That Time The Bottom of Our Tent Turned Into A Water Bed

Over Labor Day Weekend, Ryan and I drove out to the Berkshires to meet up with our good friends Lauren and Eliot. Lauren and Eliot have been hiking the Appalachian Trail (From GA to Maine) for a couple months now, and Ryan and I had plans to meet up with them in western Mass once they got there to camp together for a few nights!

Ryan and I on the way to Western Mass

We picked up our hitchhikers on the side of the road and decided to go pick blueberries on a nearby farm, stopping once we got close to 4 lbs. in our buckets! Afterwards, we drove into the little town and grabbed lunch at a local pub. 

The Mill across from our restaurant! 

Since it was Labor Day Weekend, and apparently all of New England goes camping this weekend, we had a really hard time finding a campground available. We drove all around, but ultimately found our temporary home at Fernwood Forest in Hinsdale, MA. 

 Once we picked out our campground, we set everything up and the boys went out the gather and chop firewood for the night!

About 2 hours into our camping adventure... it started to drizzle. And then it poured. We threw pretty much everything back into the car and hung out, trying to wait out the storm. We were determined to not let anything rain on our parade (including rain)!

 An hour or so later, we got tired of hanging out in the car and decided to bring the party into our tent and play some cards. It was about this time that we realized our tent was leaking and the inside was getting wet. The rain wasn't letting up so we threw in the towel and got a hotel room for the night in town. We ate Chef Boyardee's and played Euchre until we all passed out.

Sunday morning, we packed up the hotel and took a trip to Wal-Mart to pick up one of the biggest tarps they had.

After making sure we were prepared for anything (short of a zombie apocalypse), we headed back to the campground, where we spent most of the afternoon drying everything out and hanging the massive tarp from the trees to protect us from the rain on night 2!

The tarp after the boys set it up! Awesome! 

 Once the tarp was up, it was time to relax! Luckily, when it started raining last night, the boys thought to throw a small tarp over the firewood to keep it dry! We started a fire and got to work making hot dogs, biscuits on a stick, and bacon on a stick (which only worked for Ryan since he was the only one with the patience to cook it all the way through!). The campgrounds hosted a Bingo night which, of course, we HAD to go to! If you know me, you know I love Bingo, so I was all over that!

 The weather was pretty good until about 3 in the morning, when a MASSIVE storm came through and pretty much sat over us for the rest of the evening. There was so much rain, lightning, and thunder- but the tarp kept our tent pretty dry (which was the only dry-ish thing in the campsite the next morning)! Since our tent was set up on lower ground, the water drained right below and made us feel like we were sleeping on a water bed. Like, seriously.. SO. MUCH. WATER!

After a less than stellar night's sleep, we packed all of our soggy gear up and headed to breakfast in Pittsfield before dropping Lauren and Eliot off back where we picked them up on the trail! (They haven't missed a single step along the 2,200 mile trail.)

Trying to be as cool as our friends! 

 We miss them already but are so excited for them to finish up the trail and move back up to the New England area!

Off they go!

 We got back yesterday evening, which gave us just enough time to unpack, try to dry everything out, and make sure I was ready to start work the next day! That's right... this morning was my FIRST day of work at a primary school in Weymouth!

Before I left for work!

Today was awesome and I can't wait to fill everyone in after the week is over! Stay tuned!