PeirceBeckner813

My family really wanted to go camping last summer and decided we would go to Cape Henlopen so we could camp, visit the beach and fish all at the same place. Our children also really enjoy the hiking trails located throughout the park, which is perfect when they are tired of the boardwalk. Because it was off-season, we had the ability to get a camping site right away. We packed our camping gear, some hiking and fishing things and we were on our way. When we finally got there, we were amazed when we opened our tent to see large holes that were in it. We all questioned how this could happen till we realized we allowed our next-door neighbors to borrow our tent and they must have gotten caught in a storm one night. We, however, did not want to turn around and head home but we could not find a store that offered camping tents in Delaware that was within a 20-mile radius. It was then that we knew we needed to get imaginative.

Fortunately, we had brought several poly tarps for fishing and camping. With a lot of  resourcefulness and patience we began gathering branches, rocks and everything we  could possibly salvage from our old tent. It was then we took  stock of each and every poly tarp we brought to the beach. My husband had  thankfully brought every tarp he bought when our hardware store had poly tarps for sale. We had plenty of materials to make a tent and then some. While we knew it wasn't going to be the most attractive tent  on the planet, my family was happy that we were still camping.

We started by laying down two blue poly tarps on the ground to make sure we did not get any dirt or sand in our sleeping bags. Then we attached them to a brown poly tarp, and a canvas tarp using rubber tarp straps. We then protected the blue poly tarps to the ground with rocks and pegs that we still had from our old tent (not everything can be as nice as we had wanted). Finally we covered the whole thing with waterproof canvas tarps to keep the rain out. It wasn't pretty but it was stable and we might easily use it for a week after we used the rods and pegs from our old outdoor tent and some durable branches from around the camping spot. Then the storm came. I have never seen my husband fix anything as rapidly as he did when he threw duct tape on every blue poly tarp, hay tarp and rubber tarp strap after he heard thunder in the distance. Somehow he managed to secure every nook and cranny in the camping tent to ensure not even a drop of water could come into the tent. The next day we looked around us and saw that everybody else in the park had actually retreated to their cars after their outdoors tents had flooded that night. Our poly tarp tent, branches, duct tape and all, had actually stood victorious among the camp. hay bale cover