Who Wants to Win a Hammock?

[chefkeith]

Tons of good stuff here!!!

One of my more memorable moments was camping as a child with my parents on a road trip through the Smokey Mountains. We were camping in an old, canvas, conestoga-looking tent. We were hit by a torrential downpour that quickly turned into flash flooding. Soon, water was flooding into the tent (we were even on an elevated tent box!), and I was splashing around inside the tent like it was the coolest thing ever!

We ended up packing everything up in the van and driving to a roach-ridden motel at 1 or 2 in the morning. We slept in our sleeping bags on top of the beds there. And I remember water splashing on my feet when I was using the bathroom sink. After closer inspection, it was due to the fact that the bathroom sink drained into a 5 gallon bucket!!

It was the best family vacation I can remember, and I will always think back fondly to that day and the adversity we faced as a family.

And I'm heading to the FB page now, but I can't comment or "like" it because I'm not on FB. I will certainly check it out, though.

Thanks to all for sharing their stories, and thanks to Thom for the giveaway!!!!

[dirkomatic]

Some great stories... So much more experience than I have, but I would definitely like to try my hat at winning a "Thommock."

I learned to always pitch a tarp over my hammock, no matter the weather, one night in my back yard. I was setting up my hammock and helping my son set his up as some practice for an upcoming Boy Scout overnighter. We decided we would go ahead and spend the night out there once they were set up... Since it was a practice session, we both set up our tarps. Everything went well and we were both sound asleep... I was awakened by a loud "splat" on the tarp. I climbed out of the hammock, put on my shoes and got out from under the tarp. I shined my headlamp on the tarp directly over the area where my head had been seconds earlier and saw a huge smear of glistening salmonella special bird $41t. Had I not decided to practice setting up the tarp, that would have been all over me... So, to this day, I always set up a tarp, no matter the weather.

[MasonJD]

Sure I'll play. Memorable camping moment: My wife (fiancee at the time) went camping together for the first time in Northern CA. We couldn't have picked a worse weekend - it rained nonstop the entire time. But we made the best of it and enjoyed the time together outdoors. We even managed to keep a fire going (thanks to a well hung tarp). Ever since then we've been careful to check the weather before packing the car and heading out.

Thanks for hosting this!

[Comet_Seeker]

So my story begins long before I knew anything about hammock camping, when most sleeping bags were regular rectangles (tied in bundles with shoelaces), and I probably couldn't tell a rainfly (creepy water bug?) from a footprint (sasquatch?)

It was the summer after high school graduation, entering the world of broke college student on a ramen diet. I was working at a posh, all girls camp. We're talking parents drop their kids off at the dock, waving by from their yacht. And then a month later, picking them up to take them to the local hanger to fly home in the jet. So spending a month in a cabin with shower stalls and one locker is extreme roughing it for these girls. And as much fun as it was living full time with a bunch of pre-teen "royals", it was nice for us counselors to get away every now and then on our time off. Each week we got 1 mid-day off, 1 late night, 1 evening and 1 day. And then once a month, we got a full overnight out of camp with no kids!

Mid day time off = rushing down the road to grab an orangeade and burger and rushing back for afternoon work
Late/short night = driving to the nearest Walmart just because
Evening = dinner/movie/putt putt
Day = BEACH! (although there weren't as many attacks back in those days to worry about)

And as for the overnights, well you either coughed up the money for a hotel (that a lot of us didn't have) or you raided the staff supply closet for used camping gear to borrow. Can you guess which one my 2 friends and I did? We decided spur of the moment to go tent camping on the beach. I was in charge of gassing up the car, one friend gathered food/clothes, and the other grabbed the camping supplies. Whelp, it turns out you can't just go out on any old beach in NC and pitch a tent at random. So we chose the next closest option, a beachfront campgrounds. For $15, we were given a pad between two RVs running on generators for the night. How lucky are we?! But life is about the journey and experience.

