Tent Troubles

Given that we’ve been camping out in our tent for over a month now, Kyle and I have established a pretty good routine for our mornings.  Kyle is almost always awake before me, so he heads out of the tent to use the bathroom, brush his teeth, and get dressed for the day.  After I finally wake up, I stay inside the tent to pack up the sleeping bags and roll the sleeping pads. Meanwhile, Kyle takes the stakes out and the rainfly off. Then I hop out of the tent and run to use the bathroom, brush my teeth, and wash my face. By the time I’m back from all that, Kyle has the tent all folded and rolled, I fold the tarp, we pack it all in the car and off we go. By this point it’s become fairly seamless and we can do the whole thing without talking (definitely a good thing when neither of us has had coffee yet).

Well, this morning was a little different. It had poured and poured the night before. The entire tent was soaking wet. We had a bunch of stuff that we wanted to do in Homer during the day, so we decided that we would just come back later in the afternoon to get the tent after it had dried off.

We had a really nice day in Homer. We visited the Sea and Islands Visitor Center and learned that almost all of the Aleutian Islands are a Maritime Wildlife Refuge. We visited a ton of different art galleries and found some stuff to decorate our apartment. We picked up our halibut that had been vacuum packed and frozen.

After our fun time in Homer, Kyle and I headed back up the Kenai towards Anchorage. Once again, we called up my friend Kristin in Soldotna, and made plans to visit with her. Now, Kristin is a fantastic hostess and a wonderful cook, so we  couldn’t turn down her offer of a meal and a place to stay.  She made us delicious chicken tacos and we had a fun time catching up over dinner.

Right after dinner (but before delicious cream cheese brownies) Kristin told us that we could dry off our tent in her garage. Thankful for her offer, Kyle went out into the car to grab the tent.

A minute later, Kyle walks back into the kitchen where Kristin and I are chatting and says, “We have to go back to Homer.”

“What? Why?” I responded.

“What did you forget?” Kristin asked.

Then, realizing that Kyle had just gone out to get the tent from the car I burst out laughing. Wow, we forgot our tent! After about ten minutes of nonstop laughter from all involved, Kyle and I hopped back into the car.  The entire hour and a half drive to Homer, we kept saying to each other, “Wow, we are so dumb.”  As we drove we pondered the worst possible things that may have happened: what if the Homer Police impounded our tent since we had not paid the $8 that night? what if some homeless person had stolen the tent?  Well, we got to Homer, were relieved to find the tent was there and drove the full hour and a half back to Soldotna, getting in right before midnight.

Above: Kyle discovers that the tent is not in the car.

Above: We make a morning checklist to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

Above: Relief at finding the tent.

The nice note the parks people left on our tent.

Kyle throws the sopping wet tent into a big trash bag until we can lay it out to dry.