1/19-21/10 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived exactly at noon and was soon greeted by Bert and Ernie. There was only about an inch of new snow over my old tire tracks so I had no trouble driving in. After moving in and having lunch, I made the 11th tread and tried it for fit on the stringer. It needed work so I took it back down and went in for the night.

On Wednesday morning, I got the 11th tread installed after many, many tries at getting it to fit. I must have hauled that thing up and down the stairs 8 or 10 times, chiseling away a little more wood each time before it finally fit. I got two of the three bolts installed before I went in for lunch and a nap.

After lunch, I finished bolting the 11th tread and had just gotten started planing the blank for the 12th tread when Larry came up for a visit. While I was explaining the trouble I had had getting the 11th tread to fit after installing the 10th one on the very first try, it dawned on me why. The notch on the 10th tread was cut too deep the first time, so to get it to fit, I had to shim it. All that took was to select the right thickness of shims which I did without removing the tread from the holding jig. But on the 11th tread, the notch was not cut deep enough, so that meant carrying the tread up and down the stairs working the notch deeper little by little. Since I'd rather not have shims in there, I guess the extra work is worth it.

After Larry left, I finished making the 12th tread and made two tries at getting it to fit before I quit for the night.

On Thursday I finished installing the 12th tread after a few more iterations of working down the notch. Then I scraped and sanded the top four treads to get them ready for varnish, swept up and vacuumed the chips and dust, and then applied a coat of varnish to each of the top four treads. The treads are now all installed up to the loft beam tread, so counting that one, which is already finished and varnished, the staircase is up to the 13th tread. There is only one tread left to go plus the header at the top and some more work on the headers between the joists in the crawl space. I'm getting there, and I am happy with how it is turning out.

Bert and Ernie came around for hugs and biscuits after I had cleaned out my brush and was heading in for lunch. I left for home at 1:15.