Well long story short. My wife and I are taking our three and four year old car camping for six days on lake Marion in SC at the end of the month to spend some time with my father this will be our second annual week trip to this lake. And I decided it was time to upgrade our sleeping arrangement. We take two tents and TaRp. The mutha hubba is our primary sleep tent. We bring another two man tent but usually just pitch the footprint and rainfly and use it for gear storage in the event of poor weather!

Anyways I picked up a Coleman queensize air mattress this afternoon. Brought it home and pitched the tent in my bedroom inserted the mattress and inflated it fits perfectly!

I just posted this so anyone who owns a mutha hubba would know that. It appears to be a rather nice car camping set up!

But as I believe some one on this forum once said. In theory theory and practice are the same in practice they are not!

We will still take our normal backpacking pads as a backup. Hopefully we won't need them;)

May as well be really comfy while you're car camping, where weight doesn't matter! Sometimes, though, bulk is an issue (large family, small car, been there, done that!).

<snicker> My fiancé's idea of "car camping" is Motel 6. I'm working on that.

Unless it is really warm you may want the backpacking pads on top of the coleman. Those are cushy but not insulated.

I noticed this last night. As it was inflated in the tent in my bedroom I slept on it and woke this morning slightly chilled.the mattress actually felt cool to touch.

I'm going to try and combat this issue with a couple thick blankets on top of the mattress first and then probably a layer of closed cell foam. It won't be cold on this trip but no one wants to sleep cold!

Our summer answer to the cold problem (FAMILY CAMPING) is a wool blanket under the bottom sheet.

A queen air mattress can fit in a 5x7 tent - if that is all that is in the tent, and you don't mind it pushing on the sides. I did that once to bring some friends...