***Adapt, Adopt, and Improve*** is a theme my husband and I sort of developed out of necessity. I think the first time we consciously had to put it into action was on a camping trip. We were at a campground about an hour from home. If memory serves, only three couples were actually camping and the rest of the 'crowd' were just hanging out with us for the evening. We figured it would be an early night, because rain was expected. Everybody was kind of doing their own thing... some of us were prepping dinner, some others playing catch, a few were off gathering more firewood, and the rest were just sitting around the fire & talking. 

Next thing I remember is hearing my husband say - loudly: <center><h3>FIX IT! </h3></center> 
<center>http://i.imgur.com/DDAB3dT.gif</center><center>([source](https://colemans.com/shop/military-tents/french-military-troop-tent/))</center>
It took me a minute to see what had him so agitated. It seems one of the visiting guys tried to catch a wild pitch... and had landed squarely on our tent. Uh-oh. I give hubby credit, he walked away instead of decking the guy. I was hard pressed to fight that urge myself. 

So now the issue is how to fix the tent with a bent support pole. (This was pre-dome tent days. What can I say, I'm an old fart...lol!) We brainstormed a bit and came up with a temporary rig that worked. We scrounged up some sturdy branches and, with some duct tape one of the other guys had, sistered the branches onto the pole. It was surprisingly strong and got us through the weekend. Hubby even calmed down enough afterwards that he told the perpetrator, "Nice catch!". 

***Okay, that's the adapt and the adopt part...***

The improve part comes in on another camping trip. We had been on a trip to Michigan's Upper Peninsula and had planned to camp on the last night before heading home. We had been staying in a cabin in the UP, but had our new dome tent with us and were looking forward to trying it out. 

Well, we arrived at what we refer to as 'Paul's Pack-Em-In Park'. Small sites around a pond they generously labeled a lake and more mosquitoes than I'd seen in my entire lifetime.  First order of business was to set up the tent so we could escape the bugs. We take out the nylon shell, the stakes, and.... no poles. Really? Brand new box, never opened, and NO POLES!!! 
<center>http://i.imgur.com/aA67WtB.jpg?1</center><center>[source](http://uspatriottactical.com/rothco-camouflage-3-man-hexagon-dome-tent)</center>
Hubby was getting chewed alive, because the bugs like him better than me, so I decided to take on the tent situation and ask him to start a fire for dinner. (Between Off! and the smoke, he can tolerate them.) After my own liberal dousing in Off! (hate that stuff), I set out to find some long sturdy branches. (Sound familiar?) Tape wouldn't work with what I had in mind, so I used some twine out of our emergency road kit. What we ended up with was a tipi-like set up. I supported the uppermost loop with the branches and raised it enough to sleep in - IF we kept the door screen directly overhead. It wasn't pretty, but it worked. I'd call that an improvement in skill and execution. 

If we hadn't had to deal with the first disaster, we would have been stumped for a solution the second time. Yes, we could have stayed in a motel, but that would have been admitting defeat. Not something anyone wants to do. Oh, and when we returned, we took the tent back to the store and told our story. They replaced it after double checking the new one did indeed have all the proper pieces. 

The ***Adapt, Adopt, and Improve*** method has rarely let us down and is now an integrated part of how we look at problem solving!
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 (Disclosure: The tents pictured here aren't ours and are just for illustration purposes.)
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