Tent Life

F6 camp
Luxurious Living (taken at 11 PM)
View From My Tent

Many of you may be wondering what life in a tent is like.  You, like myself before this trip, have probably gone camping and "roughed it" for a weekend or two.  Although there are no campfires or roasting marshmallows, we have all the candy bars you could ever want, and then some.  Living in a tent down here is much like a weekend of camping, well maybe a little different given the 24 hours of sunlight and below freezing temperatures.  Although the air temperature has gotten a little warmer, around 32 F or slightly above.  The tent that I'm using is a typical four season, all weather tent.  It does a great job of retaining heat on the warmer, sunnier days, but when it's cloudy and cold, I'm buried deep in my sleeping bag with it fully zipped over head.  Along with the down sleeping bag, the two inflatable sleep pads keep me up and off the rocky surface below.

When I turn in for the "night", I tend to sleep in spurts of three to four hours.  Waking up to a bright tent and not knowing what time it is, only to find its only three in the morning and I'm happy I can go back to sleep for a little longer.  When it was really cold my alarm clock would often freeze, so I had to put it in a wool sock and keep it off the cold floor.  I also had a more unique type of alarm clock...There is the occasional helicopter fly by in the morning.  I've become friends with some of the pilots and they know my tent at camp, so a close fly by always makes me spring out of my sleeping bag and after the initial shock, a good laugh follows.  Think Top Gun and Maverick requesting a fly by, but without radioing and hot coffee spilling.  It's so loud and windy I feel like my tent will rip loose from its tie downs.

Which brings to mind another factor in tent life, the wind.  Lately it has been calm at night with only a light breeze causing my tent to flap.  However, a few weeks back, every couple of days it would be howling like crazy, in the 40 mph range.  Lucky for me, I'd secured my tent to rocks, heavy rocks, in a circle around my tent.  Once I tied down to a rock I put more rocks on top for good measure.  We couldn't drive stakes in the ground because it was frozen solid from the deep winter freeze, so rocks were the next option.  It helped my tent from blowing away, but not from shaking and flapping all about.  I'd often go to sleep at night, with a fear of waking up to my tent ripping loose and blowing away with me in it.  Maybe a little far fetched, but it was windy enough for you to think that.  

Besides sleeping in my tent, I'll do a bit of reading or a few sketches to wind down for the day.  There's even a weak internet connection in my tent, but it is sporadic.  I don't bring my computer to my tent for that reason, and I don't want it to freeze of course.  I've been living the tent life for a little over a month and have no complaints.  I'll be heading back to Mactown after Christmas for New Years.  It will be nice to have a warm shower (I get one a week currently and a shower consists of a warm bag of water), do some laundry, and sleep in a dark room.  The Ice life is great and I can't believe my time here is already halfway done.  How does that saying go again??  Oh yeah..."Time flies when you're having fun!"