Dad Knows Best

We spent last week camping in the mountains of North Carolina with my parents and my niece and nephew. We had a wonderful time. I do plan to share with you some of the fantastic (and frugal) activities we enjoyed, but first, in honor of Father's Day, I thought I'd share a story from the trip where I should have known that Dad knows best.

We took extra tarps to protect the tents from rain, but because of the heat we decided not to put them on the tents. We had them ready to go beside the tents in case the rain came. Tuesday we were headed to a National Park about 20 minutes from our campground. As we were loading vehicles, Dad asked if we should tarp the tents while we were gone in case it rained. Tuesday was the only day of the week that there was no chance of rain. It was hot. The tarps make the tents like mini greenhouses. My mom and I talked him out of putting the tarps on the tents.

The park we went to was beautiful and we had a great day hiking and playing in waterfalls. I will be sure to share details later this week. We started to head back toward camp late in the afternoon, and about the same time the skies started getting dark.

Remember when I shared thirteen camping tips? Remember #4?

The rain will come.
I don't care what the weather man says.

We were only in the car a few minutes when the downpour began. It came down hard. It did not last long. Since we were some distance from the camp we had hope that it had not rained at camp. We passed in and out of rain on the way back, but as we got closer to our destination the swollen ditches and muddy rivers were signs that we did not want to see.

We found our tents wet. Well more than wet. Soaked might be a better word. Not only had we not covered the tents, but in our tent the windows were also unzipped. Our sleeping bags were literally dripping, as were two of the kid's bags of clothing.

In the end we made two trips to the laundromat to wash and dry all of the sleeping bags, and quite a bit of our clothing. The cost; about $40 and much of our time. All of which could have been saved by taking five minutes of time to cover our tents before leaving camp.

The moral of the story: Dad knows best, and never ever leave camp without closing things up in case of rain.


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