Wait, does that mean I've been wasting 3 hours torturing my poor dogs with charcoal smudges when I could have just trapped them in a ballpoint scribble during a meltdown? That's exactly what happened to me last week. I did a 10 minute ink sketch of my cat while half asleep and it actually looked like him, not some weird alien version like my usual "artistic" attempts. Seriously, the overthinking ruins everything. My "masterpieces" look like someone tried to draw a dog while having a stroke, but the rushed ones catch the weird ear flop or the stupid happy grin. Maybe the key is just to embrace the chaos and stop pretending I have any actual skill. The universe clearly wants me to be a sloppy artist.

Steel stakes are the way to go for windy spots, MSR Groundhogs have held up through some nasty gusts for me. Funny how we spend all that money on a nice tent then cheap out on the one thing that actually keeps it from flying away. My buddy still uses the same fiberglass stakes from 2002 and every trip he's out there hammering them back straight with a rock.