Week 8 Bingo

Tent pole breaks

Borrow something while camping

In Manistique Mi there was rain in the forecast, so at the campground Bliss asked if we could stay under the pavilion. The lady said that would be fine. But the pavilion was in a public parking area. Quite a few people drove up to go to the lake. So we waited to put up the tent. As it started getting dark most people left. There was one guy who parked his huge converted bus in the parking lot to stay the night. As we were putting the tent up he came over to talk to us. Right then the insertion point on one of the pole segments split and the pole wouldn’t stay up. We had brought electrical tape, but it wasn’t strong enough. So we borrowed some duct tape from the bus guy. We have crossed both of those off the list.

The story doesn’t end there though. The lights of the pavilion came on as it got dark, and stayed on all night. That was bad enough. Then a million bugs swarmed around the lights. In the morning our tent and the concrete of the pavilion were covered in ay flies. The kicker, it didn’t even rain. 

We went to the local ace hardware store. The little clamps we bought didn’t work. However, the plastic hose connector works great as a splint, and it’s fairly easy to put on and take off. Hopefully it will work for the rest of the trip.