I Love a Rainy Night

“Well, I love a rainy night
I love a rainy night
I love to hear the thunder
Watch the lightning
When it lights up the sky
You know it makes me feel good”

Eddie Rabbitt got it right and he’s not the only one that loves a rainy night. I always have…well, almost always. I’ve never been too keen on those nights spent swimming around the inside of a flooded tent. OK, to be real, we’ve usually been pretty good about pitching tents so that we didn’t have too many water problems. Between picking good locations and using ground cloths properly we’ve largely managed to avoid water inside our tents…but, as happens with tents, occasionally the rain would find its way inside, and on a couple of occasions, rather dramatically. Now, by switching to hammocks for most of our camping, water on the tent floor is pretty much a non-issue.

Last November I posted an entry titled “Goin’ Topless” about how my youngest daughter, Jenna, once asked me why we never hung out in our hammocks when it was raining even though we always put our tarps up. We’ve hung out a few clear nights without our tarps…but the question still bugged me.

We’ve had a wet winter. I like winter. I like cold. I like snow and can even tolerate ice. But I don’t care for cold and wet…and it’s been cold and wet for the past two or three months. Fortunately, we’re at that point in our annual trip around the sun that our hemisphere is beginning to warm and winter is beginning to give way to spring…and the wet is becoming a bit more tolerable. And Jenna’s question still bugged me…

I’ve been watching the weather forecasts pretty closely for work the past couple of weeks and by Thursday I began to notice that things were shaping up for a possible night hanging in the rain this weekend and the weather folks got it right for a change.

We took advantage of a break in the showers to put our hammocks and tarps up Friday evening before dark. As usual, I hung my Wilderness Logics ‘Big Daddy’ tarp over my hammock. It was a bit breezy and I was a bit worried about rain getting up under the edges of Jenna’s asym-pitched rectangular tarp so we hung my big Blue Cat hex tarp over her hammock for better coverage. I’m a bit concerned about getting that tarp back from her now, but I guess that’s not a bad thing.

We turned in around midnight and it wasn’t long before we began to hear the patter of raindrops on our tarps. If you think the sound or rain on a tin roof is soothing, you should experience the sound of raindrops on a silnylon tarp, or even a blue poly tarp, especially when you’re high and dry in your hammock up off the ground.

It was still raining when I woke up this morning. I took a look at the radar picture and could see that we had a bit of heavier rain coming so I decided I could wait a few minutes and enjoy it before answering nature’s call.

So how did we fare? After a daylight inspection this morning…no runs, no drips, no errors…we stayed warm and dry under our tarps and quilts. And now Jenna’s question doesn’t bug me anymore.