I finally figured out how to handle the ridgepole. You see, my tent is like a giant pup tent. Really, really giant. It's 10 feet wide and 10 feet tall and 15 feet long, though it doesn't feel that huge when it's set up. The problem is that I drive a Prius, so 15 foot long pieces of lumber are not exactly going to fit in the car. I bought the world's cutest trailer, but it's rather less than 15 feet long inside, so the problem remains. The problem is how to join wood together so that it is both extremely rigid and easy to disassemble for travel. I used some more 2 inch thick poles (the same as on my beds) as the two uprights -- I just got some round pipe from a local muffler shop to use as a joint. However, the 2 inch poles were too saggy to make a good ridgepole -- I needed to use 2x4, turned on its side. The problem is that you can't get metal sleeves for 2x4 without paying a lot of money. However, you *can* purchase this neat angle iron stuff, that has lots of holes for mounting. So I picked two opposite corners of the 2x4 and screwed this angle iron onto it, making a sheath for the mating 2x4. It worked pretty well, until the first time we set up the tent. You see, it's impossible to believe how tall this tent is before you've set it up. So the first time we tried setting it up under a tree, and broke the joint on a low hanging branch. Damn. Back to the drawing board -- the angle bracket needed to be attached with bolts rather than screws (the screws had torn out and split the wood). But since I didn't want hex heads chafing against the canvas of my tent, we used carriage bolts. They worked great :) I will probably go back and replace the bracket material later -- they had some that was longer on one side so it will probably do a better job of holding my ridgepole steady. Not really an issue until it's windy, and then it's *THE* issue :)
The second time we set up the tent was much better. We hiked around the Seawood campus and found a different site out in the open. This time the setup was much smoother, and I have lots of photos :)
As you can see, I ended up beside a neighbor's apartment. (Which was too bad -- I spent the night in the tent and they woke me up at 1am dismembering a body. Or something completely innocent that just happened to involve a sledgehammer...)
It doesn't look that big until I get a photo of Dad standing in the doorway.
Then I had to get some shots of the interior, including our beds :)
The only problem came when it was time to pack the beds & tent into my trailer.
As you can see, it's a little overfull. I can't just tie the trailer shut, cause I'll make the hinges tear out from the plastic body :( I hope the mattresses on the bottom will settle and everything will fit. I'll probably end up resewing the mattresses (maybe this summer) so they're only 4 inches thick instead of 6 -- after a certain point what's important isn't how much straw is in the mattress, but how tightly packed it is. I think a 4 inch mattress very tightly packed would be more comfortable than a 6 inch thick mattress loosely packed, and it would be easier to manage (the mattresses are *heavy*!).
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