Yeah, it sure is raining pretty hard up here in Massachusetts tonight. The conditions remind me of a camping trip two years ago this May. We had driving rain and relatively high winds for both Friday and Saturday nights that we camped. The only savior was that the sun came out for about 4-5 hours on Saturday during the day, and the sun and wind allowed the boys to dry out some of the soaked gear from Friday night, so they could start dry on Saturday night again, when the pouring rain returned in earnest.

I recall spending about 30 minutes Friday night in the wee hours, (actually I think it was Saturday morning) reattaching rain fly's and tarps that had partially blown off some of the tents. It was tough, because my tent was ok, and I really didn't want to go out there, but, I woke up when something started whacking the side of my tent, pretty violently. It was a rain fly that had detached from a nearby tent except for one or two guy points, so it was just flapping in the wind, and spanking the side of my tent. When I finally got out of my nice warm sleeping bag, put on my rain gear, and went out to check it, I saw that half of my troop's tents were in similar disarray. Fortunately, one of the other adults must have heard me out there trying to pull things together, and he came and helped.

Starting a fire on those nights was a real trick, although once the boys got the idea of actually splitting the wood, it went a lot better. It turns out that there's a lot of dry stuff out there, under the bark, even in driving rain. The tinder is a little harder to find, but, birch bark has always been like gold in those situations. I also always have a couple of 6 inch mini starter logs with me when we go, just in case. If I light one of those, I have about an hour of flame that should be enough to get a rip roaring fire going, even when most of the fuel is damp.

Meanwhile, it's school vacation week, and my son has 3 extra boys sleeping over tonight, maybe I should make then all go out back and set up my son's tent? No, their parents would probably find some attorney to throw me in jail. (Now, if they were all in my Scout Troop, I might just try it!)