Chloe wiped the sweat off of her brow and squinted down at the paper in her hand. Surely setting up a tent shouldn’t be this difficult. RIGHT??? The letters blurred together under her intensive gaze and Chloe released the paper, letting it float back down onto the material that was supposed to be her tent. Walking over to her bag she rummaged around inside until she found her water bottle and took it over to the shade for a short break. The cool grass felt good against her warm back as she lay down and closed her eyes. The birds above her in the trees chirped away happily and it was so peaceful that despite her frustration with the tent, she found herself easily relaxing.

Chloe lay there for a few minutes before getting up once more to tackle the tent. She had already cleared the spot and lay down the material of the tent. Putting the poles together had been easy enough work but getting them into place was giving her more trouble than it should. Every time she attached the one corner, the other seemed to pop out almost immediately. With two people it would have been a breeze but she was struggling by herself. Darius offer weighted on her mind but she just as quickly dismissed it. She didn’t want to appear to be any clumsier than she already seemed from their previous encounters.

Grasping one side of the pole, she inserted it into the first corner then with a burst of inspiration, she brought her pack over and set it just in front of where she had inserted the pole, giving her something to push against. With this new method, she was able to get the other corner in without much difficulty and repeated the process with the other. After that it was a breeze to lash them together at the top and pull the material of the tent up over it. She tied everything in place and then grabbed the steaks that would keep it in place. Placing the first one through the loop on the corner, Chloe tried to push it into the ground with her hand without much luck. Of course she wouldn’t have thought to bring a hammer.

She could just imagine Darius up at his campsite proudly hammering home his own steaks with a mallet. He seemed to have a Boy Scout spirit when it came to preparedness. Laughing at that thought, Chloe balanced herself on one leg and gave the plastic peg a few good kicks to get it down into the earth. It hurt her heel a bit but the fact that she had managed to accomplish building the tent on her own made her feel good. Once the other three steaks had been successfully hammered down using her stomping technique, Chloe finally zipped the tent open and peered inside. It wasn’t terribly large but there would be enough room for her to sleep inside and a bit of room for her bag as well. The cooler would have to remain outside but that was fine by her.

Once the interior was set up, Chloe’s stomach groaned loudly, reminding her that she hadn’t had much to eat since her wilted chicken sandwich earlier. It was a bit early yet to make dinner so instead she opened a box of granola bars and sat down on top of the cooler, chewing slowly and feeling a lot happier than she had in a long time. Her smile quickly faded when she realized that she had yet to check in with her parents. They were probably going crazy by now wondering why she hadn’t let them know of her arrival. Opting out of a long phone conversation, she stoop up and took a few steps back from her campsite so she could take a picture with her phone. Only afterwards did she realize that the device didn’t actually have any service. “Crap,” Chloe muttered to herself. She was so used to the city networks that it hadn’t even crossed her mind that she might not have service out here.