A new low in camping

© 2012 Lydia Hinshaw 

The lower left number is the night's low

 ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK, CO -- Pictured is one of our favorite gadgets, an indoor-outdoor digital thermometer, purchased for about $10 at Walmart.

 When we're camped somewhere, we leave the sensor unit on the picnic table, usually in a sandwich bag (rain) weighted down with a rock (wind.)  It transmits the temperature to a unit we set on the dashboard.  It also remembers the lows and highs for the previous 24 hours.

 It gives us the information we need to brag about how tough we are to camp in cold weather.

 The photo shows Tuesday's 6:30 a.m. reading, 24 degrees following an overnight low of 21.  The temperature inside the van was a balmy 36.  

 Our previous coldest camping night was a couple of years ago, in September in Yosemite, when it went down to 26.

 Both of us slept very well Monday night, partly because of our long hike Monday (see previous post.)  Over the winter, I bought some foil insulation and cut it to fit inside the canvas walls of my upper berth.  That helps a bit too.

 Standard sleeping attire, from the top down:  Fleece hat, long-sleeved T-shirt, hoodie, polar fleece sweatpants, two pairs of socks plus goose-down booties for my ever-cold feet.  Jacket and gloves handy for wee-hours trips to the latrines.

 Add a sleeping bag rated to 20-degrees, and a couple of fleece blankets nearby in case the sleeping bag isn't enough.

 I would like to say that we got up Tuesday morning and I ate my usual cold cereal with cold milk and cold strawberries beside Prince Charming's lovingly prepared campfire, but that would be a lie.

 We got up, rearranged the Magic Bus for travel as fast as we could and drove into Estes Park for a hot breakfast in a warm restaurant.