Recently we purchased a really nifty little product on amazon that cost a little over $20 (and price depends on the size you buy). We originally purchased it to put over a 10×10 dog kennel which we use in the summer as a garden to keep the deer out. We also use it while camping as a shaded area for us and the pups so they can hang out at the campsite (always supervised!) unleashed. Needless to say the dog kennel gets lots of use and you can check out previous blogs about that topic. We also put a water proof tarp over it in winter to store thing in… but I digress…
Back to the product in question! It is a shade tarp! It is like a stretchy mesh. It comes in varying degrees of shade protection such as 70% or 90% etc and it is open weave so it does allow the water to go thru if it is raining which is great for a garden! But then I got to thinking … why not hang one from the awning!?!?! Brilliant right? With grommet holes along the side of the shade tarp we can use “s” hooks from the tabs in the awning that we normally use to hang lights. Since it allows the wind to blow thru it we don’t have to worry about the balloon effect like a normal tarp would do causing too much wind damage to the awning if we have gusts of wind… and the price is right!
So we purchased a 6’x12’ sun tarp and used those “s” hooks to hold it down, and keep it from flapping we lightly used bungee straps and tent pegs to hold the bottom down (with a lot of play in that bottom tie down part). It’s amazing how much cooler it is under our awning which happens to be facing the evening sun and gets the hottest part of the day! It makes a major difference in temperature!
We just can’t tell you how much we love this easy to pack and set up addition to our camping setup. Conestoga Chuck approves as well because he now has some shade to enjoy in the afternoon and it’s about as see thru as a window sheer or a window screen. So the view isn’t impeded that much either!
Here are some photos for some ideas for your next summer camping trip set up! Enjoy!
Conestoga Chuck 