ton of blankets aaaaaand… it was miserable. I barely slept, I bent my shoulder joint funny, both hips hurt.
BUT.
Saturday the air bed came! (Sorry, no photos.)
I set it up myself, and it was easy to do except for the 300+ pumps on the hand pump I had to use.
We tried again Saturday night, and it was perfectly comfortable!
I was still asleep this morning when my husband came in and woke me so we could tear it all down. We were literally minutes ahead of a storm front. The weather the night before had said it would come through at 1pm, but it arrived much earlier.
It was easy to tear down, but we haven’t gotten it back into the bags yet, so we’ll see how that goes.
Anywho, it was fun! Do you enjoy camping? What camping gear to you swear by? Items that you can’t do without? Inquiring minds want to know!
