Another great hang in the books. Friday night's meal was great, with an overnight low of 21* F. Saturday breakfast and lunch were also great, but the really impressive part started around dinnertime Saturday night. A hellacious rainstorm, the worst I've ever seen in the Pine Barrens moved in, and it immediately started wreaking havoc, tearing out tarp stakes and exposing the quilts to torrential rain. Krust and Y Not both went home after getting their insulation soaked. Tigglet's Chill Gorilla Fortress tarp turned out to be an absolute joke of a tarp (caveat emptor), leaking everywhere, but luckily someone had a spare tarp for her to borrow. When buying a $20 or $40 Amazon tarp, expect $20 to $40 worth of performance!
As the storm grew in intensity, there wasn't much to do but go to bed, so everyone had headed to the hammocks by about 10:30 pm. Many did not fare well. For the first time probably ever, SilentOrpheus and njredneck were driven to ground, sleeping in njredneck's army surplus tent for what must have been a miserable night. Many others were driven to sleep in their cars; the storm was just too much.
I only had to walk about 15 yards from njredneck's tent to my hammock, but I got soaked in that short distance. While my HG Winter Palace tarp had stayed in place, the driving rain had gotten my quilts and hammock wet, and the inside of the tarp was soaked with condensation. Nevertheless, I just kicked off my shoes, placed them in the Sidecar of my Chameleon, and went to sleep with all my clothes on, wet as they were. Luckily, the low was only 31* and I had my HG hydrophobic down 0* quilts, so I stayed warm (though I was still wet in the morning).
And then morning broke, and we saw how bad the storm had actually been. While camp43 had setup Friday night in a perfectly dry spot, he woke up Sunday morning to about 8 inches of water underneath his hammock. Upon seeing his predicament, I hear he uttered, "Oh My God" in amazement. There he is sleeping comfortably in his hammock on Lake Geoffrey (named after him).
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Camp43 was able to borrow some Wellington boots, and wade out in Lake Geoffrey to pack up his hammock.
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While most had gone home by that time, the fun had just begun for Cranky Bear because he locked his keys in his car, with the car running. The code to unlock his door was stored on his phone, also locked in the car. Calls were made to Ford to try to gain the default factory code, to no avail. Monkeynono had a Jimmy kit, but the metal thingies weren't long enough to reach the lock/unlock button. So CrankyBear went around asking if anyone had a coat hanger. Nobody had a coat hanger.
After an hour or so, fallkniven didn't want to miss the excitement, so he wandered over to CrankyBear's car. While the metal thingie Jimmie tool wasn't long enough to reach the unlock button, fallkniven asked why they didn't just pull the handle and unlock the door. He was told in no uncertain terms that he was foolish for suggesting such a thing, that modern cars don't work that way. So fallkniven just got that Jimmy tool, pulled the handle, and opened the door! Crisis solved. Egos bruised, but crisis solved. Fallkniven should change his name to Simple Kind of Man - he doesn't overthink things.
Before leaving, camp43 and I were walking around camp checking to see if anyone had left anything. He tripped on something, looked down and picked it up.
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Would you believe it? It was a coat hanger. Too late to help out Cranky Bear, but it was pretty funny finding that coat hanger when it was no longer needed.
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Originally Posted by monkeynono
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