The Accidental "Un"Painter

The Daffodil Festival kicked off this weekend, beginning with a massive tag sale under the tent.

An unintended benefit of the Daffodil Festival, for me at least, is I get  a considerable number of extra visits to my blog as people search for info on Hubbard Park!

Visit #1133, Saturday 21 April 18, 6:45-9:20AM, 2.9 miles.
Temps in the 40's, sunny.

I got an early start on Saturday to avoid any parking headaches in Hubbard Park.

Last week I reported finding some new graffiti on the spillway at the north end of Merimere Reservoir. This week, I wanted to remove the graffiti, but first I would head to the walkbridge over I-691.

Two weeks ago, I found the American flag on the bridge over the eastbound lanes of I-691 had been removed, probably because it was getting tattered with age. Last week while driving along I-691 eastbound, I noticed a new flag was in place and wanted to document it.

So there you go; a nice new flag.

Of course, being daffodil season and in cooperating with the Daffodil Festival, the flowers begin to bloom en masse.

But there's always got to be that ONE FLOWER that marches to the beat of its own drummer. I get a kick out of this daffodil all by its lonesome on the trail, which never fails to strut its stuff proudly despite being a loner. I can relate.

So I reach the bridge, photograph the flag, and before I turn around to leave I'm confronted with a slew of new graffiti on the bridge ironwork. Some of it may be unreadable due to the shadows, so I've provided captions where necessary.

"I'll give you gas $ if you hit me with your car"

That's a lot of ink I didn't expect to encounter and it caused me to recalibrate.

Ah, but I was prepared and excited to try out my refined technique. I now carry both sandpaper of a proper grade to work on graffiti, and I carry Goof-Off.

I sprayed Goof-Off on everything except the first piece of graffiti and while the liquid softened up the enemy, I used plain sandpaper on the first piece. If I sanded the paint while still wet with Goof-Off it would gum up the sandpaper, so I would wipe it with a rag prior to sanding. Worked beautifully, and took about 30 minutes to complete everything on the bridge.

Here's the result after Goof-Off but before sanding.

And another.

After some sandpaper and elbow grease.

Everything else cleaned up nice as well.

I addressed everything, then turned around and headed back to the park, dropping of my first bag of litter.

I then hopped in the van and drove to Berlin and parked north of Merimere Reservoir. I walked in to Hubbard Park from the north end to address the graffiti on the spillway.

My objective:

"I Love America" (Anyone see irony in this?)

I donned my coveralls and performed more unpainting.

My tools laid out for work.

This work went quickly and after I was done, I picked up litter in the area surrounding the spillway, and took it home to dispose of.

Next week the Daffodil Festival will be in full-swing so if festivals are your thing, Hubbard Park will be the place to be!