Wild Wonderful West Virginia

This past weekend we headed back to our new favorite hideaway in the woods, in Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia.  Nestled in the trees on a peak near Spruce Knob Hill, in a small, circular clearing, is a fabulous and very private campground.  No, I'm not telling the name of it, either!  We have to have **some** secrets, you know!  It is technically a group camp, with three large sites capable of accommodating 20 people each, so the two of us had plenty of room to stretch out and enjoy ourselves.

We had been just two weeks before, and while that weekend had been something of a disaster, at least by external appearances (it rained the WHOLE time, our tent zipper broke, meaning we had a flooded tent that filled up with bugs and we had to sleep in the car, and all our clothes and towels got drenched, and no sun with which to dry them!) we were anxious to get back and try again.

First order of business was to buy a new tent.  I had been shopping around for a gazebo or screen room tent, hoping to purchase one of those in addition to our sleeping tent, but we couldn't find any that had a floor.  Considering every stinging and biting insect on the planet features Justin on its Favorites list for tasty snacking, this was not an option.  We visited three different sporting goods and department stores before finding the most awesome tent EVER... which we promptly dubbed the Slug, aka Jabba the Hut (get it?  Heh heh.)

We tried to set the thing up in our (small studio) apartment, only to find out that we didn't even have enough room to roll the thing out.  It was still hard to believe it was really going to be that big -- 20' x 10' is a pretty large footprint -- and I was privately a little nervous about setting it up in the dark, since the instructions made it clear that this was a two-person job.  Of course, the box also claimed a 10-minute setup time, so how hard could it be?

Actually, not hard at all, considering we put it up in the dark easily, and both of us had been awake for 24 hours by that time.  But... it sure was worth it!  The tent space can be divided between bedroom and sitting room, which we did.  It has great energy and we were thrilled!  Justin named the space the Reading Rainbow Room, and like the Jabba name, it stuck.

There is plenty of room in the Reading Rainbow Room for our table, chairs, books, drums, and pretty much anything.  It's all earthiness now, but next time we'll check out the lunar aspects of the space.  This time... we just mostly enjoyed the heck out of it!

Once we were all set up, we were ready for anything, even rain!  Of course, it didn't rain until Friday night, and then for only about 45 minutes, during which time we just hung out in our snug little Jabba, listening to the rain and thunder!

Oh wait... there's video of that! (Of course...)

And then, after the rain....

The bedroom space is really nice.  Here's a picture, taken from inside the RRR.  We had the vent "window" open to air things out -- it wasn't stuffy as long as we made sure there was a path for airflow -- and it was an inviting place for lounging. And stuff.  

Note that both our yoga mats fit on either side of the bed!  And yes, that is a queen sized mattress.  :)

Finally, here is a video showing the inside of the tent in all its spacious glory!