KatieTheKat

What would you do if you got home, looked in your backyard, and saw an unfamiliar tent pitched jauntily on your lawn?

a) Just leave it there and see what happens
b) Pack it up and keep it for yourself
c) Put a note on it requesting that its owner state his or her business pitching said tent in your yard
d) Call the police
e) Other. Describe: __________________________________________

As to why I would ask such a question, allow me to describe a few particulars of Johnny and my trip to the Regina Folk Festival on the weekend...

CHAPTER 1

On the way down, we took back roads. We saw some sights:

Beaver Creek Conservation Area




Some crazy highway construction (this is the view in front of the car - the road was otherwise paved)


Lake Diefenbaker


The town of Eyebrow


Some Very Flat Prairie


As we approached Regina, I put in a call to Collette, our couchsurfing host. We had planned to camp, but the campground that was reasonably close to the festival was fully booked, so instead I arranged for us to camp in Collette's backyard. When we called, she was out at a pre-folk-fest party, but she told us to just go ahead and pitch our tent and that she would meet up with us at the festival later.

CHAPTER 2

So we drove through pretty Wascana Park into town and found a little house on Broder St. I had written down the address and Johnny had used that information to print a map from google, so we found it easily enough. The house didn't have a number on it, but the adjacent ones did so we were pretty sure it must be the place. We went into the backyard and found the shadiest spot we could and pitched the Hubba Hubba. Since it had been quite a long and adventuresome day, we decided to crawl in for a little nap before heading over to the festival.

You might be starting to get a little antsy now, given the foreshadowing and hints of disaster mentioned above. At this point, you might think we would have wanted some assurance that we were in the right spot before we set up that tent. We certainly did, though on the other hand we were a little tired. We didn't have a description of the house, though Collette had mentioned something about a piece of plywood being used as a gate to keep the dogs in (we didn't notice this plywood, but thought little of it - it could have been at the back of the yard and we had come around the side of the house). She also mentioned she had watered the lawn in the morning. This lawn did seem to have been watered quite recently - in fact I was a little surprised at how well-kept it was, given that Collette had been perfectly happy to let us pitch a tent there for the whole weekend. Also she had mentioned her two dogs.. well, I saw a cat looking out at us through the back window and was happy to see that she had a feline as well.

So anyhow, after our little snooze, we grabbed Johnny's thermarest, which converts to a chair and headed around to the van to collect our bikes and the items we wanted to have with us for the evening. We left my thermarest and Johnny's sleeping bag in the tent. Not much else though. Then we locked up the van and biked over to the festival.

I sent Collette a text message once we had staked our spot in front of the main stage for the evening's performances so that she would know where she could find us. We sat there for Ohbijou's performance but got up and danced to Mr. Something Something (who I had seen at the Montreal Jazz Fest a couple of years ago) and stayed right at the front of the stage for the fabulous Emily Wells. (Amazing!). Anyhow, it wasn't until we had returned to our seats on the grass for John Prine's performance that I got a text back from Collette, who had just arrived. We didn't actually meet her until about 10:30pm, just before Sarah Harmer came onto the stage.

The thought had crossed my mind earlier that when we met Collette, she might decide to make some joke about the tent. Perhaps she'd say something like "I hope you haven't set up your tent yet, because I didn't see one in my backyard". Then we'd look shocked and she would laugh and say "Just kidding, it's there!". Ha ha ha. We would all have a nice laugh and become the best of friends.

CHAPTER 3

So when we did make our way through the crowd and meet Collette and when she said "I hope you haven't set up your tent yet, because there isn't one in my backyard", I'm afraid I did not play my part correctly. Instead of looking shocked, I just laughed and said "Ha ha, you're kidding, right?". And then She was the one who looked shocked and said "No. There is no tent in my yard." And that is when I realized that is when I realized that we should have seen the signs: the missing plywood, the cat instead of the dogs... I asked her what colour her house was, what the address was. Neither matched the house whose yard we set our tent up in. Oh sure, the address was close. But if you take a 4 digit address and flip the middle two numbers from 53 to 35, you're no longer at the same house. We spent the rest of the concert trying to answer the question I posed earlier.

In fact, Johnny and I being slightly preoccupied with our possessions and our sleeping arrangements for the night, we decided to leave a little bit early. And so it was that at a little before midnight, we snuck back into the yard of a little gray house with no plywood gate... and saw absolutely no trace of a tent.

CHAPTER 4

The house was completely dark and it was very late, so it certainly wasn't the time to knock on the front door. Instead, I wrote up a little note beginning "Dear residents of this house, I can only imagine your surprise when..." (I wish I had taken a picture of the note now, but that thought somehow did not cross my mind at the time). The note included my name and phone number and requested that they give us a call asap so we could arrange to retrieve our belongings.

We then made our way to Collette's clearly numbered house down the street where two excited little dogs started barking at us long before we got near the backyard. We let ourselves in with Collette's key (she was staying out for the after-party) and met the dogs, Katie and Simon.

1. Katie and Katie 2. Katie and Katie and Simon


Collette had offered us the use of her tent for the night, but when we set it up, we found it was still wet from its last trip and opted to sleep in the van for the night instead. We put Johnny's thermarest sideways so that at least our hips had some cushioning.

---- PAUSE - it's time for me to get ready for some tutoring now. The next chapter and conclusion will come this afternoon. ----