OK Jonna, until I remarried, and after the kids all left, I camped by the theory that if you did not use somehing two trips in a row you should get rid of it. I scaled my camp down to two wooden boxes and a wedge tent with break down poles that I could carry around in my little mini-hotrod. The "big camp" went into my Ranger and I could see over the load through the rear view mirror.
This weekend I filled the F-150 to overflowing and I was still in trouble! No one told me that central Ohio was north of the artic circle! It's the end of June and temps went into the high fourties at night !!!!! Felt like it anyway!! I would have killed for a good capote at 10:00 Friday night.
I didn't take the feather bed! No one needs a feather bed at the end of June, right? If the feather bed gets wet in the truck it's ruined, and it's June and temps should be in the 70s at night, right? We don't need no stinkin' feather bed!!
4 am Saturday, my sweet little wife rolls over, places her hands around my throat and shakes me awake. In a voice that resembles something from the exorcist she informs me that "This air bed is sucking the life out of me!!!!!".
At that point I was pretty sure I was in a little trouble.
The fact was that I had noticed the bed was a bit chilly but there was little I could do about it since I had only brough one heavy blanket and one light weight blanket. Now I am not adverse to using a lot of covers. At the Southeastern, in April, we slept with 38 lbs of blankets on us, honest, 38 lbs!!! But this is the Old Northwest, at the end of June, we're supposed to be suffering from the heat, right?
I spent the morning keeping the fire built up. All that wood chopping makes you warm and keeps your blood running so I wasn't suffering much from the frost bite. All this time my sweet little wife (she's really a very nice person when she's warm) is sitting with her feet actually in the flames (she said that was the only way they would ever get warm again) mumbleing over and over, "he left my feather bed at home, he actually left my feather bed at home!!"
I apologized profusely, and she assured me that it really wasn't my fault, I was from TN and we didn't know about cold weather.
Now TN has some cold weather. We get snow, sleet, ice, temps down to -40 during my lifetime. It just happens during the WINTER!!! THIS IS THE END OF JUNE!!!!
My mind went into overdrive. I am now working to save the institution of marriage in general and my life in paricular. I brought the sheepskins for the chairs. We put them on the chairs to make them soft and warm but we can use them as insulation, and there's the emergency blanket behind the seat of the truck!!!
Night 2 was almost comfortable, survivable anyway, and it warmed up enough to rain on night three (rather than the snow they had expected).
I have learned a valuable lesson, several in fact. 1)Do not spoil your wife and then remove her comfort items. 2)Some things (she says her feather bed is one of them) you just do not leave at home. 3)I need a bigger truck.
