Richard’s North Face Sleeping Bag

While attending Graduate School, my wife and I were on the staff of Guilford College, in Greensboro, North Carolina. One weekend we and several staff friends from campus met at Hanging Rock State Park, to get away from the city for a short while and go hiking and camping.
Saturday afternoon, as my wife and I returned to the campgrounds from our hike, we passed by the campsite of our friend Richard Dyer, and as you can see, he had hung his sleeping bag in a tree to dry and air it out.
I was amused by the unexpected sight, and did a quick watercolor study of this bright reddish-color down-filled sleeping bag that was hanging there from a tree branch. It looked to me like a soft and puffy gigantic caterpillar cocoon.
We joked about this, and Richard, with his dry and straight faced humor was quick to point out that it was “cozy and simpler to set-up and use than a hammock,… once you get used to it.” He went on to say, “Getting out of it is easy. You simply fall. But I find that getting into it is the thing… Well, let me just say that THAT, is the tricky part.”