I Forgot the Poles

During our very first camping trip as a married couple, my wife and I were excited to go to a campground and setup our tent. We pulled out the tent, the groundcloth, and the rainfly. Then, my wife asked, "Where are the poles?"

I couldn't believe I forgot the poles! We took them out of the tent bag the last time we used them to arrange the tent in our backpacks and I forgot to put them back in before this trip.

If there weren't a chance of rain we would have slept out in the open because it was a warm summer day. There was a chance of rain, though, so we had to think of something else.

Luckily we had purchased a large blue tarp for something else and had it in the trunk kof our car. I was used to using a tarp in place of a tent but my wife wasn't. For an easy anchor, I tied the tarp to the picnic table and we had a comfortable night under the tarp during our first camping trip as husband and wife.

We still laugh about that trip to this day!