The Boat Ride to Camano Island
Jun/18/07 01:05 PM Filed in: MEMORY LANE
Some of my favorite childhood memories were made at
family camp and I hope that my someday kids will have
the joy of making camping memories too. This summer,
we're gonna try to start the JLM camping tradition
with our first kid, the Fritz. But until then....
Every summer, when I was a kid in WA, my family would pack up the car and homemade trailer and head out for the annual church family camp on Camano Island. As is true with most memorable family vacations the hilarity started much sooner than the first drive of the tent spike into the dirt. For many years we had a "very comfortable" car we affectionately referred to as The Boat, not only because it was ginormous and blue, but also because every one of us was confident that if we were to ever have an accident where we ended up in a body of water - we'd float. I always thought we should have kept oars and fishing poles in the enormous trunk so that if said accident ever occurred, we could just row back to shore and catch some fish on the way. Anyway, for the years we owned the boat, we also owned a custom, single wheeled, homemade trailer that my Dad, AKA MacGyver, had rigged with a bike rack. Now, the boat was already exactly 1 inch longer than the 17 passenger vans my school used to bus around the basketball team and with the trailer....I'm sure we would have qualified as a semi in some states. If we had to stop at a store on the way to pick up last minute items, we'd have to look for 2 parking spots back to back or a bus parking spot at the far end of the lot. To add to the humor of our already odd transportation, we would load up our 3 ten-speeds and Dad would somehow manage to wedge the mattress from the hide-a-bed, all rolled up like a burrito, in between the bikes so that it sat awkwardly protruding out past all 6 wheels. Fortunately, the drive to Camano Island wasn't that long and Dad was apparently a rope-ninja, so the bikes, mattress and trailer all made it to the campsite intact. I don't remember much about backing the boat/trailer into the campsite, but until we got the trailer unhitched, the trunk unpacked, and the boat moved to the parking lot (in the longest spot, mind you) I'm pretty sure we blocked the group-site-loop from any other normal sized cars trying to get through. Good thing my Dad was also a packer/unpacker-ninja........
SEE ALL FAMILY CAMP POSTS
Every summer, when I was a kid in WA, my family would pack up the car and homemade trailer and head out for the annual church family camp on Camano Island. As is true with most memorable family vacations the hilarity started much sooner than the first drive of the tent spike into the dirt. For many years we had a "very comfortable" car we affectionately referred to as The Boat, not only because it was ginormous and blue, but also because every one of us was confident that if we were to ever have an accident where we ended up in a body of water - we'd float. I always thought we should have kept oars and fishing poles in the enormous trunk so that if said accident ever occurred, we could just row back to shore and catch some fish on the way. Anyway, for the years we owned the boat, we also owned a custom, single wheeled, homemade trailer that my Dad, AKA MacGyver, had rigged with a bike rack. Now, the boat was already exactly 1 inch longer than the 17 passenger vans my school used to bus around the basketball team and with the trailer....I'm sure we would have qualified as a semi in some states. If we had to stop at a store on the way to pick up last minute items, we'd have to look for 2 parking spots back to back or a bus parking spot at the far end of the lot. To add to the humor of our already odd transportation, we would load up our 3 ten-speeds and Dad would somehow manage to wedge the mattress from the hide-a-bed, all rolled up like a burrito, in between the bikes so that it sat awkwardly protruding out past all 6 wheels. Fortunately, the drive to Camano Island wasn't that long and Dad was apparently a rope-ninja, so the bikes, mattress and trailer all made it to the campsite intact. I don't remember much about backing the boat/trailer into the campsite, but until we got the trailer unhitched, the trunk unpacked, and the boat moved to the parking lot (in the longest spot, mind you) I'm pretty sure we blocked the group-site-loop from any other normal sized cars trying to get through. Good thing my Dad was also a packer/unpacker-ninja........
SEE ALL FAMILY CAMP POSTS
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