May 4, 2013

Saturday was the annual tent sale at Sojourn.  This is a great sale where they have a lot of the big companies at the store and in the parking lot showcasing their tents – Big Agnes, MSR, Marmot, Mountain Hardware, Sierra Designs, Eureka.  It was great to be able to compare Big Agnes, MSR and Marmot tents all in once place and talk to the reps from the companies.  I had been doing a lot of research on the tents and had basically decided between the Big Agnes and the MSR tents.  When we could see them up close and personal, we decided that the Big Agnes was the winner.  Both tents were really good, Big Agnes was slightly lighter which meant we could buy the Thermarest cots for added comfort and still come in under 15 lbs each for camping gear.

We decided to buy the Thermarest cots for added comfort, but didn’t buy the Thermarest mattresses.  We decided that we would try the cots first without the mattress and see how warm/cold they would be.  We set them up in the basement with a sheet covering the cot and using the Thermarest Down blanket on top.  We could really feel the coolness of the concrete basement floor and felt quite chilly from underneath.  Decision made, we would buy the Thermarest Pro light for extra comfort.

Of course sleeping in the basement also left us at the mercy of our cat, Oliver, who is not allowed in our bedroom.  At about 4:00 in the morning Oliver decided that he would join us in the basement, of course at that time in the morning (according to Oliver) everyone needed cleaning.  Being woken up by a cat’s tongue on your forehead is not the nicest way of being woken up – so I moved down the cot a little bit, this is exactly what Oliver wanted, because now he had my camp pillow to sleep on.  However he didn’t quite have enough room so spent the next few minutes wrapping himself around my head until he was comfortable – needless to say I wasn’t very comfortable.  Then the purring started a deep rumbling from his body which seemed to reverberate around my ears.  Why I allowed this to happen I am not sure, I could just as easily have shoved him off the cot (they are only about 5 inches of the ground) but no I didn’t do that I allowed myself to be uncomfortable for another couple of hours while Oliver snored happily away wrapped around my head like a giant ginger tea-cosy.