In Preparation for the CAMPING!!!

(c) 2012 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

We have our first ever family CAMPING! weekend coming up.  Both girls are very excited about the CAMPING!  In fact they are THIS EXCITED!!!

Now, we have done the tent-in-the-backyard business, and both girls have successfully spent the night sleeping in the tent, so we're good to go.  Last year we even got one of those big ol' 3 "room" tents.  You know, the kind that says they sleep like 8 or 10, but really fit 4-6 with stuff.  By "rooms," I should mention, they really mean, "we'll throw in these two extra pieces of tent fabric, cut-and-hemmed into a vaguely trapezoidal shape, with toggles at the edges that you can fit into these loops and sort-of separate the two sides visually."  I'd been thinking something more along the lines of zipped-in partitions, but whatever.... it was on SALE!

For years, some friends and friends-of-friends have done an annual camping trip to the north shore of Lake Superior.  They've been so kind as to keep inviting us, but it's always a weekend right around Pumpkin's birthday and the distance is a bit far, especially for a first family camping trip.  Well, this year one of their number decided to see if folks were interested in an additional, more family-focused camping weekend... and chose a campsite that's a mere 3 hours away from us.

My "yes please we'd love to" email response was both quick and overexcited.  :)

In preparation for the trip, yesterday we hauled out and set up the giant tent of doom.  I wanted to remember how to put it together, make sure we had all the parts, let the girls sleep in it overnight again, etc.  It's huge.  I'd kind of forgotten just how huge.  Sure, we just had our sleeping pads and sleeping bags in it, and none of the backpacks and bags and coolers and such that also are required for the actual CAMPING expedition, but it was... spacious.

...and missing one of the room divider pieces.  

I double-checked the tent bag, looked in a couple of pockets in the tent, & no luck.  Then Mr. Kluges reminded me that LAST year Penguin had pulled a little too hard on her room divider and one of the toggles had come off.  Possibly had I set it aside to fix it?

Of course!  THAT was it! No wonder I couldn't find it with the tent; it must be with the mending stuff 'cuz I hadn't done it yet.

No.  Not in the bag of mending or the other bag of mending.

Ok, had I put it in the hard-sided picnic basket where I keep the camping pots-n-pans and the lantern and such?  

Nope.

...Maybe in the bench in the entry way that ends up with various ends and bits in it?

No, but maybe I'll bring along the kids' life jackets that are in there, since we'll be on a river & likely canoeing.

....The attic room?  The one I'm trying to turn into an away/craft space?  Dear Lord, I hope not; it's HOT and messy up there.

No, but it's slightly more sorted up there now.  Only slightly, but as the room divider is NOT a piece of paper, I'm pretty sure I would've found it.

I give up.  Either one of us will remember where it is, or it'll get to Wednesday and I'll panic and sew one up out of a sheet and some giant buttons or something.  Ok, fine.

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The girls and I sleep out in the tent.  They don't fall asleep until close to 10 (WAY, WAY  late for them!), but are up bright and early at 6:30.  The weather looks iffy & there's a strong chance for showers in the early morning & thunderstorms later in the day, so I figure I might as well take advantage of being up SO VERY EARLY and take down the tent.  

....you'll never guess what I found UNDER the tent, 
between the floor and the tarp. 

Yup, there the whole time.  I must have virtuously fixed it right away and popped it back in the tent bag where it goes with everything else.  We pull out the tent this year to set it up, somehow (static electricity?) the room divider sticks to the underside of the tent floor, and, being so thin and matchy, we never notice.

Oh well, at least now I don't have to try to sew up another room divider after all!