Wednesday 11 April 2018

We Have Learned From Our Mistakes

Jason has since admitted and apologized for not being as careful as he might have been with the tarps when setting up our campsite the other week.  I mention this because, well a lot of rain... plus... we kind of ended up with a lake in our tent our last morning.  Sigh.

So Jason knows he goofed on the tarps (but hey, it happens to the best of us, so no harm, no foul) but I have to kind of smack us both for missing a kind of obvious hint the tent tried to give us the day before!

I took my lantern into the tent at night so we could see (duh!) and on the second (or so?) morning, when I went to take it back outside, I noticed it left a puddle. 

Well, that was weird!

I looked at the lantern, hoped the battery pack was well sealed, and wondered just what kind of poor construction the company had made to have that much rain water collect and pool like that.  Blah. 

I noticed more water later and was kind of annoyed that the lantern kept dripping water.  I even mentioned it to Jason, and that yeah, I was surprised at this and that I might just write a letter to the makers.  Camping gear should be able to function in the rain without collecting this much water, duh.

It wasn't until the torrential rain and waking up on the last morning to a substantial amount of rain in the tent (come up through the base, not down from the top) that we put two and two together.  Jason's oops with the tent/tarp had funneled a lot more water than necessary under the tent.. which... the heavy, compact lantern had been the first to actually show us "hey guys?  water's coming up"  The lantern wasn't LEAKING water (yay!) it was making contact in a significant enough way between the "river runs through us" under our tent, over our tarp to pull up through the base.  Whoops!  Thing #2 we should have paid more attention to... the lantern wasn't leaking.. the tent kind of was!

When we went to bed the last night in the holy crap so much rain rain, we both kind of talked about how we'd not bothered to dig a trench (damn) and Jason now admits he realized about the tarp but didn't want to upset me at the time (fair enough) so we did the best we could, and his camp bag is more waterproof than mine, so we put mine on top of his as a precaution.

And good thing we did.  Cuz anything that touched the floor that night got soaked.  Damn.

My jeans, for example, that I'd laid out to dry, slipped off of my bag and onto the floor and were as if they'd just come out of a washing machine.  Same for the blanket that I forgot to pull up. 

Oh, and I'm thankful that Jason didn't tell me he figured we'd be wet come morning, because I was wigged out enough that my sleeping bag had gotten wet and so I was sleeping in now wet pjs, with a layer of other clothing underneath to get me dry enough to sleep.  (It was just one spot but a damp spot when you're camping is not at all fun.)

We mad rushed to pack up in the slightly less torrential rain in the morning and we both wish we'd been filming when we dumped the lake out of the tent!  Thank GOODNESS for his waterproof mattress pads and the waterproof bag he had.  Because yeah.. that's the most water I've ever had in a tent... ever.  Had it not been our last day it would probably have become our last day.

Packing sucked, as you can imagine.  We were both stressed and soaked and I swear a car never packs as neatly on the way home and we didn't have the dry time to put X into Y to maximize space and everything was soaked... well, tent, tarps, and anything we'd not put away in the car for the night was anyway.  Plus jeans and blankets that got "tent-lake-erized" and all.

But knowing we weren't more than a few hours away from home helped and we both have some things to "fix" if we go West Coast camping again, that's for sure!

For me?  Better rain gear (jacket and duffel bag actually water proof!), and a sleeping bag rated for much colder.  Those are my top priorities (unless I camp with someone other than Jason next time in which case I need a whole bunch of other things!!!) 

So, yes.  We were somewhat rained out, but not terribly so.  And, to be honest, not all that unexpectedly either.  And now I can say I slept on a river/lake in my tent.

2 comments:

Jason Langlois said...

That does sounds like too much of a Wet Coast Camping Experience. I'm glad you survived it without turning into a pink wrinkle raisin!

Victoria said...

Me too!!! ;)