Mary Beth Sarver has done the whole roughin’-it thing before.

Then she learned about the cabins for rent at Perry State Park.

“Once we started staying in them,” Sarver said, “I knew it was time to throw the tent away.”

Perry is one of 12 state parks with cabins for rent.

The others are Cedar Bluff, Cheney, Cross Timbers, El Dorado, Eisenhower, Lovewell, Milford, Prairie Dog, Tuttle Creek, Webster and Wilson state parks.

The cabins offer all – OK, most – of the comforts of home, with easy access to the state parks. Though accommodations vary from park to park, Perry’s four cabins are identical.

All of Perry’s cabins feature central air and heat, a microwave, coffee pot, dishes, flatware, pots and pans.

“They have everything you need,” said Larry Cadoret, Perry’s park manager. “All you have to do is bring your clothes, bedding and towels and you’re all set.”

The cabins’ popularity hasn’t surprised Cadoret. They’re booked up weeks in advance, and Cadoret estimated they were occupied on average 28 days a month during the summer.

He has been surprised, however, with how far away visitors have come to stay in them.

“It’s been a wide range,” he said. “With the Internet – they’re on our Web site – we get calls from anybody, people from all over. Out East, out West : they see it on the Internet and want to come to Kansas. It hasn’t been just one category of people. It’s all kinds, from all over.”

One of Perry's cabins, below, a view of the lofts, top left, and the view from the porch.

In Sarver’s case, they came just from Topeka.

Last year, Sarver found information about the cabins-for-rent program at an RV show. She found out Perry was implementing such a program last summer. She signed up and became one of the first groups to stay in the then-new digs.

“We started staying weekends, and we loved them so much, we decided to partake a couple of weeks,” Sarver said. “They’re just lovely. No. 1, for the price, you can’t stay at a hotel for the price they’re charging. And to be right there at the lake, looking out over the water, relaxing : it’s just awesome. And the accommodations : they have everything you need. It just beats tent life 100 percent.”

Perry had two cabins for rent all last summer. Two more opened over the Labor Day weekend. Cadoret said plans are in the works for two more in 2008.

There are no mints on the pillows, but the cabins are far from Spartan.

Perry’s cabins can sleep four adults; three of the four cabins have lofts that can sleep two more children. Each has a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, front room, closet and sofa sleeper.

Each costs $55 a night during the week (Sunday-Thursday) and $65 a night on weekends.

Cadoret said he’d like to keep the cabins open year-around, but they’ll only be open through October this year.

“We have to turn the water off to the cabins so it doesn’t freeze,” he said. “But we’re working on getting the water situation corrected.”

Sarver hasn’t used the cabins this summer, but not because of a bad experience. She and her husband bought a camper.

“But if we didn’t have a camper,” she said, “we probably would have been using them as much as we did last summer. I can’t say enough about them.”