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Somewhere East of Harrisburg PA
05/27/04
Well, I just had to write something to let you know how the first night of "camping" is going. This can't be long because I HAVE to get some sleep (If I can)
Let me first briefly explain that I threw this camping setup together very quickly. I found a tent online that connects to the back of my ford focus, essentially it is a dome attached to the open hatchback of the car like two docked spaceships (kinda grandoise for this I know). I had the tent mailed to our neighbor's house in NewYork City, knowing nothing about how it works or how good it might be. All I knew is that it said on the website that sold it that it is a good tent that connects to your car, essentially incorporating into the tent space. Okay, good. Then I went to Walmart, which I hate to do, but no one else in our Upstate area sells camping equipment, at least no one who is close enough to our house for me to get there and back during one of the baby's naps. At Walmart, I bought a sleeping bag, a small axe, a lantern and a propane burner for cooking and some other shit. I threw all that into the back of the car along with lots of canned and dry foods from the health food store.
So I dropped my wife and baby off in New york, kissed them goodbye. Threw the small box containing the tent into the car along with the poor dog and started driving at about 8pm.
I drove straight out of New York, out of Jersey and about halfway through Pennsilvania. It got to be about 10:45 when I decided to stop. Just as I made that decision, along came an exit with a sign that said "Campground". I pulled off, and just as I did, I saw lightening in the distance, I think from the West. I drove till I found this campground called "Apalacia campgrounds" I wasn't sure I loved the look of it so much. I told my self that it seemed kind of commercial and not exactly in the wild or anything. There are showers, a soda machine, game room. And I could hear the highway from the entrance, so not really off the beaten path. Not really that "Jeramiah Johnson" ideal I was looking for. Then I told myself "Hey, idiot. You haven't camped in over ten years and even that wasn't very much. And you're all alone except the poor dog and you have NO idea how this tent works and it's starting to thunder REALLY LOUD.
So I drove up to the entrance and spoke into a small speaker which told me to drive on in, pick any spot and pay on the way out in the morning. I drove in and found a spot far away from any RVs or any other campers if only because I didn't want anyone to see what a shitty camper I am. I started to get really nervous as I unpacked the tent and all my stuff. I realized that, for the first time, I was really commiting to this thing. I was actually going to pitch a tent and sleep in it. "What the hell am I doing?" I thought.
I laid out the tent and read the instructions which are horrible. There is only one picture, a bad sketch of the tent and car all set up already. No pictures of the steps needed to get there. And the instructions were crazily cryptic and weird. I would quote them but I don't have them with me, they are laying out there somewhere in a DEEP puddle.
Okay, so I start to try to make sense of the tent, trying to find the four corners of it but it's all just one big bag of plastic tarpy stuff. The electircal storm is getting really really bad. I can see bolts of lightening getting closer and closer, the thunder is shaking the ground. The dog, who when we first arrived wanted badly to run around, was now laying in the car with her ears down, clearly aware of the danger I was putting myself in.
So the wind starts swirling and BIG drops of rain start falling as I start "Assembling the poles". Basically the tent is a dome that is supposed to be held up by two very long poles that are bent into two big arches. But the poles are both actually several 6 inch pieces stuck together and it's really hard to keep them together as you try to feed them through the sleeves and eyes in the nylon of the tent. It was completely dark, of course, and the "Lantern" I bought at Walmart was pretty useless.
After about 20 minutes, I felt like I hadn't really gotten very far and the rain was coming down very very hard. I was wearing a shitty poncho that was basically just letting rain in and then trapping it against my body. My feet were in about 3 inches of water and I just kept trying to keep calmy assembling this crazy tent. The lightening was kind of fierce at this point and I started to get kind of freaked out but I just kept saying to myself, all but out loud, over and over again "Hurry, but don't worry. Hurry, but don't worry."
So now it's been 45 minutes and the tent is covered in buckets of water and the dog is so pissed off at me in the car that she nearly gained the power of speech to tell me to cut the shit. Just then, somehow, the damn tent started to come together. It made no real sense but at one point, I decided that both poles were threaded and that if I just started to push their ends together, something would happen. And it did.
THE TENT WENT UP! I was pretty excited exept for that the rain was coming down soooo hard and the lightening and thunder were right on top of me but I kept going. I got the thing to stand up, all wobbly. Then I started to race around the tent, banging the stakes into the puddly, muddy ground with the blunt end of the axe. Somehow, I got them all in. Then I backed the car up to the tent, lifted the tailgate and fitted the "Sock" of the tent onto the back of the car. I don't have any idea how that was suppposed to work. There are about thirty straps and hooks involved but I just improvised and sealed it up the best I could. Then I took a good look, and damn if it all didn't look exactly like the shitty sketch on the directions!! I had no idea what was going on inside the tent and I didn't want to open the "Front door" and let all the rain in. So I got in the car, took off all my drenched clothes, climbed into the back, over the completely traumatized dog and into the hatch of the car. There was a zipped up door, or "airlock" that led to the tent. I unzipped it and, holy shit, there was a relatively dry and sturdy little room attached to the back of my car! And no rain was getting in through the sock. It was pelting so loudly, but not touching me.
The floor of the tent was pretty wet, but it didn't seem to be leaking. It seemed to be rain that got in through the sock before I attached it to the car. So I took a tshirt and used it to wipe up the floor, ringing it out by the car's bumper as it got saturated. This took a while but it worked. Then I laid out my sleeping bag and pillow and realized, huh, I did it. And I'm dry now.
At that moment, of course, the rain stopped. I realized that I obviously could have waited the rain out and done it then but the hell with that. I was so happy that it worked. Loona and I went for a long walk through the woods, me in my underwear and sneakers. Then we came back and I laid down in my sleeping bag to write this. I took only two pictures, one of the car and tent from outside and one of me in the sleeping bag. I will post this tomorrow, once I have time to format the pages. Right now it's aboiut 1am and I have to get to sleep, if I can. I can already feel how horribly hard the ground is. THe sound of the frogs and crickets would actually lull me to sleep, if they weren't drowned out by the sound of the I70 trucks whizzing by.
Goodnight. Thanks for reading.
*** Next Morning Addendum***
Just wanted to a very hilarious detail which is that, as I got ready to upload these pages using my cell phone hookup, I realized that my powerbook was receiving a very strong wifi or airport signal! Right here in the middle of this "campsite" is a hotspot. Jeeezzzzus.
LCK