Tent For Seven: Totally Not A Book Review

Amazon has rules. Rules about who can and cannot post a review. Rules about what you, as an author, can and cannot say about another author’s book in your review—unless you don’t mind getting all your reviews taken down. The appeal process isn’t exactly biased toward forgiveness either. So when I say this post is not a review, believe me.

But I want to talk about this book, and more importantly the authors behind it anyway.

Full disclosure, the reason I cannot post an official review about Tent For Seven: A Camping Adventure Gone South Out West by Marty Ohlhaut and Grace Ly is because I am biased as heck. Their family is part of the village that raised me. Considering they were a family of seven at the time (they’ve since multiplied), one could say they were a large part of the village that raised me. I’m also biased, in part, because I knew the story behind the book before it was published, or at least, I thought I did.

Growing up, Marty Ohlhaut was Grace’s dad. He still is, but what I mean is I viewed him in the same way I viewed pretty much every one of my mom and stepdad’s friends—a grown-up. He was funny (also still is) but in the back of your mind you always knew that all it would take was one ill-thought-out leap down their sloped backyard, a broken planter, or similar misstep to get sent home with a call to your mother. In my case, those calls could result in a grounding (depending on the infraction) and a bye bye to my social life.

In other words, I didn’t know him outside of his parental persona. I certainly never guessed he was winging life as much as I was (am). The only hint I ever had of the person behind the parent was the time we were trying to make cookies and realized we needed maple syrup for the recipe, which we didn’t have. No problem, we’d go down the street and ask the neighbors for some.

The Ohlhaut children were happy enough to help (cookies were on the line!). They thought they had some extra syrup… somewhere. Where was it? Oh yes. Eventually, they handed us a bottle of brown liquid. Crisis averted! Cookies were in our future once again. Only, it turned out that bottle wasn’t filled with maple syrup at all. It was their father’s whiskey, cleverly disguised.

Our mistake was caught in time and no whiskey was wasted on children’s taste buds. We got a good laugh out of it, and I am sure that Mr. Ohlhaut gained a valuable life lesson from his children’s unquestioning generosity while also learning more about proper storage techniques for potent potables.

Which brings me back to his book. If you have ever camped before (not glamped as I prefer to do, especially as I’ve grown older—actually camped) chances are you are already well aware that things often go sideways in spite of the best of planning.

Now imagine everything going wrong, in another country, without access to a cell phone, or really any civilization, for days. I can sense you shuddering from here. I know I did when I started reading their account.

Were you to cut your losses, pack it in, and go home while vowing to never step foot in the great outdoors again, no one would blame you. Instead, they pressed on, bolstered by the strength of their family. I say “they pressed on,” because while the book is Mr. Ohlhaut’s perspective, it is clear throughout the pages how much his wife’s support and his children’s positivity played a critical role in the decision to continue forward, no matter how much he tries to convince you it was purely about the logistics or finances.

This decision to keep traveling also puts them in the path of various people whose timely appearances will make you wonder how much can a person reasonably brush off as mere coincidence. As a result, even if I didn’t know the backstory, I would still highly recommend this humorous page-turner for anyone who enjoys inspirational, family-focused non-fiction, provided you are not triggered by bears or outdoor trauma.

Happy Camping!