So I sold my pool table this weekend since I haven't used it in.. uhmm. Well, I forgot! Guess it's been a while. Then it dawned one me I haven't been camping in 2 weeks and withdrawals are settling in. What's a person to do?
Let's see, Hammock, check. Chairs? Check. Sleeping pad? Check. Tent? Got it.. Oohh.. Campfire? Yes! (So I'm either a big kid or a total idiot, probably more the latter, but at least it's fun.)
Registered: 02/03/06
Posts: 6800
Loc: Gateway to Columbia Gorge
Every time I get a new tent (which has been too often for a retiree budget!), it spends some time first pitched in my living room and then pitched in my back yard.
Actually, the back yard is a great place to test new gear--if it doesn't work, you have a nice warm bed to which you can bail out. Of course, that nice warm bed is awfully tempting even if the gear works fine!
That looks like an electric or gas fireplace--if so, you can't practice lighting fires with wet wood. Which might be just as well, considering the smoke involved when burning wet fuel!
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May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view--E. Abbey
Aye, gas fireplace and if I had the chance to use my back yard I would. Unfortunately I'm in a condo, the hill falls away quickly behind me down to the river (meaning I'd be sleeping at around a 20+ degree angle), the neighbor below me on the water has a few huge floodlights because they are paranoid, etc. That and there are not even any trees for a hammock. None. Great view of the water, no trees. Grr.
It was fun camping in it last night. The random wild-life even investigated before scratching at their litterbox.
We've set up a tent in our living room both to seam seal it and well, kinda imagine your.... Our wildlife loved the tent. We do have decent property with a stream and a campsite, but it's kinda old to us.. To conserve on fuel we keep our heat on low and the wood stove doesn't really heat our upstairs. All winter I keep an old Snow Lion 30 degree bag thrown over us like a quilt. Not coincidentally, I dream of backpacking a lot.
Blue, love the imagery. Alas, mine's the other way around. There is a 15 degree difference with the downstairs being cold. You can literally feel like you are stepping down into a cooler when you walk down the stairs. It's just an issue with the design but as I spend 90% of my time upstairs it's no big deal. For what it's worth, a big old sleeping bag was my comforter on my futon (which was then my bed) for about 6 years and still looks new. Slept with the window open at 30 or lower when I lived in Seattle, closed the door so the rest of the place didn't freeze and snoozed.
Edit: I need to get out and get another backpacking trip in towards end of February and early March before thru-hikers arrive in the Smokies. Mountain biking season is approaching and I be doing less hiking and more biking with general car camping.
Edited by ETSU Pride (02/02/1508:28 PM)
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It is one of the blessings of wilderness life that it shows us how few things we need in order to be perfectly happy.-- Horace Kephart
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