Perpetual Ruminations

Cold Weather Camp Out

Another cool and rainy day and soon I'll be heading to work, I was supposed to work tomorrow evening as well, but took the day off to finish getting things ready for camping. Rhonda will get home about six tomorrow evening, and I want everything ready to pack into the Jimmy except the food. I'm hoping to get an early start on Wednesday and should be arriving at the campsite early afternoon.

We had just reorganized our camping gear and this will give us a chance to try things out and see how well we did. It's also likely to be our last camp out of the year. We will be going to a state park in Minnesota, one we have never been to, with a lot of hiking trails and a couple of different lakes. I printed off maps of the hiking trails and the park earlier.

Being in the northern part of the state, the fall leaves should be in autumn colors and with all the maple trees, it's going to be a beautiful camping trip. The forecast is for sunny skies, dry, and cool days and cold nights. It's looking right now like upper fifties to lower sixties for the day and upper forties to lower fifties at night. I think this is the coldest weather we have camped in, except for our very first camping experience together.

That one turned out to be a flop, since we had gotten a bit wet in the evening of the first day out and that night the temperatures dropped below freezing. We didn't have any sleeping bags then, so we huddled and snuggled under a pile of blankets. We also didn't' have a mattress, so we slept on a few thick quilts.

The cold got us by about one in the morning. Actually, I had stayed covered pretty well, so I was doing pretty good, but poor Rhonda didn't have enough blankets and got even more chilled. Being a new couple, she didn't want to wake me and complain, so she tried to tough it out, but eventually the cold got to be too much for her. I was sleeping lightly, and soon became fully awake to her shivering and trying to snuggle closer.

Of course, I got her covered well and did my best to get her warmed up, but it was too little, too late. She couldn't get warmed up, so we ended up packing things up and heading back to her place. The car was close, so she sat inside with the engine running and the heater on while I took down the tent and got things ready to go. She helped pack things into the car and then we headed for her place. It took quite some time to get her warmed back up; she was likely beginning to suffer hypothermia.

This time around, we will have a nice air mattress under us to keep us off the cold ground. We also have a tarp for under the tent and then some outdoor carpet to put on the inside of the tent. We will be sleeping in two sleeping bags that zip together into one double sized bag, and we will have an extra large, heavy quilt along as well. We should be nice and cozy, but just in case, we will also have a propane tent heater with.

I should be in here for a bit tomorrow, then I'll likely not be able to log in until we return on Friday, or if it's late when we get back, Saturday before work.