We shall camp in the ditch

Camp Casey II is also completely full, as far as camping goes. There isn’t much space outside of the tent, and a single row of tents along the backside belong to a few volunteers and media who have become like staff. On one side is the kitchen, and the other Cindy’s trailer and VIP hangout tents. That’s about it, so we took Carl’s shuttle back to Camp I to find a spot in the drainage ditch.

We had a good deal of help getting our things down the road to the ditch. Carl, knowing that we’d been in the car for about 30 hours, wanted to help us get settled quickly. He grabbed a couple of vets and asked them to help us find a spot. We all carried our stuff down the road, passing tent after tent, until we found an open spot with room for the tent and my car. They asked us if we needed anything else, and then Tina and I let them all go and we set to work.

It was hot. Really horribly, unbearably hot. And humid. You sweat everywhere, and the sun hurts. We managed to get the very large tent set up, and realized we were both faint and turning red. We grabbed some water, some trail mix, and some emergenC, sat in a bit of shade that some tall sticky grass was casting, and tried to cool off a bit.

We had brought this gigantic tent, because Tina’s boss asked us to donate it. Fitting it in the drainage ditch, between the barbed-wire fence and the road, with no part hanging into the narrow road that farmers had to drive their trucks on, was rather a chore and a miracle. Still, the inside sloped way up toward the fence, and then swooped down into the ditch. Finding a good sleeping position was tricky. We very quickly became famous as the girls with the mansion.