(The above picture at Cape Lookout was taken 3 days after our Stormy Stormy Night -- Our only day on the coast without rain - ignore the mosquito, please.)We arrived at Cape Lookout around 5:30 with the raining coming down solid. The young man at the check-in shack assured us that we did not want the campsite we had reserved. He invited us to look at the sites in Loop D and when we had selected the one we really wanted to come back.
After seeing our reserved one, we agreed. It was out in the open, no trees, the only thing separating it from the ocean was a 6 foot sand berm.
We toured Loop D which was back in the trees and pines. Most of the units which would accommodate our large tent were already flooded, but I saw one which looked very good. Back we went to the shack, got our reservations switched and returned to set up camp.
After backing in, Dale got out and found that the tent area was totally flooded. With some vexation at me, he located a better looking unit, then drove back to the guard shack.
“I couldn’t understand why you chose that unit,” the check-in man said. “That’s always the first one to flood.”
“Well, you could have told us sooner,” Dale replied.
“I’ve learned not to recommend camp sites to anybody,” he stated.
“Well, is there a site, that you know is perfect, that you are keeping underwraps until we discover it on our own?” Dale asked, very nicely, I might add.
“No, this one is a very good one,” he said and handed the paperwork through the window.
It was 6:30 and with the storm now raging -- quite dark. The wind was howling and the rain slanting sidewise. We sat in the car deciding what to do. How do you set up a 9X14 foot tent that has a mesh roof in the rain? The tent is a Coleman WeatherMaster, and is supposed to be great in all kinds of weather – which up til now had proven to be correct. But there were no instructions on how to set the thing up in a raging gale without getting the interior sopping wet.
So the plan was: Since we had just laid the damp tent on top of the stuff in the trunk, we wouldn’t have to unpack it. We would grab the poles, stakes and hammer and put them nearby. Then we would take the rainfly and tent both at once - each taking an end. Spreading it out as quickly as possibly on the ground, trying to keep the rainfly in proper position on top of the mesh. While Dale hammered in the stakes, I would snap the poles together and feed them through the correct pockets. By that time Dale would be ready to insert the side poles into the top poles and we would push it up, then quickly attach the hooks on the fly to the poles before it whipped away in the wind.
With the plan in place, we jumped out of the car and got to the task. All went smoothly until I couldn’t find the right pockets for the right poles. With the pancho blocking my vision and rain fogging my glasses, I couldn’t see a thing! Unknowingly I inserted the top vertical pole into the side vertical pocket! I became aware that Dale was yelling at me! He never yells at me!
“The red one! The red one!” he shouted.
I looked at the pole I was holding. It WAS the red one. “It IS the red one!” I yelled back.
“The red pocket!” he yelled.
“What do you mean, red pocket!” I yelled back.
“The pocket marked with red!” he hollered back.
“You’re being snotty!” I hollered back at him, and at the same time I found the top pocket, marked in red. I had never noticed that before. Sheepishly I pulled the pole out of the side pocket and inserted in into the red pocket. By now we were both soaked.
Then we heard another voice coming at us out of the storm. An interested and concerned RV neighbor had come out into the rain and was leaning toward us hollering.
“Shouldn’t you put a tarp under that?”
“It’ll be okay,” Dale hollered back. After all -- it was the Coleman WeatherMaster.
Totally convinced that we were rank amateurs the man hollered, “Do you need any help?”
“We’ll be okay,” Dale hollered back.
The now-soaked Samaritan ran back to his RV, and continued watching us struggle from the window.
Actually, the plan worked quite well, and aside from that one error on my part, the tent went up quickly in about 15 minutes from start to finish, and absolutely not one drop of water got inside!!
Because we had stopped at a restaurant in Seaside earlier in the afternoon and had eaten “real” food, we just made up our beds and settled down for the night. But I laid awake most of the night listening to the winds howl, and branches crack and fall around me – listening to the roaring of the ocean which I knew for sure was going to leap over the sand berm and swallow me up – and worrying about the bride at Acola State Park and her wedding reception.
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