These are pictures taken a couple of weeks ago at Devils Lake. The Spencer family and friends take a yearly trip to the lake and they invited us to come along. I guess it is a close to camping as we can get here in Chicago.
It was Savvy's first time camping and she did great except for the sleeping part. It probably wasn't all her fault though since I didn't/forgot to bring a tent big enough for the entire family. I was thinking that Michelle and Sav would take the easy way out and room with Alicia Spencer at one of the local motels. (In fact, I could have sworn that was the plan.) As it turns out, Michelle and Savvy decided to stay with Cade and me which created a big problem...we had a two-man tent! I know, I know, Savvy and Cade are small so that shouldn't create a problem. Wrong!
It is a well-known fact that tentmakers are fairly optimistic when sizing tents. For example, when a tent box claims to be three-man tent, it is in fact a two-man tent (assuming the both people are on relatively good terms). And when it says a tent is a two-man tent, it really means it is a one-man tent, and that is where the problem occurred. It is my personal belief that you can take the stated tent size and divide by 1.5, and then round down to the nearest whole number. Well, we placed Cade at our feet, Savvy at our head and we slept at a diagonal. I slept pretty well but Michelle didn't and relayed to me that Savvy didn't either. In fact, she relayed the message to me over and over again the following couple of days. The whole fiasco in the tent kind of reminded me of a story that Patrick MacManus wrote called "Two-Man Tent Fever". You can read it here.
8 comments:
Beautiful pictures! It must have been pretty warm too with the kids sporting shorts still. You should see what the G.B. of World records has for how many people can spend the night in a "2 man" tent!
I run into this problem all the time. My only explanation is that since pretty much every tent is "Made in China" that they must use chinese people to do their sizing. If not...I would love to here the tentmakers excuse.
That is the best explanation I have heard of yet! Chinese people aren't much smaller than the standard Woodbury though, so the problem gets even more complicated now.
Yes, dear, you are right. The plan WAS to go to the hotel with Alicia --- until I discovered she was leaving Jordan with Luke at the campsite. HELLO! Could I really be so heartless as to ruin a friend's luxurious night of sleep and a morning of sleeping in with Savannah's shrieks and squeals? Heck no! It's one thing if there were two babies in a hotel screaming, but if it's just mine-- that's just cruel and unusual punishment to a fellow mom :)
When we went camping over Labor Day I ended up sleeping in the van. 12 man tents still get wet.
And according to your formula, that would be 8 people getting wet.
you guys are so funny! So Kyle, I am surprised ya didn't just sleep under the stars?
Mom, I would have slept under the stars but I was afraid of all the rumors of racoons, skunks, and other critters that we never see in the Sawtooths.
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