Hey bbro
just a quick observation.
You're begging for trouble laying out that groundcloth/tarp so that it extends beyond the bottom edge of the tent. It's a bad habit, it doesn't help you in the least in this situation. You'd setup a carpet like that in your house, or a placemat at the dinner table, I totally get how it *looks* right, but I promise you it's a bad idea.
What you're trying to protect here is the bottom of the tent, the floor of the tent. You want to protect it from water and from sharp things, rocks and sticks. The water is the problem when the groundcloth extends beyond the footprint of the tent. The water is not coming up from the ground to the tent (unless you pitch your tent in a puddle), it's coming down from the sky. You *want* it to hit the tent roof and the fly and the walls and continue downward into the ground, right at the edge of the tent. Into the ground/gravel/dirt. Giving a little lip/ledge for the water to hit before it can reach the dirt redirects it to the underside of the tent. PRESTO, you're camping in a puddle.
I'm not the camping boss of you--do what you want. But I am speaking with the voice of experience.
