A 4-Man Tent Does Not Always Mean Just That

We went camping this last weekend, just for one night. Some of H's business associates were doing a family hike and overnight campout in one of the canyons last Friday night. I told H that I was willing to go on 2 conditions: 1) I didn't have to go on the hike. It was 3 miles long and I get tired going up the stairs at home. 2) We brought smores. So, he agreed to my very reasonable conditions and we packed up and headed to the mountains.

Liz was gracious enough to offer us her 4-man tent to use and we purchased an air mattress and some new sleeping bags. Everyone met up at one of the ski resorts and headed out for the hike. Me? I stayed at the resort and hung out in the truck, watching "Stranger Than Fiction" on my laptop and eating snacks. The mountain air was a pleasant 50+ degrees and I surrounded myself with pillows in the back seat. I had my own private drive-in theater. After about 2 1/2 hours, H and the kids returned from the hike and we headed down to the campsite that the group reserved. Less than half of the hiking group met up at the campsite and less than half of that number stayed for the night.

I found a nice, flat spot for us to pitch the tent, then H blew up the air mattress, and set up the blankets and pillows. The tent went up really easy and we set the mattress in before pumping it. It is a queen mattress and H bought a manual pump. Just imagine trying to blow up a really thick queen mattress with a bicycle pump. H was huffing and puffing while airing it up. I asked him how much the electric pump was at the store and he replied, with a bit of forlorn in his voice, "$12." Needless to say, we'll be returning the hand pump and getting the electric. After finally getting it set up, Mister found a leak in the mattress, which H had to patch.

After all that work, we then started some dinner. We barbecued some kabobs with beef rib meat on the grill. Others had brought foods wrapped in foil and threw them in the fire pit to cook. Since the ribs would take a little while, the kids and I happily moved on to the smores. There is nothing like a gooey, messy, warm smore over the campfire. It was heaven. The meat also turned out just right. We all sat around the fire, eating and chatting. I had not met any of the people there before and we had a pretty good time.

When it was late and time for bed, I left H chatting by the fire and headed for the tent. Once inside and comfortable, I realized that just because a tent is referred to as a 4-man tent doesn't necessarily guarantee that 4 people will fit in it. This is especially true when 2 of the 4 are a pregnant woman and the large man that is H. With me and the kids situated, I knew there was no way that H would be able to fit in with us comfortably. He ended up at the bottom of the mattress, under our feet. He and I didn't get a lot of sleep that night. This was compounded by the fact that I remembered right before heading to bed that I require at least 2-3 trips to the bathroom at night. Thankfully, there was a restroom just one campsite over. But, I have to say, growing up on horror movies, particularly "Friday the 13th" did not make the trips to the bathroom very comfortable...not to mention all the animals that I knew were staring out of the bushes at me. As long as they weren't wearing masks and carrying machetes, they didn't bother me much.

In the morning, H informed me that our camp had had some visitors early that morning. He had gotten up and opened the tent door to find two moose in the camp. They were just passing through, sniffing the tents and checking out the three guys that chose to camp out in the open. H woke them up and warned them of the moose nearby, but he was really in awe of them. Unfortunately, the moose had headed out before we could get up to see them. We did see a doe, though, and a lot of chipmunks. We made a breakfast of bacon and scrambled eggs. Bacon over a campfire cannot be beat. Yum! After breakfast and some more chatting, we packed up, cleaned up and headed home...where we quickly laid down and passed out for a while. It was a lot of fun and I'm glad we went.