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This weekend my family said goodbye to our decade-old tent after one final trip to the desert.
What happened: The wind near Hanksville was like a nonstop assault. The dust annihilated our last functioning zippers, leaving us with what might generously be called a "shade structure."
- Then the dust annihilated everything else we brought, too:
The intrigue: This is not the first desert weekend for which our tent was direly outmatched.
- The whole thing was held together with bungee cords after the wind snapped the plastic pole attachments.
Between the lines: For years we've badly wanted one of those heavy-duty, dust-devil-ready, never-say-die Springbar or Kodiak tents — both made in Utah.
- But it seemed like an extravagance while our old tent still worked (sort of).
The latest: We found an all-but-new Kodiak via online classifieds the morning after our return.
The bottom line: We should have upgraded long ago.
- Now I'm trying to memory-hole all the hours I spent massaging the old tent's zipper teeth with a lubricated toothbrush to eke another year out of it.
📬 Tell us: Which outdoor gear have you delayed buying, only to feel like an idiot for not upgrading sooner?
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