Shirley Bertholf

The last time we went camping, we stopped for gas at a local filling station and the attendant asked if we were moving!  That’s because, even though we love to go tent camping, we take as many conveniences with us as we can.

We load a trailer with lots of wood, several tables, a porta potty, a three burner propane stove, a gearbox turned into camp kitchen cabinet, our sleeping tent, a canopy tent for over the table and cooking area, and an Aero bed.

Yes, an Aero bed.  We like to be comfortable.  We don’t usually have electricity, so we bought a converter and always take along a lengthy extension cord so we can connect to our car battery.  That has extra benefits as well, since, as a self-employed business person with United First Financial,I can work from anywhere.   If I can power my laptop computer, we are then free to stay an extra day or two if the fancy strikes.

Well, last tent camping trip, my husband blew up our air mattress, but a few minutes later when he went to spread our Coleman sleeping bags over the top of it, it was totally flat!  Okay…try again, he thought.  Perhaps he didn’t quite get the cap closed properly.

Alas!  This time he heard the hissing sound…not a hole, mind you, but apparently one of the baffles had separated from the rest and couldn’t hold up its end of the bargain.  What to do?  We had paid for three nights at this camp site but, at our age, the hard ground was just not an option!

Well, we thought, let’s try duct tape!  It works for everything else.  We began applying pieces of duct tape over the offending baffle.  For a moment there, it looked like it might work.

Then we noticed an air bubble under the duct tape, growing larger and snaking toward the tape’s edge.  Okay then…let’s add another piece of duct tape to better seal the edge.  The bubble kept moving outward in its desperate attempt to escape.  No matter how many pieces of duct tape we used, the bubble managed to find its way to freedom.

It was obvious that our fancy-dancy bed was done for.  There was no hole to patch.  The entire infrastructure of the bed had given way.  Thankfully, some family members hauled cushions out of their camper, and we managed to finish the camping trip without too many aches and pains.  But we knew that before we could go tent camping again, another air mattress would be required.

After hours talking with friends, searching online, and reading reviews, we decided on a raised air mattress with a bit of memory foam on top and its own built-in pump.

It was delivered last weekend, and we have slept on it a couple of times to try it out.  We’ve added an old egg-crate foam topper we had in the attic and a mattress pad.  It’s not bad!

And now, we are very anxious to go camping again!  So, Sunday afternoon, we will be heading out to our favorite campsite upriver about twenty miles.  You just can’t keep a good tent camper down for long!

By the way, the reason we can go camping on Sunday afternoons when everyone else is returning home,  can have our pick of camp sites, and miss all the traffic and noise of the weekend is because I am my own boss!  With my United First Financial business, I can set my own schedule.   And that’s nice!