It was my last year of college and I was part of a large organization that took domestic and international trips during spring break to perform outreach in the communities we visited. There were fifteen trips in total that year and each trip had a team of twelve. In order to bond and become closer with the other eleven students in your group, we had various social events that took place throughout the year. The biggest of these was the winter retreat where all the teams spend a weekend camping together and compete in various games. Unfortunately, the weekend set in place for the retreat just so happened to be the one weekend San Diego thought it was a good idea to allow for rain.
We did our best to ignore the “extreme” weather conditions and continued with all the activities the organization leaders had planned for us – of course resulting in wet clothes and muddy shoes. Luckily for us, our team brought two large tents meaning that we could comfortably reside in our temporary makeshift homes at the end of the day. It sure would’ve been nice if that was the way things went. Instead, someone from our group (not going to name names) accidentally left one of the tents unzipped before we left to meet up with the other teams. What we came back to that night was a tent that would have functioned better as a kiddie pool. The bonding was about to get real because the scenario had now become twelve people sharing one tent.
The section of the campsite where we had our tents was dirt during setup, but had obviously transformed itself into mud by the time we returned. In order to combat creating a mess in the tent, the routine when coming in was to sit inside with your feet hanging out as you take off your shoes. However, the tent had about a six inch clearance in the entrance making it a little tougher to do this effectively and the end result between the twelve of us was not pretty. We were all frequently coming and going because of other activities we were doing with the whole organization as well as taking trips to the bathroom or filling up water bottles. Even though we tried our best to keep it from becoming dirty, the tent was definitely not a good representation of clean – mud seemed to find its way inside every time someone would come in or exit. Not only were we cramming twelve people into one tent, we were cramming twelve people into a muddy tent.
Now that I work for IPL MacroTrac™ and have had hands on experience with all of the products, I know that my team, along with the others, could have benefited from some Rola-Trac. Contrary to what this story makes it sound like, I do enjoy camping so I have had more camping experiences since then and Rola-Trac comes along each time. I typically create a patio outside of the entrance so that it’s easy to take shoes on and off, and if ground conditions aren’t the best I will place it under the tent to create a flat surface to sleep on. Unlike rugs, Rola-Trac allows water to drain through so that it never puddles up on top, it can be hosed off for an easy clean, and no extra weight is added on.
Part of the fun of camping is getting a little bit dirty and that being completely normal. But if you like to keep things clean and not have to worry about wiping down your tent after tracking in a mess, you may want to consider Rola-Trac. Or if you want a patio that you can comfortably walk barefoot on then it can also serve you well. For more information on Rola-Trac or any of our other mats, click on the “Products” tab and you’ll be able to find whatever you’re looking for!
