1/6-8/15 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

On the way I stopped at Priscilla's house and took some pictures of a rock wall to document the alleged damage done to it. Then I proceeded on to Monroe where I beat Uncle Charles at a game of checkers. It was a hard fought game but I won in the end. From there I proceeded on to drop off some things and have lunch with Marilyn. She fed me a delicious lunch of fettuccine with pesto and shrimp.

I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 1:30 and was promptly greeted by Ernie who got his usual hugs and biscuits. There was about a foot of old snow on the ground but the driveway had been plowed so I had no trouble parking, albeit using 4wd.

It was 28º and the old snow, which had been rained on, was frozen pretty stiff. I didn't need snowshoes to go up to the cabin. Since I already had lunch, I started work as soon as I moved my gear in. I cut and installed a couple of ceiling boards before I quit for the day and started a fire in the wood stove. The temperature was perfect for working in the loft, but once the fire gets going, it gets too hot to work up there.

On Wednesday I got up early and split a bunch of firewood before having breakfast. I hauled a bunch of firewood up to the back porch, but I didn't bring any inside or start a fire in the stove.

Just after breakfast, Robert called and told me that he had not been feeling well. He was about to leave to see a doctor. He called to give me some advice to pass along to the people who are buying Priscilla's pool table about how to dismantle and move it.

I nailed up the last board that I could reach from the scaffold where it was and then set to work to move the scaffold. With one more move, the deck will provide access to the rest of the Grid B1-C3 bay of the ceiling. I started by dismantling the deck on the loft scaffold and the bridge to the 3-tier tower.

Then I raised the deck on the 3-tier tower about 3 feet. In the process I made a blunder which could have been very serious, but fortunately it didn't damage much. I dropped the riser off the deck of the 3-tier tower. Its fall was partially broken as it hit the cross braces on the bottom two tiers on the way down. The lucky part of it was that it fell right next to the two big windows, either of which could easily have been broken. As it was the only damage was a small dent in one of the loft stair treads and the riser itself was loosened up and one of its legs was broken. I loaded it into the pickup so that I can fix it in Seattle.

I finished raising the 3-tier scaffold deck and I discovered that I could put the cross brace back in place but it had to be woven in between the blades of the ceiling fan. I won't be able to run the fan until that cross brace is removed so I taped up the fan switch to make sure no one turns it on until then.

By that time I was ready for lunch and a short nap. When I went back to work, I moved the loft scaffold tower to a new position, built a bridge of 4x4s from there to the 3-tier tower, another bridge to a pair of ladders against the Grid 1 gable wall, and then I built a deck over the entire scaffold. I could now reach the entire remainder of the bay and I started nailing up boards before I quit for the day.

On Thursday morning, I finished nailing up the fourth course of ceiling boards. Then I went to work scraping, sanding, and varnishing the dent the falling riser had made in the stair tread. After that, I carried a bunch of stuff down to the truck that I needed to take home and then had my lunch. I left for home at 12:45 feeling pretty good about my progress and my luck.