Our last day in Central City was a disaster for Ann. We woke up shivering to a brisk 34 degree morning. Predictably, Ann disappeared back under the covers as soon as she heard the sleet hitting the Airstream. There were also snowflakes falling, which I didn’t mention because I didn’t feel the need to make matters worse. GAME OVER for Ann today. That leaves me with a decision about what to do with my day. While I was deciding whether to settle into a book or have another cup of coffee (most likely both), I noticed some commotion behind us. Directly behind us, down the hill slightly, is a tent site, which was empty last night. Suddenly I wasn’t bored anymore, because I was intrigued with the poor father setting up the tent there .
The tent sites at this campground are extremely nice. Generously sized, compacted, smooth, level pads with a single weatherproof outlet close by, a firepit, and a picnic table. They are a short walk from the parking area for tent campers. David and Peter set up camp when we were here a few years ago and the sites were perfect. Close to the bathrooms, sheltered from the wind, and they offer some privacy.
However, this morning, there was not nearly enough privacy to hide the spectacle of this unfortunate father’s project.
The morning started with the not so gentle slamming of car doors in the near distance, just out of sight through the dense pine trees. The first up the little hill was Mom and Dad, dragging expensive hard-cased suitcases through the pea gravel trail to the site. The young family, with two daughters and one son, all appearing to be under the edge of ten, lugged all of the suitcases and several large new-looking weatherproof bags to the edge of the tent site.
The kids immediately split off in different directions, with the girls picking their favorite suitcases upon which to sit and scroll through their phones, plugged in to the single outdoor outlet like umbilical cords, while the boy donned what must have been Dad’s also new-looking large raincoat and proceeded to find good sticks with which to swat objects in the nearby trees and to engage in swordplay with imaginary foes in epic battles.
Mom must have had tummy issues as she disappeared quickly to the local facilities to take care of business. We can certainly relate.
This left Dad on his own to set up camp.
Over the next hour, Ann and I were captivated.
The unfolding alone was a fairly massive undertaking. Dad poured the contents of the largest bag out on the ground and approximately 200 cubic yards of lightweight blue and grey material slowly and with the faintest of light whispers, slumped out on to the center of the tent site.
Dad picked what looked like it might be a corner (it was not) and proceeded to drag it toward the edge of the site. The whole wad followed, effectively shifting the position, but not the shape, of the lump of tent towards the edge.
This was repeated several times, as Dad desperately sought out a side, any side, to start actually unfolding this mess.
He finally found one side and was able to repeat the process four times, revealing the potential of seeing what the final size of the tent might be. And it was huge. At least 12ftx12ft.
And it was upside down.
Flipping it over proved to be easier than the original unfolding, but not by much. With two people, each could have grabbed a corner and walked it backwards toward the other side, then repeated the process with the two other corners. By himself, he had to pick a single corner to drag backwards, and we watched as the tent did not gently and calmly fold back upon itself, rather, it simply revealed yet unseen layers of thin blue and gray material, with no apparent marking or seams to indicate if a true corner was present or if we were looking at a door or a side. Additionally, the opposite corner also pulled along, with the result being a roughly tent shaped pile of material with no defined corners any longer.
15 laps around the tent pile later, and dad was able to get the corners in the right spots, the right side up, and the door facing the right direction.
Success!
But, it was still a two dimensional tent, and tents really need to be three dimensional to be comfortable.
Out came another bag. This one made odd rattles and muted clanks as he worked to untie the little knot at the top. Once untied, he turned the bag over to dump it in the ground, and while a few tent poles started to slide out, they were all effectively one unit joined by elastic strings down the middle and caught up in each other. After much bag shaking and muttering under his breath, the bag puked out a thick bundle of loosely but at the same time doggedly connected fiberglass sticks.
The separation of piles of sticks in to smaller piles of sticks, while dad knelt on his knees in the apparently moist gravel by the pad, took another 15 minutes. All it required was a single loop of stubborn elastic to foil the separation attempts, and unwinding the connected 3’ long sticks sometimes ended up re-winding previously separated components. I felt dad’s pain.
I should mention that at many times throughout this entire ordeal, dad looked over to the kids or to see if mom was back, in order to ask for help with the other end of something, but alas, he was on his own.
Now that the tent poles were segregated into individual piles, which dad wisely spaced very far apart to avoid a spontaneous re-entanglement, he began the process of identifying the little loops, hooks, Velcro straps, and tunnels in the wispy, square shaped, tent fabric pile.
He selected a pile of tent poles and began fitting them to one other to form a very long and wobbly single pole. As he carefully threaded one end of the pole in to the selected loop, tunnel, or hook in the tent pile, the forward, inch-worming motion of the beginning of the pole often left the rest of the pole lagging behind, causing separation and no end of reversing course to let the laggard pole sections catch up.
There were four, tent-width spanning poles to be deployed. Two different lengths. Poor Dad got each one in the wrong place on the tent, leading to a slow motion removal of the poles, which caused the same separation issues as before, but this time, the separated ends were shrouded in tent material loops, forcing dad to try to manipulate the pole sections back together without pinching tent material in between. He was mostly unsuccessful in this approach, but at this point, determination and sheer willpower propelled him forward.
Finally, after much shifting, re-routing, adjusting, bending, and not a little bit of quiet cursing, the tent stood, proud, strong, and almost ready for its inhabitants.
Ann observed that they had better get working on the rain fly, as clouds were moving in.
Sure enough, the first drops started to fall about that time. Mind you, it had been overcast all morning and while not windy, the temperature stood at about 45°. It was not ideal conditions for tent erection.
As it turns out, the rain fly also had two bags, and also employed dad’s favorite style of tent stakes. So, while the rain misted down and the rest of the family waited in the car, dad wrestled through the same process for the rain fly. With the practice from phase one, you would be justified in thinking that the rain fly would go much faster. You would be incorrect. While simpler in construction, the rain fly had the added complication of needing to be installed on top of the tent, which stood 6-7’ off the ground and spanned about a 14’ square. As dad got one side prepared, we would watch as the partially assembly rain fly would slowly but surely slide off the opposite side of the tent while dad was bending down to assemble posts. He would stand back up to see the fly assembly canted down across the back of the tent, and his shoulders would slump. He would set down the pole or rope or whatever was in his hands, take a deep breath, look skyward for a moment, and then proceed to slide the fly back up in to position so he could finish.
At long last, the tent was assembled, and magically, the rest of the family appeared and piled in to the tent with the aforementioned suitcases, bags of gear, food, and trailed an extension cord from the tree mounted electrical outlet in to the grand palace of a tent.
Dad went for a long walk.
Update: About four hours later, the rain had really picked up, and midday, dad was back out again, this time stretching a separate tarp across the top of the tent, as apparently, the rain fly was not doing its job. I watched this poor fella drag the tarp across one side, just to have it come all the way across and fall to the ground. He finally got it in place and tied it off to a couple of the aspens you see close by, only to see him clothesline himself on a final lap around the tent. At this point, I am ready to invite them all in to the camper to warm up for a bit, except I am pretty sure I just heard the car drive away.
TaterTotTales 