The only thing that's really dumb (and they all seem to have this, now)
is the stupid "cooking port" that is purportedly the "chimney" for your
cooking stove -- as if anyone would be dumb enough to use an open flame
inside a nylon tent. The things must be cinched closed in bad weather,
and they invariably leak in heavy rain. Mary is going to cut ours off
and stitch it shut, before next OSH.

It is actually not that dumb, and the native americans used it for millenia
inside of very flammable animal skin tents. It takes a hell of a lot of
heat to set nylon on fire and the capability of cooking inside the tent is
something that you really ought to consider.

I agree with what everyone says about stakes. I now use ONLY 10-inch
landscaping nails to stake out my tent. It'll take a tornado to rip
them out.

Ten inch, my sweet hiney. Eighteen inch bridge spikes are the order of the
day.


11. Mail your Laundry Home. After a few days in tropical heat, you'll
have gone through an amazing amount of laundry. Don't worry -- haul it
to the UPS store, located right at show center, and mail the lot of it
home. This will lighten your load, and allow you to purchase more
T-shirts and doo-dads while you're there!


The USPS Postal store will ship it for half the price of UPS and they, too,
have a trailer on the field.

Jim