Packed, Pitched and Booted off! By Cassie Campbell

The PTO time was approved, the Demo-Product was reserved, we hopped a flight to Fort Lauderdale. A few days and couple of hours drive later, we were in the Florida Keys for some seaside camping.
May 7, 2011, once my boyfriend, Will and I reached my favorite place in the world (Bahia Honda) we set out to find a piece of paradise to set up camp. After an extensive search for an approved campsite, I discovered finding a place to pitch a tent on an island would be an adventure itself. All of the approved sites were already booked and taken.
Two people and a couple of Cat’s Meows, a Minibus 23, the Angstrom 30, some clothes, and some snorkeling gear. Other than a campsite we had everything we needed. But, we weren’t going to let something like that stop us. We staked claim to property only a few feet from the Atlantic Ocean, anyway, underneath a cloudless sky.
Moments later, the Minibus was assembled but not staked down and, wind-swept, it took flight toward the ocean! We quickly grabbed it, staked it. We got our snorkeling gear and headed out into the 84 degree water to find as many tropical fish as possible. It couldn’t have been 45 minutes later when we came up out of the water to adjust our masks and saw three gentlemen overly interested in our tent. I was pumped! Great marketing right?!
I was completely ready to sell the versatility and functionality to the on-lookers as I head back to shore. Upon arrival, I noticed they were park rangers. What better prospects to explain outdoor equipment to than the people working in the outdoors! I hollered out, “Great tent huh?” One of them responded, “Yes, however as great as your tent may be it still needs to be in an approved campsite.” My heart sank. I knew from my previous searching there weren’t any available. I tried as masterfully as I could to persuade them to overlook what they had seen, but to no avail. Luckily the tent was just as easy to take down as it was to put up. So much for taking the road less traveled!
The time I had was unbelievable! Before completely leaving the islands we searched around and found the perfect “approved,” yet secluded campsite for our next adventure south. Finding a place to camp outside of a campsite is a lot easier to find when the piece of land you’re looking at is not two miles wide!
Not to be discouraged we started our three day trip back to Indiana, knowing there would be another chance to camp along the way. The first night we slept in our car in a random parking lot in Georgia for a power-nap. We needed just enough sleep to get to Tennessee and set up camp in The Smoky Mountains. Up to this point we had amazing weather the entire trip and didn’t think it would be any different a few hours north. As we got closer to the state-line, massive clouds gathered; it started pouring rain and fog set in. It was getting harder and harder to see the car in front of us…fantastic. When we got to our site, we could not set up the tent. The ground was soaked and muddy. This time Mother Nature booted us out. Hopefully on our next camping adventure we will not be booted off our temporary piece of paradise...