camping
A couple weeks ago, Denise suddenly took an interest in real camping (tent, sleeping bags, etc). I was definitely interested, as it would be awesome to camp out in the wilderness of a park somewhere (like at the Racetrack of Death Valley). We weren't 100% sure if it would all work, and decided that we'd do a test run in our back yard, with a tent rented from REI. We also purchased two relatively inexpensive air mattresses to sleep on (David would use a camping collapsible cot that we've had for a while). Denise picked up the tent & mattresses on Friday, and built it all out on her own. We got a 4-6 person tent, so that we'd have room to move inside, and wouldn't be cramped together. Friday night didn't go quite as well as we'd hoped. Turns out that the huge, heavy down blankets that we use in our real bed doesn't work all that well once the temperature gets much below 55F. On top of that, the air mattresses hold no heat at all, so they felt like big blocks of ice. About half way through the night, I did discover that if I put one of my two blankets underneath me, that helped to insulate me from the coldness of the mattress, however my heavy down blanket still wasn't sufficient for on top. Denise was completely frozen the entire night. Oddly, David seemed to be ok (although he was sleeping on the cot, and had 1 sleeping bag, plus two lighter-weight blankets on him). However, the mattresses were reasonably comfortable, and the tent was a decent size for the 3 of us. Learning from our mistakes, we made a few changes last night. First, we put the tent's rain fly on (which is basically a waterproof blanket that goes over the top of the tent to prevent rain (and air) from getting in). This sealed off the huge vents that were at the top of the tent, and made it more capable of holding in warmer air. In addition, Denise dug out on old green cotton blanket, and put it down on her mattress to insulate her from its coldness. Finally, we both wore alot more clothing to sleep. On Friday night, I was literally wearing nothing more than shorts & t-shirt. Last night, I was still wearing shorts, but had a heavy fleece pullover. Denise also wore heavier clothing. This all made a significant difference, and we all slept much better. At this point, I think we're confident that getting a decent sized 4-6 person tent along with sleeping bags rated for cold weather will make a good camping experience.