In a message dated 11/29/2002 11:01:59 PM Mountain Standard Time, NJ-MEMORIES-D-request@rootsweb.com writes: > We always > picked a campsite with a wood platform for our tent. Any time I think of tent platforms, I think of the time my high-school Girl Scout troop went camping at Saw Mill Lake at High Point State Park. We were camped on one side of the lake, and a Boy Scout troop was camped on the other. A few of our girls went and invited the boys to come over after "lights out." The rest of us were scared that they'd accept the invitation. Well, after we'd put out our lights, a couple of us peeked out the front flap on our tent and saw lights on the other side of the lake moving toward the dam. Not too many minutes later we saw lights on our side. A few minutes after that, we heard rustling around our tent, and it came under the platform, too. We didn't dare move; we were sure that it was those darned Boy Scouts. It wasn't until the next day that we found out that the boys had been headed off by their Scoutmaster and that the rustling around and under the tent had been a bunch of masked bandits called raccoons. They'd reached into the other tent and grabbed food belonging to some of the other girls in our troop, and those girls had chased the critters over in our direction. I still love camping . . . camper, tent, or cloth on the ground. I don't care how. We have a pop-up tent trailer that we've camped in for three years now, and we love it. But I've slept on the ground in subfreezing weather recently, too. That was on a campout with our Awana girls from church. An air mattress kept me comfortable, and layered clothing and a knit hat kept me warm as toast. Doris in Colorado (Up2Nutrix@aol.com) "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." -- Jim Elliot, missionary and martyr