Well we gained a lot of experience. For example, it's preferred to set up your tent when you arrive at your site, rather than waiting until after dark. You should also make sure prior to your trip (beach = 1hr drive with ferry) that you have all necessary gear. An example would be, when you grab the tent bag and feel the rigid long pieces, don't assume everything is there. It may be that the particular tent bag you grabbed did not actually include any poles, but just stakes. And if the bag is a bit roomy, it might be missing the ground tarp and/or rainfly. We could have just thrown in the towel at that point, but figured we'd just see how things went (I mean the night had been an adventure and fun up to this point). We staked out the tent, because we had plenty of stakes. Then we placed our sleeping bags (the big flannel rectangle ones) right on top of the tent. When we looked up at the stars, we realized there were no stars because the entire sky was filled with clouds. So to re-cap: no poles, no rainfly, no protective mesh from bugs, between two RVs/not on the beach, and the sky looked like it would open up to downpour any minute. There were no such things as smartphones to look up weather prediction. Apparently it's something you should do when planning ahead of time. We took our chances, figuring if we felt it start to rain, we would squeeze back in our car and sleep there. After laughing about the whole adventure and taking those silly quizzes you find in the cosmo magazines, we rolled over to our backs to attempt some sleep. That's when we saw the clouds had completely cleared and we had a beautiful site. The RVs eventually turned off most of their running power and we could hear the waves on the other side of the dunes. It was one of the most memorable camping trips I've ever been on.

[nooma]

On one trip I had fallen asleep on my side, and woke up to hear a rustling noise that sounded about 2 feet from my head. I could have sworn I heard a snort, and some nosing through the leaves. I was super scared a hog had wondered into camp. With the way my head was turned I had a fabric wall in front of me and couldn't see anything. I laid there for a good 15 minutes frozen solid and sweating bullets. The whole time I kept hearing the noise. Finally have feeling like things were a little off I lifted my head, and nothing was there. Turns out the fellow camper a few feet away was tossing and turning and the sound of their movement is all I was hearing. Scared the crap out of myself for no good reason.

[Stubby]

I don't have any great narrative, or incredibly funny story like I've read here, but I once hit a deer with my mountain bike.
I was riding down a converted (to single track) logging road. It was a wide, and steep hill. That means speed, so I ripped it (no brakes). I saw a doe in the middle of the trail shortly after I reached top speed. I saw the deer. She saw me.............She was 75 yards, maybe? I yelled, and managed to wave (so fast). SOOO fast!..........................................She STILL didn't move.................shouting, and waving at the last ten yards I bailed off the back of the bike (like a pro I might ad), and 'tossed' the bike forward. I hit the ground, and started running toward the action trying to slow myself down. The bike sailed much faster, and hit the doe as she turned to run......My adrenaline got me up the next two hills like they were nothing.

[kev138]

I live in St. Augustine fl and the backside of my neighborhood butts up to a water management area, Moses creek, which has some nice hiking and biking trails a group camp site and a primitive camp site. After checking it out on my moutian bike i decided to hike in and spend the night at the primitive site. I figured out where to pick up the trail in my neighborhood, parked my car, and hiked in. Where i pick up the trail is alonga power line clear cut, and then the trail veers off from the there. This hike is neat because if all the different types of terrain you cover in just a few miles. There is old growth oaks and willows, the powelines (which have huge ospery nests on them),then you are practically hiking through peoples back yards, back into the woods, through a controlled burn area that is now just full of palmetto bushes (it's a florida thing, if you've ever hiked here you kniw what i mean), then new growth pine tree area, back into old growth oaks, and finally you come out to the banks if the intercostal waterway ( a tidal water flats- salt water river that runs out to the ocean). So i get there set up camp and start getting ready to cook some dinner. I hear something behind me turn around, look ,and there not even ten feet away is a good sized bobcat walking through my campsite. I stop, he stops. I look at him, he looks at me. Like an idiot i go psss, psss, psss, like I'm calling a house cat ir something. He twitches his ears, decides i'm to big to eat, and to stupid to be a threat, and casually santers away into the woods. After I finnished eating I checked down by the water next to the campsite and saw his paw prints all over the place. I guess he went there to hunt or fish and wasn't going to stop because of me. Was the closest I've ever been to "dangerous wildlife". Except snakes and Snakes don't count to me, i leave them alone, or push them off the trail with a stick. Went back to that site a couple of weeks ago, but no sign of mr. Bobcat.

[Thom]

Contest is officially over.

[Thom]

Congratulations to BananaHammock for winning the Thommock giveaway contest!
I would like to say thank you to everyone that posted their story. I loved reading every one of them!

Thanks,
Thom

[BananaHammock]

Thank you! And great job creating the story idea rather than a "I'm in" contest. This was very enjoyable and winning is just an awesome bonus.