I walked around the tent, unrolling the flaps over the windows.
I always thought it was sleeping on the ground that irritated me most with camping. As I lay awake in the tent on the Girl Scout camping trip, I was staring at the walls. I could see the moisture forming on the walls, just from the heat coming off the girls. I knew it was the heat and humidity of being in a tent. You couldn’t open the doors at night, or everyone would have mosquito bites all over their bodies. You had to put up with a bit of humidity if you wanted to get any semblance of sleep. I laid there thinking about how I had given up my soft bed for this Girl Scout outing. I could almost feel the cooling of my air conditioner as it blew over my bed. I yearned to have that air conditioning right then, even though I knew it couldn’t happen. I grabbed my lantern, and I stepped outside. We burned citronella in our lanterns, in an effort to keep the mosquitoes at bay. There was a slight breeze, and I was tempted to open the flaps to the tent. It was like nature was offering natural air conditioning to the camper. I walked around the tent, unrolling the flaps over the windows. The screening was so tightly knit that it would let the breeze in, but not the mosquitoes. I looked around and saw others doing the same to their tents. We may not have been able to bring air conditioning with us, but nature was doing it for us.