Disaster Averted

We bought a new tent at Costco for our camping trip.  It was a big Colman one, that sleeps 10 and is tall enough that you can stand up and walk the whole length of the tent.  We were excited to use our new tent.  I didn't think it would be a problem that we hadn't had set it up before because my sister had bought the same tent and had experience setting it up.   She was camping across the way from us, so she could help us if we needed it.  Well, we needed some help, but there wasn't anything she could do.  

Here is her tent set up so beautifully (it looks just like the picture on the box).  We kept running across the road to inspect her tent to figure out what ours was supposed to look like.  

Ours didn't turn out as nice.  Can you tell what is wrong?

Yes, we were missing part of the tent pole and one of the top poles, instead of making a nice "C" shape when put together made fore of an "S".  This was the first time we took it out of the box, so one of our kids didn't loose it.  But, we were hours from home and at the start of a family reunion.  We decided we wouldn't let it ruin our fun. 

  

 Here is what we came up with.  It worked out just fine.  Once we got the rain fly on, we were very snug. 

I called Colman today and after holding for 22 minutes, the man was very nice and said he would send out the missing pole and a replacement for the misshapen pole right away.