I did it! Again!

For years I’ve performed the semiannual ritual of extricating the popup camper from the garage in the spring and re-inserting it into the garage in the fall.

Big deal, you say. Pull the camper out. Push it back. How complex an operation is that?

Well the actual moving of the trailer is just a small part of what must take place. Unless you have a four-car garage or a barn, you probably know what I’m about to say.

My garage is about 22-feet square and tall enough to have a partial loft. There’s only one overhead door. The structure is large enough to accommodate most any vehicle I’ve ever owned, but I’ve never parked a car I own in it.

That’s because over the years it’s served roles that vary from a woodshed (as many as six cords) to general storage for excess household goodies, many of which were destined to be yard sale items.

For the past 10 years or more the garage has been the winter home to our popup camper as well as that ever-present pile of potential yard sale stuff. And then there are four kayaks and a canoe hanging from the rafters to say nothing of the fishing, camping, and paddling gear that seems to multiply on its own.

To say the garage is full is an understatement. It’s bulging at the seams. I’m not sure how it stands save for all that junk inside holding it up.

With the camper in the garage, all sorts of stuff gets piled on top. When the camper is pulled out in the spring, all that stuff winds up piled in the space the camper occupied. And over the summer that stuff multiplies.

Come fall the whole mess has to be excavated, pulled into the driveway, and the camper must be pushed back into the garage. Sounds easy, but last weekend it took most of Saturday to accomplish this feat. And what makes the whole process Sisyphusian is that this marks the third season (at least) that I haven’t used the camper. Anyone else would have opted to sell it to someone who would use it, but no, not me – I might use it sometime.

So it was with more than a little trepidation Saturday morning that I ventured out to the garage, hoisted open the garage door, and began the chore of making way for the camper. Piece by piece I carried out this and that, lined the deck with boxes, the driveway with furniture and gear, and eventually (about two or so hours later) had a hole large enough to accept (once again) the camper.

Then there was an hour or so break to take my new-to-me-vehicle to a neighbor’s garage where we would wrestle with a couple of rusted bolts holding a fog lamp bracket behind the bumper. Thanks to a few different air wrenches and a special bolt extractor socket, he helped me get the old one off and a new one on. I’d never have been able to get those pesky, rusted bolts out myself. Thanks, Dan!

Meanwhile my wife was sorting the good stuff from the junk (yard sale vs. dump). We dragged a stuffed chair to the curb and put a “free” sign on it, along with a coffee table (one that I’d rescued from someone else’s dump several years ago – it needed only a small block under one leg!) and a cat tree house (kind of like a cat house but different) and a tire.

Shadows were beginning to get long when we hitched up and began the first of numerous attempts to back the beast up the ramp and into the garage. We succeeded – after a whole lotta this way and that directions. (Hey, I don’t thread a needle with a trailer often. Give me a break!) We chocked the tires so it wouldn’t roll through the back of the garage and let go a sigh of relief before we tackled the other half of the chore -stuffing everything back onto and around the camper and leaving just enough room to close the garage door!

Once again the exercise was complete. Come Monday (trash day) everything except the lovely stuffed chair had disappeared, and one of these days I’m either going to give it a ride to the landfill or break it up into small pieces and dispose of it (most likely the latter because I can’t see driving to Hampden to drop off a chair).

Rainy Sunday voyage

As promised for Sunday the weatherman delivered a cloudy, drizzly mess, but it wasn’t so bad that a paddle on a nearby lake was out of the question. (While I was performing miracles Saturday, paddling friends had ventured to the Deer Isle area and spent a lovely day on the water exploring various islands.)

Karen Francoeur and Barbara Todd, who happened to be visiting Francoeur, met me at Pushaw Lake and we suited up for a quick tour. A Boy Scout group was at Gould Landing practicing their canoe strokes as we launched.

We headed for Moose Island to the east, rounded the back side, and headed for Hardwood Island. I like to hop out there and get the blood flowing to my feet again. There’s a small gravel/sand section of shore there (usually) that makes a great place to land a kayak. It was submerged thanks to high water levels at the lake. I could tell, though, by the debris line that the water had been much higher from all the rain we’ve had.

Back in our boats we rounded Hardwood and headed toward Sandy Beach on the Glenburn shore. There’s a bridge connecting the mainland to an unnamed island, and this ol’ boy had a bit of difficulty getting under it in my kayak. The two ladies had no problem bending their torsos to the fore deck, but I don’t bend that way. I assumed a limbo-like position, laying back on the rear deck, and grabbed the steel beams under the bridge to guide me and my kayak under. After an initial attack and near capsize, I managed to ease my way under all four beams and not leave my nose behind. It provided a few moments of levity for my more lithesome paddling partners – kind of like watching Fat Albert do the limbo, I’d guess.

Our third and final leg of the afternoon was more or less a straight shot south past Mouse Island and to the beach at Gould Landing. It offered the opportunity for the three of us to discuss kitchen renovation plans Francoeur is hatching. We mulled the possibility of removing part of a wall between the kitchen and dining room, wondering if it was a load-bearing wall or not. Would an island in the kitchen provide the desired effect and provide the needed gain in counter space? How about a bar on one side where you could eat breakfast? Or how about leaving enough space at the other end to have room for the small kitchen table? Maybe put the stove in the island and use the space where the stove used to be for a small table? You got the idea – nothing accomplished but much discussed. It takes time, you know, to hatch an idea.

Back at the landing we doffed wet gear and went our separate ways.

Provided you have a place to hang and dry things (say a basement pipe?) paddling in the rain on fresh water is just the ticket to rinsing the saltwater residue from paddling gear. And as the days get colder and the hose is stored for the season, it’s convenient and simple. The car wash works, too, after a day on the ocean. Not only can you clean your boat and gear, it helps remove the salt residue from your vehicle’s roof.

Jeff Strout’s column on outdoor recreation is published each Saturday. He can be reached at 990-8202 or by e-mail at jstrout@bangordailynews.net.