I Tangle with a Bush and Lose

Monday December 10th
Kind of slow getting started today, but Cathey was off to get the oil changed by about 9:00.  I finished stowing things from table and other horizontal surfaces and then began on the outside preps.  Got up on my new ladder and washed the awning cover over the rear slide out.  It was pretty dirty from tree dirt and water that collects in the awning.  I had my scrub brush that hooks to the garden hose and washed it real good on the half that I could reach to make up for the half that I couldn't reach.  The front awning  was pretty clean because water does not collect on this one.  Then I scrubbed the grime off of the front of the trailer and any other especially dirty places.
Then I had to take down the overhead water hose that Greg and I put up to get a water supply to the trailer and pull up the extension cord that I taped to the floor last spring.  (I should have run that overhead in the garage also since now I have an extension cord sticky with duct tape goo.)
When Cathey got back it was almost noon but I was still working on getting things stowed and the hitch equipment set up.
Finally at about 2 we were hooked up and ready to pull out.  I had Cathey pull the trailer ahead until I was sure that the side of the trailer wouldn't drag against the edge of the garage roof.  Once it was past the garage I looked at the bush that was against the side of the Suburban and decided that if the trailer rubbed against it, it wouldn't do any harm.  So I slowly pulled ahead, trying to pull out of the driveway without wiping out Greg's mailbox.  Once we were out on the road I stopped and went back to see if I had damaged the bush at all.  There was one small broken branch but when I saw the side of the trailer, I almost fainted....hidden in the bush was a pretty large branch (2 inch diameter) that had dragged the length of the trailer and dented the metal "rocker" panels and torn off some trim and one of the sun awning supports.  At this point the big awning was hanging from one end because the bottom support was no longer there and the top support was broken - I couldn't move the trailer any farther until I could  get some kind of support for the upper awning and get the bolts back in the bottom.  We unhooked the trailer and headed into Sequim to the Co-op; I was able to find some heavy gauge wire (#9?) to hold up the upper awning support and found some window screen patches to shim the bolts in the torn out holes for the bottom support.  Then back to the trailer to make the repairs.  Jeff came out and put the wire around the upper awning support and then I looked for the screen patches and couldn't find them.  There was a hole in the plastic bag and all I could figure was that they fell out before we got back to the truck!  I had some extra cushioning that you use to keep things from sliding around in a tool box so I decided to try that as a shim for the bolts.  One worked well the other not quite so good but when I got it tight it was solid enough to get on the road.
We hooked up again but by now it was after 4 and getting dark already.  We headed to Sequim and had a nice relaxing night at the Quality Inn.