Pink Nighty
Legend
For our honeymoon the wife and I decided on a 2 week late september camping road trip. First night in yakima, worked down to crescent city and then back up 101, last night in forks. Wife is from walla walla, myself from Bellingham. I was raised on weeklong rain fests in august, she was not.
We had our first marital spat over the 4 wall waterproof canopy I insisted on packing. It weighed about 70lbs and took up so much room we had to strap much of our gear to the roof of my xterra, Clampett style.
The weather was stunning. It was the tail end of the awful drought of 2015, and every time we made camp without using the canopy my lovely new bride was becoming increasingly aggressive with her feelings about it.
Our second to last stop was Cape disappointment on sept 30. Not a fucking cloud and I'll be honest, I was starting to feel the heat. Second guessing my westsider camping upbringing. I wondered had I actually once woken up to find my air mattress had become a boat? That accessing the tent door required paddles? I felt like being over prepared for rain when camping was the heart and soul of camping, but maybe I had been doing it wrong.
Last stop is forks. As we approach the sky begins to darken and I get giddy with the anticipation of my moment. After an hour or 2 in town getting food and whatnot, the skies have burst and the rain is coming down at about half an inch per hour.
We arrive to a nearly empty campground and start looking for a dry spot. After realizing the foolishness of that endeavour, we settled for finding one without actively running water. We find one, I analyze it for tree cover and a patch level enough for the canopy. Up goes the canopy with 2 walls. Big blue tarp off the roof over one of the open walls down to the ground, set the tent up under that. Arrange the canopy so it half covered the firepit, allowing for fire to burn and us to sit near it while dry.
We made it all 3 days and took almost 5" of rain during those days. As soon as you stepped out of the canopy you were in a cold shower, but we actually got the ground to dry out underneath it.
To this day i use it as my argument trump card. Not that it works mind you, but I still use it!
We had our first marital spat over the 4 wall waterproof canopy I insisted on packing. It weighed about 70lbs and took up so much room we had to strap much of our gear to the roof of my xterra, Clampett style.
The weather was stunning. It was the tail end of the awful drought of 2015, and every time we made camp without using the canopy my lovely new bride was becoming increasingly aggressive with her feelings about it.
Our second to last stop was Cape disappointment on sept 30. Not a fucking cloud and I'll be honest, I was starting to feel the heat. Second guessing my westsider camping upbringing. I wondered had I actually once woken up to find my air mattress had become a boat? That accessing the tent door required paddles? I felt like being over prepared for rain when camping was the heart and soul of camping, but maybe I had been doing it wrong.
Last stop is forks. As we approach the sky begins to darken and I get giddy with the anticipation of my moment. After an hour or 2 in town getting food and whatnot, the skies have burst and the rain is coming down at about half an inch per hour.
We arrive to a nearly empty campground and start looking for a dry spot. After realizing the foolishness of that endeavour, we settled for finding one without actively running water. We find one, I analyze it for tree cover and a patch level enough for the canopy. Up goes the canopy with 2 walls. Big blue tarp off the roof over one of the open walls down to the ground, set the tent up under that. Arrange the canopy so it half covered the firepit, allowing for fire to burn and us to sit near it while dry.
We made it all 3 days and took almost 5" of rain during those days. As soon as you stepped out of the canopy you were in a cold shower, but we actually got the ground to dry out underneath it.
To this day i use it as my argument trump card. Not that it works mind you, but I still use it!
