Ending day

As the sun went down I drove over to the parking lot where I would spend the next night guarding the 4th of July celebratory wares.

Home sweet home

This was my fortress, and where I would be sleeping, right smack dab in the middle of a parking lot.

enter yea mortals

Yes that's right, no mossy earth or grassy plains for me. Concrete is the was to go!

What a view

This was definately a city worthy tent, it had lights wired up and around the support poles in the ceiling.

Not alone

I undertook this task with two other non sf0 collaborators, who unfortunately are notoriously camera shy, and who wished to remain anonymous. So the first thing we did was set up some air mattresses to make the tent more cozy.

the strangeness

It was so bizarre, because there were no coverings on the floor, you could see the parking lot spaces and car oil stains right next to your head while you were laying. Definately no wilderness here. Sleeping in and literally on a parking lot is quite an interesting experience.

Snuck a picture

Here is one of my collabotators, hiding under the covers. A fat lot of help she was. As soon as her bed was made she went right to sleep and stayed that way all night.

A mishap

My group and I hit a snag early on, when we realized that there were three of us, but only two beds. Luckily we had brought along some of those collapsable chairs.

Inginuity at work

with some blankets and pillows we made the two chairs into a fairly comfortable resting place, in which I volunteered to sleep in, wanting to stray as far away from nature as possible.

cozy

There I am, all snug as a bug in a rug.

take that

To fully defy nature I felt that I should use some electricity, which is nowhere to be found in the wilderness. I attached this little lamp to an extension cord running to a nearby building, and used it's cheerful light to read, and work on some cross stitching. My own little campfire. Too bad I couldn't roast marshmallows over it, although it did zap a bug or two that snuck into the tent, much to my amusement.

ever vigilant

Since we were there, after all, to guard the fireworks from padfoots, me and my third collaborator decided to take shifts of watchfulness. I volunteered to guard first, and in the wee hours of the morning, she took over while I went to sleep. Did I mention how useless the other person was? She just snored away all night.

Almost full moon

In the spirit of spooky things-that-go-bump-in-the-night, I went for a little stroll around the tent, after hearing some very unnerving noises. Of course right before this I had been reading a scary part of my book. We had a metal bat with us, for protection, and I was swinging it lazily around, when a cat streaked right across my path and dove under a car! Needless to say I needed a few moments to regain my normal heart rate. Man, these wild critters are fearless. I wish I could have gotten a picture of the cat, as it was obviously a stray, but my camera was back in the tent.

FEAR NOT!!

So after that I decided that it was probably best I stayed in the tent. After all, in most horror movies the viewers always scream "Don't leave the tent!". And after all, I had quite an impressive ally with me. This is Mister Jingles, and he is my vicious guard reindeer. Just the meer sight of him is enough to send most evil things fleeing in a state of panic, and he is so smartly dressed too.

Aaah, falsey goodness

Whilst staring blankly at the ceiling for a while, I noticed that the roof of the tent had several small pinprick holes in it. This was at about four in the morning, and when the sun was rising, the light came through and made the holes look like little blue stars. It felt very campy and authentic then, because what's a camping trip without stars?

Exhaustion

After a while I was pretty tired, so I woke my fellow collaborator, and let her take the next shift while I got some shuteye. About for or five hours later we all had to get up, cause the day shift workers had come to open the tent, and were kicking us out. I wanted to get a glorious picture of the rising sun,but it was much too cloudy.

Hell on metal wheels

There was an unforseen disadvantage to sleeping in the city. While in nature one has to contend with troublesome bears coming around and mucking things up. In the city, one has to worry about the ruthless trains.

Train X-ing

Yes that's right, TRAINS! The tent was set up literally one block away from a train track, and every hour or so, a train would come roaring through our campsite. The noise was deafening, and was very difficult to sleep through, believe you me. I walked over the next morning to take a picture of the pathway of this encumbersome beast, and shake my fist at it, which was quite a useless gesture.

Would I do it again?

Overall the experience was quite interesting. It took a while to get used to the painted parking lot lines being right near my sleeping quarters. I can certainly say that it was a very strange feeling. Staying up late helped me to get into the feeling of camping right in a rural setting, and after that night me and Mr.Jingles went home for some well earned rest. Sleep eyes.