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Keep your tent dry

First deer hunt years ago we stayed at Garner state park and it is beautiful ,we get there decide to set up tent put all the tent poles in me an my brother go to raise the tent up and every seam in it burst it was damp had not been used in about a year and had some sort of cavas rot smelled like old mildew, it was the funniest thing ever wish we had pictures needless to say we slept in the van but still had a great time always make the best of bad situation plus the park was wonderful and I shot my first doe on some friends property while we where down there . more stories to come I have camped since I was about 5 .... :}

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Comment by JR Hyden on June 22, 2009 at 10:24am: That happened to me a couple of months ago I do have a eureka dome tent that I used a couple of months ago thing is I loaned it out and it didnt come back with the rain fly so i used a tarp over the top froze at night baked in the morning and knew it was time to roll out of bed .

Comment by Sandra on June 22, 2009 at 3:57am: One time many years ago I thought it would be a great, lightweight, cheap idea to purchase one of those clear lightweight plastic painter's drop cloths/tarps and use it in place of my regular tarp that I normally use for rainy weather.
I was car camping with my brother, who camped only rarely. It rained, naturally, which is no big deal to me, so I threw the clear plastic painter's drop cloth over the tent and climbed inside, expecting to get caught up on things with my brother while we waited out the weather inside the tent.
Well, it started to get steamy and humid inside. The painter's drop cloth didn't allow the tent to breathe. It was probably fine for floors and never, ever let paint drip through to fine wooden or carpeted floors -- but it also never, ever let one drop of air into our tent either.
We opened the door just to get some air and noticed that on the inside of our drop cloth/tarp a ton of moisture had collected on the top of the tent -- and was making the tent thoroughly wet from the condensation. We were literally getting wet from the inside out.
So no, we did not get rained on, but boy did that tent get soaked -- from our own breathing! As if camping weren't foreign enough to my brother, he became wet, hot, and humid -- and miserable.
Needless to say, I'll never again buy a cheap plastic painter's drop cloth and try to use it as a makeshift tarp .
Sometimes it just doesn't pay to try to save a couple of dollars by using something for a purpose for which it is not intended, or by buying a cheap version of needed camping gear.

Comment by Sandra on June 11, 2009 at 11:23pm: I've learned this the hard way, too. Even after all of my years of camping, I still make mistakes -- but try to learn from them. It just takes being a little lazy on my part, or a little unaware, and it happens.

Comment by Russ Barber on June 11, 2009 at 3:41pm: At least you only had yourselves to blame. I lent a tent to a friend, after not using it for several years and the same thing happened to them. They ended up having to stay in a rented cabin and were not to friendly to us afterward. Moral of the story check your gear before heading out to camp or loaning it to a friend.