2/26-28/19 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday. Dave stopped in and spent the night on Wednesday.

I had developed a respiratory problem over the weekend, and I wasn't feeling all that well. I took Dayquil and squirted Dristan in my nose to be able to get over the pass without my ears plugging up, which I did without much problem. I had called Earl and told him I wouldn't be stopping in to visit because I was sick. He agreed that that was a good idea.

The drive over was beautiful with a lot of new snow. There was about 8 inches of snow on my driveway but there was a fairly big berm at the entrance that I was sure I couldn't drive over.

I parked alongside the road, got out of the truck, and was just reaching for my scoop shovel in order to tackle the berm, when the county snowplows came down the road. I stopped the first one and asked him if he couldn't scoop the berm away from the front of the driveway.

The driver was a little reluctant, but he agreed and swerved into my driveway while three more snowplows behind him waited.

He scooped out a nice place to park the truck, but he didn't remove the berm. He simply pushed it into the driveway another 10 feet. I thanked the driver and the snowplows proceeded down the road.

I parked the truck in the new space and then used my scoop to shovel enough of the berm away so that I could back into the driveway and park. I parked in the corner so that there was enough room left for Dave to park when he gets there.

Then I stamped out the trail to the staircase, shoveled off the stairs (all 32 of them), stamped out the trails to the flagpole and the cabin, hoisted the flag, built a fire in the stove, and had my lunch.

After lunch, I went back down to the truck to get my gear. I carried the gear up in one trip, and then went back two more times to carry up the lumber I had brought with me. Then I went in, unpacked my luggage and put away the food and finally took my nap. When I got up there was only enough time left in the day for me to do my exercises.

I had a fairly miserable night, but Nyquil gave me a few good hours of sleep.

On Wednesday morning, the temperature outside was 15° and I felt pretty crummy. I took a dose of Dayquil which made me feel much better. I still didn't feel well enough to do any work, though. Sometime during the morning, the county road crew had come back and cleared the front part of the driveway including the berm. I was surprised and happy to see it. It meant that I wouldn't have to do the scooping I had planned to do in order for Dave to get parked.

After having my lunch and a nap, Dave called saying he was about an hour away. When he showed up, I went down to greet him. I was happy that the trails were firm enough so that he was able to walk on them just fine in his tennis shoes.

We went inside and had a delightful visit until about 6:00 when we went out to the Squirrel Tree for dinner. Dave was kind enough to drive and he insisted on paying for the meal. It was snowing fairly heavily going and coming, but there was only an inch and a half of new accumulation when we climbed the stairs going back into the cabin at about 9:00.

We did some more visiting and then I medicated myself again and we went to bed about 10:00.

On Thursday morning, we got up at 6:00 and saw that no more snow than that inch and a half had accumulated. The weather was clear and gorgeous with the new snow on all the trees and with a clear blue sky the scenery was beautiful.

We had our breakfast, did some more visiting, took some pictures, and then Dave left to catch his flight a little after 10:00. I gathered my things, had my lunch, and left for home at 12:45. It was a special week that I really enjoyed in spite of not being at my peak. I hope I can completely recover by next week.