Every now and then I walk into a thrift store just to see what's available, and today I decided to walk into the AmVets Thrift Store off Pacific Highway, just for the heck of it... didn't even make it inside before I saw something interesting outside, where the store employees exhibit merchandise on the sidewalk. I think what I saw, and there were several of them, were some kind of rollup yoga pads? Maybe some other kind of exercise pad? At first, I thought they were sleeping pads, which I use (doubled or tripled up) beneath the fartsack in my tent, but these looked slightly different, though possibly useful as sleeping pads, 10-4? Probably not tough enough to withstand direct pressure from the end of a cot leg, but maybe useful for those cots with rounded horizontal aluminum "feet"---the tubular kind of feet which stretch across beneath the cot at each end and in the center. For those campers whose cot legs end in narrow feet, I reckon the carpet samples, tennis balls, or the right kind of coasters would do the trick, though coasters are relatively small in diameter, and a big guy throwing himself down on the cot might displace the legs, or coasters, or whatever... Going back to those rollup yoga pads or whatever the hell they were, some of them looked pretty nice, maybe not as large as my current sleeping pads, but still adequate and possibly more comfortable than the sleeping pads. Nothing like a little insulation between your body and the "cold prairie" beneath your tent, LOL... I'm shamelessly borrowing that phrase from that "OPEN RANGE" flick, which was a good movie. Anyway, I bought some burly field shorts instead, I'm ALWAYS on the lookout for good thick baggy field shorts for hiking and climbing: I use a pop rivet gun and stainless steel washers to take in the waist of the huge oversized shorts I buy, which works very well and costs WAY less than a cobbler or seamstress. I wear a web belt in the field all the time, so nobody can see my "alterations" (LOL). Back on topic (somewhat), I now know where there are some nice yoga pads or whatever the hell those were, so I'll go back and take more time to unroll each one and examine the lot... today, I stopped in on the fly, because I also wanted to visit West Marine and price some gear, which I did before hitting my final stop (grocery store). I still think that, with the right folding cot design, one of those pads might serve well to cushion the "feet" or cot legs, especially those rounded hoop kind, right? Just my $.02, let me move on here, but not before I THANK ALL VETERANS FOR THEIR SERVICE TO THIS COUNTRY!!!
