Late Summer: Tent Camping in Maine

Late August through September bring cool nights, warm days—and lakes that are still warm enough to jump into. Unlike Spring, no teeth chattering. In other words, great late summer tent camping in Maine. So the camp gear is calling right along with the loons and Canadian geese flying their formations.

The days are still long with lots of sunshine... and nobody's quite ready to surrender summer yet. The nights are chillier. A few red leaves are showing up where they weren't invited. So the firepit's getting stoked and suddenly that old plaid blanket thrown over a chair isn't just there because it looks cute.

Camping season isn't winding down around here.

In some ways, it's just ramping up.

So naturally, I dug out the tent. Not a pop-up. No.

The 16.5-foot canvas yurt tent.

Believe it or not, it goes up faster than the traditional tents we used all those years. But getting that tent up was just the pre-game warm-up. I've been toying with the idea of creating a tent-type stay in my hay meadow.

A romantic one.

That notion, combined with a vast empty tent, is apparently irresistible to someone with a garage full of old rugs, lamps, trunks, chairs and things my honey would call 'junk' but we all know is actually 'junque' in need of better lighting.

I started pulling things out.

First a rug. Then another rug. A couple of chairs. A trunk. Some lamps. Lanterns. Plaid blankets. Little tables. Items that had absolutely no business going in a tent. But, as usual, that didn't stop me.

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Before long, I wasn't setting up a campsite anymore. I was channeling every vintage-y layered Ralph Lauren set circa the 1990s—or perhaps RL meets L.L.Bean?

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By dusk, whatever it was—or is—I'm threatening to permanently move in.

Just hook up that stove jack. Triple the extension cords.

We're golden.

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