Ok, step 1, rethink your tent.:

- How much time, besides sleeping/having fun in bed do you spend inside your tent? Do you need much else than a cooler, a place to sleep and space for garb/armor/archery gear, etc? If you're not trying to turn your tent into a home, there's a really neat, period-ish solution, www.canvascamp.com/

I have a Sibley 400 Deluxe. It looks a little like a yurt and a little like a bell wedge tent, but there's a lot of space in there. The best part, the groundsheet is 1- waterproof, and 2- attached to the sides of the tent. Less critters crawling in, ZERO water getting in. A Sibley 500 would easily accomodate a queen size bed, 2 clothing chests, 2 coolers, a table and 2 chairs. The best part about these tents, they fold up into a duffelbag that you can stow behind your driver or pasenger seat of your car. THe poles break down to fit inside the duffel bag.

Ok, tent issue resolved. Next, your bed.

2- Rethink your bed

There's no way to keep period and compact in the same sentence when it comes to beds. The best you can do is get a slat bed that breaks apart into a stack of lumber. On the non-period side, we know that air mattresses suck at pennsic, so if they can be avoided, the happier we are. Outside of a bulky futon couchbed thingy, you might have to give up on the "queen size" camping. SOme good options are a Swedish Folding Cot with mattress - www.llbean.com/webapp/wcs...goryDisplay , or a regular cot with good support - good support emphasised. What you can do to add comfort is get a twin size memory foam pad, roughly about $30, and rolls up into a spot in the back seat. Gives a little extra comfort on a cot. If you insist on "going queen", an option is to get 2 single cots, push them together and use 3-4 slats of plywood under the memory foam, lengthwise, covering both beds to disperse the weight equally.

A note on using memory foam - it collects morning dew. wrap it up/cover it with fleece blankets to keep your bed dry

3 - Rethink your eating habits.

If you are on a camp meal plan, eat at least one meal in the food courts, how much food do you really need to store in your tent? A cooler is important, so I'm not saying to get rid of it. But 1 cooler and 1 large air-tight plastic tote should be enough for your cold and dry foods.

4 - Rethink everything else that goes into the tent

Do you need the wardrobe closet in the room, or can you live your week out of a plastic tote, garb-wise? The less "tertiary" furniture you bring, the emptier your car is, and the less there is to pack.

Here's what I bring:
1 Sibley 400 Deluxe tent
1 twin-size camp cot
1 twin size memory foam roll (3 inch thick)
1 42 QT Coleman Extreme cooler
1 walmart/ikea popup clothes rack
1 snack table
1 foldable camp chair
1 medium plastic tote for food
2 small plastic totes for camp accessories (flashlight, batteries, etc)
archery gear (bow, arrows)
HW fighter gear (shiel, armor, sword , helm, etc)

Fits pretty well and I'm not cramped at all, in the car or in the tent. I can get the tent up in 10 minutes, unpack in another 5, set up my living environment in another 5, 20 minutes from arrival and Im off to town to do my food run =)

Even if I upgraded to do something about going queen size, Id go with a Sibley 500 deluxe, and use the plywood as mentioned to link two cots together, plywood can rest very easily on the seat (or be purchased in town and discarded at the end of pennsic), and the sibley 500 wouldnt be dramatically bigger than the 400. Still would fit well in a 4 door sedan. As it is now, I can pack for Pennsic and see out of ALL my windows =)

I've gone into packing mode...

Already had one SCA camping event a couple weeks ago. Got one more in two weeks, so the camping gear is already either in my car or in the box o camping gear.

Garb is really my only project yet to be finished. Did a full inventory and tossed what was beyond repair. Now I've got piles... good to go, repair, turn into something else, and fabric to be made into garb. Plus a full garb inventory typed out of all this too....

Errand list is made too, it'll be added to as it gets closer but it's not looking too bad. Been doing this long enough that it's just the stuff that needs to be replaced or bought new (like food).

I have a master packing list that I've establisted over many years so at least I don't have to worry about whether I forgot something I always use... theoretically, if it's on the list I'll remember it.

i camp on the same block :)

i look forward to seeing you there...

Its a good point. Few enough folks know me anyway. So now I have to decide between Thora, Otterdottir, or maybe the name I acquired last year Goddess of the Booty Tape. :)