To sleep: perchance to dream

I love camping. It’s sleeping outside that I hate.
This might sound impossible, you say. How can you go camping without sleeping outside, you ask. Simple. I just don’t sleep when we camp. My tent mates – my husband and our daughter – burrow down into their sleeping bags and they’re gone in minutes. But over the years, I’ve become the self-designated, ever-vigilant campsite sentry.
As the moon moves across the sky, I lie in the tent, listening for sounds of animals that could eat us or at the least eat our Poptarts. As the night shadows create spooky shapes in the trees, I watch for intruders, tossing and turning uncomfortably. The minutes and the hours pass slowly and I rejoice at the first light of dawn, then the first bird song, then the first rays of the sun.
My camping insomnia started years ago. Our daughter was small and when it was time to sleep, she would wedge between us in the tent. By the time I was settled, she would have wiggled onto my side of the tent. The dogs would follow, curling themselves around my legs and at the small of my back.
We camped for a year in a Black Diamond Megamid, a spacious single-wall pyramid-shaped tent that sleeps four. Our final Megamid adventure was in the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness about three miles off the trail. We were camping at about 10,500 feet and we could see our breath. It started raining just as we began to set up camp, and it continued to rain and snow throughout the night. It didn’t take long for both dogs and my daughter to wedge themselves against me on one side of the tent’s unforgiving center pole. My husband sprawled comfortably on the other half.
In the morning, as we scraped ice off our sleeping bags (condensation from the night’s moisture); he said he was sold on the Megamid. “That thing is great!” he proclaimed. In the interest of camping unity, I didn’t say anything. But the next time we prepared for a camping trip and he pulled out the Megamid, I diplomatically said, “I’m not camping in that thing again….ever.”
He was stunned. The Megamid is a gearhead’s dream tent. It only takes about five minutes to set it up and it fits into a pack about the size of a loaf of bread. It is incredibly lightweight (about three pounds) and it’s a sturdy shelter against wind, rain and even snow.
I haven’t camped in the Megamid tent since then. Sometimes, when we go with a group, my husband sets it up for himself and one of our dogs. I stick to our trusty dome tent (a decade-old Taos), where I can wait the night out a little more comfortably.