Hi Everyone, I am Candice. I live in the Memphis area now. Originally from West Texas where there are few "real" trees. My first hammock experience was 1994 in the army. The hammock was in some words great and others horrible. It was what I now know as a "gathered" end hammock made of netting like a wide hole fish net. Unless you put your sleeping bag or poncho liner in it it was uncomfortable. Not to mention you had to hang it tight and high in the cedars just to be a few inches off the ground. Still it was better than laying on the ground. Finding a grove of live oak trees was a godsend in those days.

Flashing forward about a year and half ago, I finally went camping for the first time after my divorce 6 years previous. Got a new tent, used a cot and was totally uncomfortable, wet from condensation and freezing. I had bought a hammock to replace that old net hammock and tried it out the second night out that trip. I was totally in love with the Grand Trunk hammock. Learning through this forum to not pull it tight and lay in the diagonal I slept all night and didn't have pains. I have not looked back since that trip. Now I am backpacking with a tarp, hammock and down insulation that took a while to obtain financially. I can say honestly I will never go back to a tent. Even the experiment when I visited my daughter and used a tent with air pads in 7 degree weather was not as comfy or fun as the hammock.

I am glad there is this forum that I did learn some things from based on my army days so many years ago. Friends and acquaintances think I am crazy or that I will fall out of. I never have fallen out of the hammock. I have fallen over hammock into the under-quilt once. thinking in the dark I was about to get into the hammock and all I had was the UQ. I have since made my own Hammock that is even more comfy than the Grand Trunk. The Grand Trunk is is not the 11 foot it claimed but at 9.5 foot. The one I made is 11.5 feet, not as wide and more comfy. All thanks to the readings on this forum.

Thanks for being here folks.
Candice